Why is anyone surprised? Mort is a main stream media guy who works for quite possibly the most egregious 'paid shill' TV hack shop there is, ESPN (a TV station that unabashedly carries water for Goodell, someone who is conspicuously dishonest).
In the non insulated world outside of MSM, many feel when you say something completely and indisputably proven wrong you back completely off, period. You may even do a mea culpa, cop to the error/BS and that is largely that. But that is not how it works in the MSM world. In that world even a factual lie is scratched and clawed at in order to hold onto the lie being pushed. After that, if needed, you try to file off the edges and reshape it with measly wording and twisted logic to make the lie more plausible/understandable on some level. Then, if really needed, you just walk away from it like you never said a thing.
I thought Mort was in stage 3 but, ahem, he fell off the wagon and into stage 2. He filed off the edges, used twisted logic, tried to make it seem more pleasing, palatable and understandable. However, Mort then falls all the way back into stage 1 by mining news depth of MSM scummy-ness. His use of the new "apologize" lie/diversion as some sort of admission of guilt by the Patriots is LOW (his new lie doesn't pass the sniff test on about 5 thousand levels). Even for an MSM type working for a group like ESPN, this is strikingly bad and the mark of someone whose thought process is seriously odd if not unfix-ably warped.
The good news here is it sweeps away Mort's undeserved chance of simply being a guy who was fed bad information. He is now, if not already so, an indisputably and indelibly dishonest hack. A liar who will heap a lie on top of a lie to win some sort of twisted mental point that was already factually lost weeks ago.