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

reflexblue said:

they sound like the key stone cops.

Click to expand...

(skip to :21 or 2:56)


EDIT: Who'd have thought the Pirates of Penzance would be a touchy subject for some?

reflexblue said:

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

Click to expand...

Oh, severance pay.

shmessy said:

No, Ken.

It means that the "reported measurements" by the "league officials" are as credible as Joe Isuzu's commercials in the first place.

D'Qwell jackson said the football didn't feel any different to him. Everything else are leaks by NFL officials.

Here is what is known.

1st half with purported under inflated footballs: 17-7 Patriots
2nd half with inflated footballs: 28-0 Patriots.

Super Bowl with the most watched over footballs in history: Patriots beat best NFL D since the '85 Bears. Brady sets SB completion record.

Public apology coming to Bob Kraft from the soon to be ex-NFL Commissioner.

Click to expand...

Shmess, I never disagreed with anything you've written, and I love your optimism, but nothing you've written prove the Pats INNOCENT, just not guilty...and that's not a bad thing.....to start..

The perception of the Pats as cheaters will remain unless or until Kensil is fired for his part in a smear campaign, the Colts, Grigson and Irsay are punished because they were willing accomplices, ESPN issues a public apology for its poor journalism and their part in this passion play, AND Roger Goodel issues his apologies as well.. THEN, and only then would the stink of "deflategate" truly be removed.

BTW- have you checked out NYC's post of an article that lays out perfectly the whole "Camerplacegate" saga, and how clearly the Pats weren't cheating. It should be on everyone here's favorites so they can immediately link to any haters they encounter. Its really that well laid out.

AHH a Super Bowl win and BSPN and Goodells boys look like Chumps. Does it get any better?

patfanken said:

Shmess, I never disagreed with anything you've written, and I love your optimism, but nothing you've written prove the Pats INNOCENT, just not guilty.

The perception of the Pats as cheaters will remain unless or until Kensil is fired for his part in a smear campaign, the Colts, Grigson and Irsay are punished because they were willing accomplices, ESPN issues a public apology for its poor journalism and their part in this passion play, AND Roger Goodel issues his apologies as well.. THEN, and only then would the stink of "deflategate" truly be removed.

BTW- have you checked out NYC's post of an article that lays out perfectly the who "Camerplacegate" saga, and how clearly the Pats weren't cheating. It should be on everyone here's favorites so they can immediately link to any haters they encounter. Its really that well laid out.

Click to expand...

Nothing will prove the Patriots INNOCENT in the eyes of those who have the bias, Ken. God could come down from on high and pronounce the Patriots innocent, while producing 100% exculpatory audio and video, and there would still be people screaming about a cover up.

reflexblue said:

AHH a Super Bowl win and BSPN and Goodells boys look like Chumps. Does it get any better?After reading PFKen yes it would with people being fired, and apology and sanctions against Irsay, Greg and the Colts for starting the whole thing.

Click to expand...

Fixit said:

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

Click to expand...

My fear is that I'll have a heart attack when Bill Belichick is paraded out as the perp in all this, and then I'll die, right before Scooby rips off the Belichick mask and reveals Mike Kensil.

patfanken said:

Shmess, I never disagreed with anything you've written, and I love your optimism, but nothing you've written prove the Pats INNOCENT, just not guilty...and that's not a bad thing.....to start..

The perception of the Pats as cheaters will remain unless or until Kensil is fired for his part in a smear campaign, the Colts, Grigson and Irsay are punished because they were willing accomplices, ESPN issues a public apology for its poor journalism and their part in this passion play, AND Roger Goodel issues his apologies as well.. THEN, and only then would the stink of "deflategate" truly be removed.

BTW- have you checked out NYC's post of an article that lays out perfectly the who "Camerplacegate" saga, and how clearly the Pats weren't cheating. It should be on everyone here's favorites so they can immediately link to any haters they encounter. Its really that well laid out.

Click to expand...

I don't think there's really any way to prove the Pats "innocent" unless you have video of Belichick himself gauging all the balls and showing the proper PSI, then handing the balls to the officials, and then have consistent video of every place those footballs went and who touched them for the entirety of the rest of the game. But, BB has already said that they don't set the PSI, they ask the officials to, so that's not going to happen.

In reality, it strongly suggests innocence by virtue of the fact that the officials are responsible for testing and caring for the balls, and you've got those same officials stealing/selling said balls and subsequently being fired. So, can you trust that they truly tested them and cared for them properly?

