ESPN is at it again

Actually, this article is more libelous than almost anything that has gone before. The writer says flat out that the Pats cheated in the manner of taping, and adds detail to the claim, even though there is almost no evidence of that (just Matt Walsh level stuff plus a lot of surmise).

Now, as somebody who's faced down libel threats, I'm not a fan of jumping to sue. The "right" outcome is probably a retraction by ESPN, which would of course be as deeply buried as other ESPN retractions. ::sigh:: Still, this is about the most egregious bit of libel I've seen in the whole matter -- a clear claim, unhedged, in a case when we know that the reporter doesn't have adequate basis for the accusation.

The writer couldn't even google the on the scale of a 1 to 100 quote about how much the tapes helped. Misinterprets it as a percentage. I hope the writer gets reamed endlessly about his errors

I'm sorry did ESPN say something?? I have no ****s left to give.

Fencer said:

These are excerpts from a specific issue of a paper magazine, recapping the year. The timing of these articles has nothing to do with this week's events.

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They'll run out of money to buy the paper stock anyway.

dannydyn said:

Oh Geez... not another ESPN whining thread.... when will you fellas gonna learn?!?

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Maybe the article helps get Ernie Adams some presidential consideration?

We can't possibly do any worse than the candidates being put out by both parties now.

Is there a masochistic tendency in all of us to continue to belabor the points of a completely biased reporting source, whose goal is to find followers rather than to provide facts..

"The medium is the message"....

ESPN can't help themselves. Even the little bits and pieces, they have to lie or publish things with 0 facts. It's in their DNA. Like this blurb:

I bolded/italicized/underlined that last bit. A serious accusation. Nothing to back it up. Aaaaand move on to the next thing. That would be like talking about Seth Wickersham's employment history, then throwing in a quick accusation about him molesting children, then moving onto his education history. Just so casual with very serious accusations with no proof. That's ESPN in a nutshell.

Does WickerSHAM even know that taping the defensive signals of opposing teams WASN'T ILLEGAL??? The only violation the Pats committed was filming the signals from an unapproved angle. Any journalist worth his salt would mention these crucial facts to put his subject in proper perspective and not dive into hype and misinformation just to sell their mag.

The thread title is redundant...I think by now it's safe to just state "ESPN is at it".

dannydyn said:

Oh Geez... not another ESPN whining thread.... when will you fellas gonna learn?!?

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Watch out, shmessy might come in and prevent you from replying to the thread if you say you don't care

Fencer said:

From The Mag: For the Patriots, winning is business, not revenge

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Just another Disney fairy tale. This time it's Pinocchio Goodell and the Bristol dwarfs.

and Mort is Dopey...

blackglass3 said:

That 1% quote is true. I don't remember who wrote the article. Kraft said "How much did vidoetaping help us?" Belichick said 1%. Then Kraft replied with a good natured "Schmuck".

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Nope. Belichick never said it accounted for 1% of the wins.

convertedpatsfan said:

ESPN can't help themselves. Even the little bits and pieces, they have to lie or publish things with 0 facts. It's in their DNA. Like this blurb:

The first was an example of how the Patriots win dirty, detailed in a pair of stories: One appeared in Sports Illustrated; the other, co-authored by Don Van Natta Jr. and yours truly, titled "The Patriot Way," showed how Deflategate was a "makeup call," in the words of an NFL owner, for Spygate in 2007, a scandal far worse than the public ever knew.
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I bolded/italicized/underlined that last bit. A serious accusation. Nothing to back it up. Aaaaand move on to the next thing. That would be like talking about Seth Wickersham's employment history, then throwing in a quick accusation about him molesting children, then moving onto his education history. Just so casual with very serious accusations with no proof. That's ESPN in a nutshell.

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This was another passage where the person who put this article together is either ignorant or trying to mislead people:


The way it's written, it implies that Adams decoded the tapes during the same game and suggested play calls based on that. This is a Patriots haters fantasy and contradicted by Matt Walsh's statements that he didn't give the tapes to anyone until after a game, sometimes days later.

So, did Adams attempt to decode opponent's signals? Yes. Did/does he suggest plays from the coach's box? Yes. Did he ever do the two during the same game? No. Are the suggested play calls/decoded signals dependent on each other? No (Adams has been making suggestions for the last 8 years with no tapes.) Does Wickersham know or care about these distinctions? No, it doesn't further his agenda or confirm his inch deep analysis.

Ernie is the actual creator behind IBMs Watson and has had it running since the late 90's. Only recently did he give it away. Thus he was able to decode signals by halftime.

Sounds just as plausible