Joe Banner is believed to have called Jimmy Haslam "a moron" in a published Tweet intended to be for a direct message.

Banner was CEO of the Cleveland Browns before he was fired by Haslam in 2014.

“True, but he is a moron on his own. He has many advisors, but Alec is his top advisor by a lot. Don’t agree with the no advisors outside…”

Someone “close” to Banner immediately went into damage control mode and apparently expects people to believe Banner was actually referring to the team’s analytics group.

Banner went back to Twitter later Monday morning to claim he was “absolutely” not talking about Haslam and asking followers to “stop trying to create something where there is nothing.”