You can't come down and say "Pats cheated" when the burden of verification falls on the officials, and the officials are tripping over themselves stealing, replacing, selling balls and getting each other confused.

smurfalarm said:

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?

Click to expand...

Whoever are leaking these stories are clearly doing it with agenda. They are taking facts and leaving out critical pieces of the story to make the Pats look bad. Look at the last two stories.

The anti-Patriots story was:

A ball boy took the balls from the officials ten minutes before the game and took the balls to another area of the building for an indeterminent amount of time unattended.

The story was later clarified that the ball boy went into the bathroom for 90 seconds and he was elderly.

This story was reported last night:

Jim McNally, a locker room attendant, knowingly gave an unapproved football to the alternate ref.

It was clarified today that McNally was given the ball from an NFL employee who has since been fired for stealing footballs to sell.

There is a trend with these stories which pretty much points to the same source. Both stories are taking partial facts that make the events seem innocuous or clearly shows the Pats are not guilty and casting a shadow on the Pats by omitting facts. This source clearly has an agenda to make the Pats look bad.

Tom Curran and others have said Kensil has an ax to grind with the Pats and is knee deep in this whole thing. So he is a likely suspect for the leaks.

If this all holds up, there's no doubt that this will be the sweetest sports championship of my life, surpassing the '04 Sox and '01 Pats.

The comeback against Baltimore, the subsequent Harbaugh whinefest, the beatdowns of Indy (twice) and Denver earlier on, the Sherman **** talk and priceless reaction gif, the Deflategate ********, the idiots coming out of the woodwork, Brunell's tears ... capped off by a ring and a lot of egg on a lot of faces?

Hard to top that.

I think the source is an owner... named Irsay.

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."

Click to expand...

I agree but the league is going to save face that these two stories are unrelated.

Danger Zone said:

(skip to :21 or 2:56)

Click to expand...

Awesome! Gilbert and Sullivan also came into a thread on KFFL yesterday!

patfanken said:

BTW- have you checked out NYC's post of an article that lays out perfectly the whole "Camerplacegate" saga, and how clearly the Pats weren't cheating. It should be on everyone here's favorites so they can immediately link to any haters they encounter. Its really that well laid out.

Click to expand...

I missed this - can you please post a link to the article or post?
Thanks, Ken.

EDIT - found the merged topic on the front page now - thanks for the heads-up, Ken.

Rob0729 said:

Whoever are leaking these stories are clearly doing it with agenda. They are taking facts and leaving out critical pieces of the story to make the Pats look bad. Look at the last two stories.

The anti-Patriots story was:

A ball boy took the balls from the officials ten minutes before the game and took the balls to another area of the building for an indeterminent amount of time unattended.

The story was later clarified that the ball boy went into the bathroom for 90 seconds and he was elderly.

This story was reported last night:

Jim McNally, a locker room attendant, knowingly gave an unapproved football to the alternate ref.

It was clarified today that McNally was given the ball from an NFL employee who has since been fired for stealing footballs to sell.

There is a trend with these stories which pretty much points to the same source. Both stories are taking partial facts that make the events seem innocuous or clearly shows the Pats are not guilty and casting a shadow on the Pats by omitting facts. This source clearly has an agenda to make the Pats look bad.

Tom Curran and others have said Kensil has an ax to grind with the Pats and is knee deep in this whole thing. So he is a likely suspect for the leaks.

Click to expand...

This is all true. I don't want to give the impression that I disagree with you on the substantive points here. At the end of the day, something really shady is going on, and not by the Patriots.

Fixit said:

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

Click to expand...

Inspector Clouseau.

PFT's version of crap
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...ired-employee-who-sold-deflategate-footballs/

This is, of course, a totally separate matter from the question of whether the Patriots deflated footballs in violation of league rules. But it’s relevant to Deflategate in that it shows just how little oversight there is on the footballs that are used on the field. So little oversight that it would be easy for a team to tamper with footballs — and hard for the league to conduct an investigation after the fact.

Click to expand...

they should give us the colts 1st round selection

that would be sweet!

Fixit said:

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

Click to expand...

rochrist said:

Inspector Clouseau.

Click to expand...

SVN said:

PFT's version of crap
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...ired-employee-who-sold-deflategate-footballs/

Click to expand...

They don't even mention the most important part of the story that the unapproved football was given to Jim McNally by a NFL employee stealing footballs to sell.