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

Rob0729 said:

LOL! I just heard a clip on WEEI from ESPN THIS MORNING where Sal Pal and Bill Polian are talking about this as if the Schefter report never happened and talking that the allegations against McNally are unprecedented and if he did purposely try to insert an unapproved football into the game it would be a sever form of cheating by the Patriots.

Tell me that ESPN doesn't have a bias against the Patriots. They ran with the Naqi story because they wanted it to be true and will continue to run with it and try to damage the Patriots even though their own employee debunked the story.

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Sal Pal has had butthurt ever since his Fleagles got their ass kicked in the SB by the Pats. Polian is the executive who got his team to the dance 4 straight times, resulting in 4 straight losses. Then he went to work for Clots and got his ass kicked so regularly by the Pats that he had to change the rules in order to finally win a SB. There is so much hate for the Patriots by these and other suckers....the Pats were laughed at by all/most of them for many years, and payback has been very sweet. ESPN hates the Pats because Coach never has and never will play nice with them. He treats them like the imbeciles they are, and they cannot stand it.

robertweathers said:

Maybe. My other theory was that she had the info Shefter did but either she- or the OTL editors wern't 100% confident in the sources enough and b/c OTL has higher journalism standards, they punted the scoop to BSPN and Shefter did his once-over, checked w/ his sources and ran with it.

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Her report was dripping with bias language. If your theory is true, and the "standards" of OTL dictated that half assed report then the journalism classes are severely lacking. Explaining this as a matter of taught standard journalistic methodology is an indictment of journalistic standards being taught.

IDK if that's actually taught, but if it is there's some real issues.

Jackson 2 said:

I'll bet they had at least a syllable in the first 1:38 yesterday.

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They talk about what their bosses say they can talk about. It's not MMPN. When they talked about Deflategate in the past, they downplayed it.

Callahan: Is Goodell on thin ice.

AS: He's beleaguered. Lost support, but prob not enough to threaten his regime at this time.

robertweathers said:

Maybe. My other theory was that she had the info Shefter did but either she- or the OTL editors wern't 100% confident in the sources enough and b/c OTL has higher journalism standards, they punted the scoop to BSPN and Shefter did his once-over, checked w/ his sources and ran with it.

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That jerk was 100% sure of the ball attendants name and home residence town.

Pressed on his personal opinion.

AS: Doesn't want to go into his own thought. The whole thing is way overblown.

Callahan losing focus, asks for the 2nd time why the Pats are so hated - -Callahan is obviously bored/ADD.

Fixit said:

They talk about what their bosses say they can talk about. It's not MMPN. When they talked about Deflategate in the past, they downplayed it.

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Sorry, but that's bull ****. I watch the show nearly every morning ( which says something about me) and while Golic was fairly even-handed, he still took his shots. Greenberg was all over the Pats. They did downplay it the very first morning after, but once the hysteria took hold, they were all in. By the way, now at 2:58 and still waiting for syllable one.

AS: Deflategate will end with a whimper. Too many grey areas.

Callahan: At the next xmas party stay away from Naqi, she'll throw a drink in your face.

AS: I like Kelly, I emailed her afterward.

Nothing really groundbreaking in any of that.

convertedpatsfan said:

Despite the amateurishness surrounding it, I understand why the NFLRA released that statement. The original ESPN story did have me thinking officials were involved, and several comments echoed those thoughts. The refs know the league is sinking, and they want nothing to do with it.Not sure if it was a wording thing from Schefter, although the story has no byline, and only says it contains info from Schefter so it could have been someone else.

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I am not willing to be quite so generous towards the NFL game officials. IMO, they have LOT of explaining to do concerning this whole affair, start to finish. For starters, why did they allow a league executive to tamper with the Pats balls at halftime?

Bobsyouruncle said:

Her report was dripping with bias language. If your theory is true, and the "standards" of OTL dictated that half assed report then the journalism classes are severely lacking. Explaining this as a matter of taught standard journalistic methodology is an indictment of journalistic standards being taught.

IDK if that's actually taught, but if it is there's some real issues.

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I hear you. It very well could be that OTL was told to lower its standards by the parent co. Don't know.

No trying to be naive but I'm trying REAL hard (Jules from Pulp Fiction voice ) to keep separate what the football analysts (see Tom Jackson, Chris Carter) say and what the Mortensen, Shefter Clayton guys report.

What I'm trying to figure out is why would the "journalism" side of the house be anti-Pats? Because BB hates the media? Shefter seems pretty neutral. Clayton and Mort spew negativity.

Jackson 2 said:

Sorry, but that's bull ****. I watch the show nearly every morning ( which says something about me) and while Golic was fairly even-handed, he still took his shots. Greenberg was all over the Pats. They did downplay it the very first morning after, but once the hysteria took hold, they were all in. By the way, now at 2:58 and still waiting for syllable one.

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Oooookay. If you're going to demonize every person who's connected to ESPN (especially those who were relatively reasonable and a Jets fan who says that Brady's the greatest ever) have fun. Like I said, it was on the crawl. I guarantee you they were told to not opine about a soon-to-be disgraced colleague on air.

vyrago said:

Link please?

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The link can be found on the front page of this site on a thread entitled Michael Hurley's piece on the 06 Dolphins etc. It's usually among the top 10 threads. Enjoy

Ok, Schefter said on WEEI that the NFL employee was under the microscope for a while for stealing footballs. Here are my questions:

If he was under suspicion for stealing footballs and compromising the integrity of the game, why was he allowed to work one of the three most important games of the year?

