Mike Reiss seems pissed off

I will add it takes guts to write that piece he did this morning. By way of an apology or a mea culpa that is something.

resdubwhite said:

he clearly states there was pretty strong evidence of tampering. There was no such thing. Not from mortensons initial piece either.

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Yup. From Friday (Edit: This is from Peter King):

• The 12 footballs used in the first half for New England, and the 12 footballs used by the Colts, all left the officials’ locker room before the game at the prescribed pressure level of between 12.5 pounds per square inch and 13.5 psi.

• All 24 footballs were checked by pressure gauge at halftime. I am told either 11 or 12 of New England’s footballs (ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported it was 11, and I hear it could have been all 12) had at least two pounds less pressure in them. All 12 Indianapolis footballs were at the prescribed level.

• All 24 footballs were checked by pressure gauge after the game. All 24 checked at the correct pressure—which is one of the last pieces of the puzzle the league needed to determine with certainty that something fishy happened with the Patriots footballs, because the Colts’ balls stayed correctly inflated for the nearly four hours. There had been reports quoting atmospheric experts that cold weather could deflate footballs. But if the Patriots’ balls were all low, and the Colts’ balls all legit, that quashes that theory.

The conclusion: There is little doubt the New England footballs were tampered with by a human.

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A bit on the absolute side.

Sleep with dogs wake up with fleas.

Bella*chick said:

I rely completely on you guys to give me the scoop on sports media. I have not visited ESPN except by accident on any sort of basis since 2007. And God knows I won't be going back.

I was thinking last night about the way BB treated Tom "they hate their coach" Jackson in 2003/2004. That seems like peanuts compared to now. If we win the SB, what happens. Who will he talk to, if anyone? I would love to know.

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Regarding ESPN, I know BB has great relationships with Chris Berman and Keyshawn Johnson, but with that if there ever was a team to blackout a TV station, it should be the Pats with Espn. This past week was a witch hunt, led by that company in Bristol, CT. And even Mike Reiss is admitting it.

Rob0729 said:

It must be tough working for the same company as Mark Brunell and his shameless, self-serving display. From him crying on the air after Brady's press conference to him CPRing the football to get a feel of which test ball was deflated to claim how "obvious" it was to tell, Brunell put on quite a performance to trash the Patriots. And no one called him on it.

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I missed the Brunell ball test. What did he do?

resdubwhite said:

he clearly states there was ptrtty strong evidence of tampering. There was no such thing. Not from mortensons initial piece either.

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We are reading the article differently.

While I agree that the articles slant against the Pats does not say the there is strong evidence.

Hes going down that road but in no way states the Pats messed with the footballs.

He says, "assuming weather wasn't a factor...".

Reiss is pretty cautios reporter and typically not the kind of guy to jump to conclusions.

My theory is that Reiss originally had a neutral PoV and his ESPN editors made him change the tone that supported asshat Mortensen's scoop.

Fixit said:

I missed the Brunell ball test. What did he do?

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Brunell checked to see if he had any balls.

Results were negative.

robertweathers said:

Thats like having lunch with Son of Sam and beers with the Zodiac Killer.

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From someone that usually preferred Espn to NFLN, I can now honestly say NFL network is nowhere as bad as the 4 letter network.

NFLN has there fair share of Pats haters, but at least, esp this week they've given guys like Willie and Heath Evens (pro Pats) a voice to speak.

I think you guys give MR too much credit. He was all in at the beginning and is backing down now. That's not ethics. That's mending fences. He, and ESPN, are trying to ensure access to the team next week. The Patriots should be very selective in their access next week. Leave people like Mike Reiss getting their news from Stacey James.

I'm sure someone in Foxboro is keeping score. Time to deflate some media balls.

Patriot bashing is not new. We stopped watching the 'football show' (I can't even remember the name) long before we fired Comcast. I only watch the NFL channel when I wanted to catch a Patriots replay. Now, I don't even tune in the NFL pregame show.

I'm a Patriots fan not an NFL fan and I do not patronize unfavorable media coverage.

Big-T said:

Reiss, Yates & Bru would all be wise to resign from ESPN, the 3 of them would walk into any media job they wanted and would no longer be working for such an embarrassing company.

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It would be classic if and when this is brought with Bruschi he getrs up and walks off the set after making a short statement about how disgusting this whole smear job is.

Robert.
The inference is pretty strong. We'll see how much access he gets to the team from now on. I'm guessing not much.

Fixit said:

I missed the Brunell ball test. What did he do?

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They gave him three balls to throw: one under inflated, one in league regulations, and one over inflated. They didn't tell him which one was which. When he was given each ball he would first take each ball with both hands and squeeze the with his thumbs like he was giving it CPR. Then he threw. He obviously picked the right balls and claimed it was easy to pick the under inflated one (implying he couldn't believe Brady couldn't, but maybe the game balls didn't have a heart attack last Sunday). He also said he could throw it with more velocity because he could dig his hand into the ball. Something, ESPN's Sports Science disproved (and ESPN removed from the web).

