Oh, boy. His job is to cover the story, not to insert himself into it.
He didn't even tag the guy in the original post. If he tagged Griffen in the post, yeah, he'd be trying to start something. He just mentioned his name and gave his thoughts based on whatever film he's been analyzing. And either Griffen found out because he searches his own name constantly, or one of Griffen's friends went out of their way to put it in his feed.
If you're saying it's out of bounds for sports people to analyze or comment on teams by citing players' names, I don't know what to tell you.
I don't know what sports journalism or analysis would look like if it's no longer okay to cite players by name when analyzing play, but whatever it looks like, it's not going to be journalism or analysis anymore. The only people who will be allowed to use players' names are the ones who say glowing positive things? No thanks.