If the league felt this guy was playing games with the football and this incident was what sparked Kensil for checking the air pressure of the footballs as Naqi reported, why would Kensil and the NFL first response be to think the Pats were cheating in some way? Kensil as the VP of Football Operations had to know this guy was under investigation and that he was in charge of the K balls. Wouldn't logic be that when there was an issue with an unapproved K ball being passed to the alternate ref that the guy who is suspected of stealing K balls be the primary suspect and the first place they look?

robertweathers said:

Maybe. My other theory was that she had the info Shefter did but either she- or the OTL editors wern't 100% confident in the sources enough and b/c OTL has higher journalism standards, they punted the scoop to BSPN and Shefter did his once-over, checked w/ his sources and ran with it.

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I seriously doubt they knew this other story. It is possible. But odds are that someone would have broken that the Naqi story was a bunch of hogwash if Schefter didn't blow it out the water. You don't think that the second that the Patriots heard the Naqi story, they were contacting Schefter and other guys they trust to tell them the real story? The Patriots were never going to let this story just sit out there without letting the facts come out that it was a slanted report.

I don't doubt that ESPN would lower the standard of evidence in this case to get this story out to trash the Patriots, but I don't think they knew what Schefter reported. I think they just didn't want to know any other explanation of this story other than the Pats tried to sneak this football into the game.

shmessy said:

That jerk was 100% sure of the ball attendants name and home residence town.

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Thats what makes it strange to me that she didn't print what Shef had. I think she knew the ball came from an NFL rep but wanted to talk to McNally to confirm. Speculation on my part on that one.

Fixit said:

Oooookay. If you're going to demonize every person who's connected to ESPN (especially those who were relatively reasonable and a Jets fan who says that Brady's the greatest ever) have fun. Like I said, it was on the crawl. I guarantee you they were told to not opine about a soon-to-be disgraced colleague on air.

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I demonized every person connected to ESPN?? I cited 2/TWO/II/dos/deux. Can the hyperbole. If you want to make excuses for ESPN, have at it. But, don't pretend that there isn't an overwhelming anti-NE sentiment there. There is, and you know. Or, you should.

Rob0729 said:

I seriously doubt they knew this other story. It is possible. But odds are that someone would have broken that the Naqi story was a bunch of hogwash if Schefter didn't blow it out the water. You don't think that the second that the Patriots heard the Naqi story, they were contacting Schefter and other guys they trust to tell them the real story? The Patriots were never going to let this story just sit out there without letting the facts come out that it was a slanted report.

I don't doubt that ESPN would lower the standard of evidence in this case to get this story out to trash the Patriots, but I don't think they knew what Schefter reported. I think they just didn't want to know any other explanation of this story other than the Pats tried to sneak this football into the game.

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It is possible that the Pats knew about the NFL official passing balls to McNally but I highly doubt Naqi would withhold that nugget of info b/c she, her editors or ESPN were trying to ruin the Patriots.

Jackson 2 said:

I demonized every person connected to ESPN?? I cited 2/TWO/II/dos/deux. Can the hyperbole. If you want to make excuses for ESPN, have at it. But, don't pretend that there isn't an overwhelming anti-NE sentiment there. There is, and you know. Or, you should.

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OMG, try decaf and shut your cakehole.

ESPN sucks. The network undoubtedly has an agenda against the Pats.

M&M had an opinion, and a mild one. They said they couldn't tell the difference between the balls, that it didn't change the outcome, no talk about tainted victories or losing rings ... and you're clutching your pearls over the fact that they're not talking about an unsubstantiated report by a colleague that contradicts another unsubstantiated report by another colleague. Still, it was on the crawl the entire morning.

But if you have an ax to grind against those two, you must want to punch nearly everyone else. Hence, my "demonize everyone" statement.

You want to know why ESPN does this stuff? Look in a mirror.

For a brand that prides itself on trustworthy, thorough investigative journalism, I expected more from OTL. Instead we got a 1/2 ass combo of Hank Phillipe-Ryan, Perez Hilton and Bob Lobel.

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After writing a fairly brilliant post, I was wondering why you would sully it, but throwing Hank Phillipe-Ryan, and Bob Lobel under the bus. Both were 2 very good reporters in their respective fields (Ryan in investigative reporting and Lobel, of course,. in Sports). I sorta got your point, but you used the wrong examples to make it. If Phillipe-Ryan had replaced Naqui, you wouldn't have had such a sloppy incomplete, and speculative report. Just saying.

BTW- its 9pm and at least on their web sites, ESPN has not added anything to their late night notation that reported simply that there is a source who says an NFL official gave a ball to McNally. The NFL.com page has yet to mention the OTL story OR the revelations that have followed. (and nothing more from PFT)

One thing for certain it's hard to figure who comes out looking worse in all this, the league office, or ESPN. Right now it looks like both are taking the approach to pretend it didn't happen and hope the Combine and the NBA trade deadline shift the focus and the public gets tired of trying to figure out what the F is going on.

Tunescribe said:

Any chance she's related to John Tomase?

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Is it appropriate to give atomic wedgies to women?

shmessy said:

Callahan: Is Goodell on thin ice.

AS: He's beleaguered. Lost support, but prob not enough to threaten his regime at this time.

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Sure wish someone had asked if Kensil was involved in determining the penalties for Spygate.