Top 5 NFL athletes who face the most hate on Instagram, including Tom Brady

NFL players face ferocious crowds every time they take the field, but some of the harshest attacks they face come from anonymous trolls on social media.

Social media platforms play an important role in the way NFL players interact with their fans. It also provides them with more endorsement opportunities.

Unfortunately, for all the positives social media offers NFL players, it does come with some pretty big negative effects. One of the biggest being trolls, not those who live under bridges like in fairytales, but the faceless ones on the internet who harass public figures on social media.

Five NFL players who are often subjected to hate on social media

The Action Network recently released some statistics illustrating which NFL stars are trolled the most on Instagram. The top two players probably won’t surprise you but some of the others might.

Here are the top five most trolled NFL players on Instagram, according to the Action Network report.

#1 - Tom Brady

The greatest player to ever lace up football cleats is (not surprisingly) a massive troll magnet. Brady has not only won seven Super Bowl rings, he’s also happily married to a Brazilian supermodel.

The 43-year-old QB loves to troll his fellow NFL players like Aaron Rodgers, and has admitted in the past that negative comments drive him to play better.

The Action Network report showed that there were 4,870,126 posts about the veteran NFL quarterback on social media. Around 740,260 of those were negative, which constitutes 15.2% of the total number. Brady had ten times the number of trolls than NFL fans who attended the last ten Super Bowls combined. Chalk it down to the costs of being the most iconic in the sport, perhaps.

#2 - Patrick Mahomes

Kansas City Chiefs star Patrick Mahomes is the second-most targeted NFL player on Instagram. The 25-year-old Super Bowl-winning quarterback has done nothing but win since entering the NFL in 2017, something that no doubt drives his haters wild.

There were 1,360,728 posts about Mahomes on social media with 141,516 being negative (around 10.4%). The number of troll posts is double the capacity of the Chiefs' home, Arrowhead Stadium, in Kansas City.

#3 - Aaron Donald

Three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year Aaron Donald hasn't managed to escape the troll treatment. The Los Angeles Rams' star defensive tackle keeps a low profile off the field, so it's somewhat surprising to see him ranked so highly.

The study showed that there were 141,412 posts about Donald on Instagram, and over 20% of them were negative. That’s roughly 30,545 negative posts featuring the LA Rams player, or half the capacity of SoFi Stadium, where the franchise plays its home games.

#4 - Drew Brees

Recently-retired New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees will be happy he’s hung up his cleats after coming in fourth on the troll list.

The long-time Saints play-caller had 766,454 posts on social media, and 106,537 of them were from trolls, which means nearly 14% of posts were critical. That's more than the capacity of the Superdome in New Orleans.

Brees will hope this rate drops now that he’s no longer chucking the pigskin around in the NFL.

#5 - Josh Norman

Known for his trash talk both on and off the field, former Panthers, Washington and Bills cornerback Josh Norman has been on the receiving end of trolling on social media. The NFL free agent featured in 57,506 posts with a massive 22.1% of those being negative in nature.