Remember how Manning got in front of the HGH thing by saying he was
mad as hell and was going to sue? It worked.
Remember how the Patriots did the opposite of that in both Spygate and Deflategate?
The truth is that the Pats/Brady had a very limited opportunity to try to shape the public narrative in both scandals, and both times they miscalculated and punted on it. They did a little better in Deflategate, to the point that I thought they'd actually learned their lesson for a few days, but... nope. By not appealing, the Pats allowed the narrative of "see, they practically admitted they did it!" to take hold.
In the future, any team that wants to to hold up to this PR battle has to counter every leak from the NFL with a leak of their own, no exceptions. Have to counter-spin every NFL attempt at spin. Being right isn't enough, and even the most blatant of lies and contradictions by the other side isn't enough. People are too stupid to be counted on to catch that.
Having said all of that, you couldn't pay me enough to click on this link or any other like it. Not interested.
