2/18/2015: Schefter Blows Up ESPN's Earlier Story

Deus Irae said:

Probably at the same 1 star restaurant that Goodell will be working at in a few months.

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Not that I don't appreciate the sentiment in this post, but Goodell makes enough in one year to live luxuriously for the rest of his life. And now I just made myself sad...

If you combine this part of the story with Freeman's earlier tweet, and both Schefter and Freeman are correct, there's not enough popcorn in the world for what's going to end up coming down, not on the Patriots, but on the NFL offices.

I said it from the beginning. The Officials didn't do their jobs in the AFC title game. People didn't buy it. Well here we go. On top of that, it turns out one of the officials may have had a little business thing going on the side. Honestly, why should any of us trust these people going forward?

Deus Irae said:

Probably at the same 1 star restaurant that Goodell will be working at in a few months.

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Wasn't Goodell pulling in over $40 million/year for the past few years for his "job" as an NFL commissioner? As much as I'd like to imagine Goodell on skid row with Mortimer and Randolph after he gets fired over this mess, I'm pretty sure he's going to be okay regardless of how this plays out.

NFL HQ (Goodell) really is about the owners and representing "management" in labor negotiations. There is no love lost between the NFL and the Officials Union. We all remember replacement refs and the Fail Mary.

I fault NFL HQ for all the leaks to the media. They don't run a very tight ship and the leakers have an agenda and the HQ should be impartial if they are responsible for adjudicating claims.

The fact that an official was fired and the headline "Patriots locker room attendant attempts to introduce illegal ball to AFCCG" was what came out in the media. ESPN chose to focus on that event in a chain of events because they clearly want to stir up dirt.

I bet Goodell survives this. I bet they find no definitive evidence of tampering with footballs by the Patriots and they tighten up their procedures regarding footballs used in games, maybe going so far as they went with K-balls. Just get all footballs straight from Wilson... and both teams use the same footballs from the same bag.

BradyManny said:

In a broken clock is right twice a day kind of thing, SharksOfVegas narrowly avoids the 2015 Erika Leigh award by there actually being some truth to the notion that the league officials were a target of [an] investigation.

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Well, he may be right in that the investigation is about the officials. One thing that is very clear, the way the league handles the footballs is comical. Maybe his information is right. Don't forget that Naqi has been working on this story for 3 weeks. She might have gotten her leak before the investigation turned onto the officials.

I still think the guy is full of crap, but the more information comes out, the more that a large portion of the Wells report will be on the atrocious handling of the footballs by league officials and staff. According to Mike Freeman, the Wells' investigation is wrapping up even though they haven't interviewed Belichick or Brady. In other words, the attention may be turned elsewhere than the Patriots.

blackglass3 said:

Sorry, I had half of my thyroid taken out yesterday. Maybe that's why I'm confused. What the hell are they on about now? How does any of this fall into the Patriots doing something wrong?

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Why did you get half your thyroid taken out?

shmessy said:

Tight ship that NFL runs.........

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they sound like the key stone cops.

BradyManny said:

In a broken clock is right twice a day kind of thing, SharksOfVegas narrowly avoids the 2015 Erika Leigh award by there actually being some truth to the notion that the league officials were a target of [an] investigation.

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They stuck to that for weeks, including today after the first McNally thing came out, but before Schefter's bomb. No need to lump them in with Leigh. They might actually have a source or two.

Bill Simmons ‏@BillSimmons 6m6 minutes ago
Roger Goodell's investigative history is Scooby Doo-level bad. I don't think he's handled one "crisis" correctly yet. What a farce this is.

Deus Irae said:

If you combine this part of the story with Freeman's earlier tweet, and both Schefter and Freeman are correct, there's not enough popcorn in the world for what's going to end up coming down, not on the Patriots, but on the NFL offices.

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You mean this tweet?

I continue to hear Wells wrapping up investigation into Deflategate. Yet he hasn't interviewed Belichick or Brady. . . .

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juny said:

Bill Simmons ‏@BillSimmons 6m6 minutes ago
Roger Goodell's investigative history is Scooby Doo-level bad. I don't think he's handled one "crisis" correctly yet. What a farce this is.

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Simmons needs a different comparison. Scooby and the gang always caught the bad guy.

signbabybrady said:

w the mob. The heat has shifted to the NFL and the mo

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chasa said:

Basically there is going to be a whole lot of humble pie being served the next time someone w


Well a Logical person would say, "Well one ref took the legal balls, a second ref put balls that were never tested into play, how can you even think about blaming the patriots for 1 ball being super low, when one of the refs stole the legal balls, and the second ref put untested balls into play.

The patriots had no control over any of this."

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Exactly--and the balls aren't even in the NFL's possession.

In fact, the refs would have absolutely no reason to inflate balls to spec pre-game which had already been deemed not appropriate for use.

If a ref ran back to grab these non-approved balls midgame, there is very little chance that they would have been inflated to spec.

ctpatsfan77 said:

You mean this tweet?

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Yes

ctpatsfan77 said:

You mean this tweet?

I continue to hear Wells wrapping up investigation into Deflategate. Yet he hasn't interviewed Belichick or Brady. . . .

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Who tweeted that?

rlcarr said:

Who tweeted that?

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Mike Freeman

I continue to hear Wells wrapping up investigation into Deflategate. Yet he hasn't interviewed Belichick or Brady. So, anyway, thanks Obama.

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https://twitter.com/mikefreemanNFL/status/568114882408615937

Fixit said:

Simmons needs a different comparison. Scooby and the gang always caught the bad guy.

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It was old man Irsey, Kensil and league official 1 all along!. Adam Schefter deserves a Scooby snack.

Goodell will blame it all on the pats and fine them a first round pick.

Meanwhile ESPN still has the Kelly Naqi story on their homepage and not Schefter's story that blows that story out of the water.

Rob0729 said:

It seems like there is a little war going on between Mike Kensil and the Patriots behind the scenes. It looks like Kensil leaks a story that is bogus and the Pats leak the correction that makes the league look bad. If Kensil is leaking these stories, I am throwing him under the bus in the Wells report if I am him.

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I don't think there is any direct evidence Kensil is necessarily the one doing the leaking here. Supposedly three separate sources "confirmed" the first story, and assuming Schefter is correct, that story wasn't technically factually incorrect but was so incredibly misleading about the culprit who introduced the unauthorized ball that it had to be either a grossly incompetent misinterpretation of facts or a deliberate attempt to malign the Patriots. That means one of two possibilities: either the leaks got completely misreported by an incompetent or unethical reporter who managed to spin information that factually might exculpate the Patriots as a story that seems to incriminate the Patriots, or there is a deliberate smear campaign against the Patriots that includes at least three league sources who have inside access to the ongoing league investigation. Either of those possibilities is really disheartening, isn't it?