This has been a witch hunt by ESPN. BTW, notice they haven't had Tedy Bruschi or Heath Evans on any of these segments and opted to go with Brunell who is part of their Z squad of analysts prior to last week?

wizwor said:

I think you guys give MR too much credit. He was all in at the beginning and is backing down now. That's not ethics. That's mending fences. He, and ESPN, are trying to ensure access to the team next week. The Patriots should be very selective in their access next week. Leave people like Mike Reiss getting their news from Stacey James.

I'm sure someone in Foxboro is keeping score. Time to deflate some media balls.

Patriot bashing is not new. We stopped watching the 'football show' (I can't even remember the name) long before we fired Comcast. I only watch the NFL channel when I wanted to catch a Patriots replay. Now, I don't even tune in the NFL pregame show.

I'm a Patriots fan not an NFL fan and I do not patronize unfavorable media coverage.

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That's not completely true. On BB's conference call Monday, MR was implying to BB on how ridiculous he thought this all was. That's when BB replied with the "excuse me" and the "your the one asking the questions"

I think Reiss woke up Tuesday morning to Mortonson story like we all did. It was a kick in the balls.

List of douchebags:

Ian O'Connor
Mark Brunnel
Jerome Bettis
Jerry Rice
Troy Aikman
Bob Kravitz
Greg Doyel
Peter King

Probably missing 30 or so. All compromised their journalistic integrity by finding the Pats guilty sans all the facts and calling TB a liar point blank. Or both.

Maybe someone should create a separate DB thread. So ridiculous.

No way media doesn't take a huge credibility hit in this one.

Rob0729 said:

They gave him three balls to throw: one under inflated, one in league regulations, and one over inflated. They didn't tell him which one was which. When he was given each ball he would first take each ball with both hands and squeeze the with his thumbs like he was giving it CPR. Then he threw. He obviously picked the right balls and claimed it was easy to pick the under inflated one (implying he couldn't believe Brady couldn't, but maybe the game balls didn't have a heart attack last Sunday). He also said he could throw it with more velocity because he could dig his hand into the ball. Something, ESPN's Sports Science disproved (and ESPN removed from the web).

This has been a witch hunt by ESPN. BTW, notice they haven't had Tedy Bruschi or Heath Evans on any of these segments and opted to go with Brunell who is part of their Z squad of analysts prior to last week?

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Ah, thanks. Seeing as he's the only guy who says he can tell the difference, I assumed that he didn't just take a snap and throw it like, you know, a QB in a game would.

I let him know late yesterday via Twitter that I liked him but "too bad you work for ESPN #BSPN"

robertweathers said:

You are totally overblowing his circumstances.

The guy is a sports writer - not enlisted in special forces and being ordered to burn villages and kill people.

He went to a company and his work is being compromised.

I read that article and the headline was complete BS.

Just because you work for a bad company doesn't mean you are a bad employee or guilty by association.

His blog is way or preserving his voice and brand.

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I was not being critical per se of Mike Reiss -- my main point is that during the past week when you went to his BSPN-Boston site, it didn't contain that much of what Mike had to say. Rather, we got to hear over and over what the BSPN blowhards had to say (i.e., Brunell, Bettis, Dawkins, et al.). Not to mention the BSPN-New York hacks thrown in for good measure! If we were still going to Reiss's Pieces instead of BSPN-Boston, do you think that we would have been treated to all that lovely nonsense and corporate-driven BSPN hysteria? Methinks not! Reiss's local BSPN site became an absurd extension of the main BSPN website. That was the main point of my earlier analysis. I like Mike, always have. But that doesn't make what happened at BSPN-Boston last week right. After all, most of us visit (or have visited in the past tense as is my case right now) the BSPN-Boston not to see what Trey Wingo has to say, but rather what MIKE REISS has to say! That's the point. BSPN can pound rocks, both locally and nationally!

AzorianPats said:

From someone that usually preferred Espn to NFLN, I can now honestly say NFL network is nowhere as bad as the 4 letter network.

NFLN has there fair share of Pats haters, but at least, esp this week they've given guys like Willie and Heath Evens (pro Pats) a voice to speak.

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Heath and WMG are level-headedand props that are to represent some semblance of fair and balanced commentary.

I also have watched the NFLN and while there are segments that are neutral, there have been news and on-air talent (you know who)

Call me a cynic but I do think that there are circles within the NFL that have an issue with the Pats that influence opinion on that network.

JJP said:

Mike, I feel your pain. But when you threw your lot in with this large sports organization, you sacrificed at least a part of your own integrity. You left your local gig (Reiss's Pieces) to collect money from BSPN. And in so doing you ceded some of your own integrity to that of this massive agenda-driven conglomerate. We all have to feed our families. But, Mike, you made your choices, so live with the consequences. Reiss's basic dilemma is that he obviously is having difficulties judging his own personal integrity versus corporate demand. His website showed the bad fruit of his decision making in this regard during the past week. Mike was obviously compelled (as last week unfortunately demonstrated) to make the latter choice, so don't look for sympathy now that this Deflategate issue is justifiably going away. You made your bed, Mike.

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At Mike's previous employer, he started out junior to Ron Borges. He wasn't exactly leaving the Golden Temple of Journalistic Virtue.