Stonewalling is not a long-term strategy.
You'd think SOMEONE would have learned from the Big Tobacco example.
Addressing a problem truthfully is the only way to survive long-term. Stonewalling is a strategy that ruins what you are protecting in the long-term.
Personally, I wish the Patriots kicked and screamed their case in Spygate the way the Saints did in Bountygate. Putting up the walls only worsens a situation. Get the truth out. It's the only successful way.
You make it sound like the tobacco companies lost. Sorry. They won, as they sold their product for decades after the health and addictive effects were clear, telling the same lies. And they are still winning overseas. There are at least 100,000,000 people yet unborn who will have their lives diminished by those guys, simply because they are too lazy or greedy to figure out a way to make a living without hurting others.
The NFL is following The Denialists' Playbook that was created by the marketing and legal people hired by Big Tobacco. That same playbook, in most cases by the same people (operating on K Street here in my DC hometown) was then applied to agricultural chemicals, food additives, heavy metals (lead, chromium, etc.), and now climate change. Same strategy:
Phase I: say there's nothing really to worry about, and act as if the people raising the questions are somehow out of touch or extreme. Infer that people who believe that there may be a problem are somehow unpatriotic, less manly or womanly, etc. This is usually good for one to three years.
Phase II: when the science begins to show up in the media, attack it with fake science that enables counter argument. Spend a lot more on media placements than the other side can afford. This phase can go on for up to a decade.
Phase III: when the fake science is finally exposed, attack the scientists who are behind the good science. Undermine their institutions financially. Make their families uncomfortable. Derail their career trajectories. Double down on the media buys. This phase usually starts about half way through Phase II, and can last a decade or more.
Phase IV: Admit that maybe there is something to this after all, but threaten the public with economic hardship if the health issue is addressed. Double down on the media buys.
Phase V: Give in, and offer a transition process that stretches over years and allows the existing economic interests to harvest as much as possible from their health-harming product or service.
At no point allow a conversation to begin or be legitimized about how the long term costs of the health problem are externalized onto society (taxpayers) by shifting the cost of remediation for the harm from those causing the harm to things like health care insurance premiums and hospital systems.
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