Part of this story is truly about law. Florio is in his element there.
Part of this story is about an evil lawyer, namely Pash. Florio is in his element there too.
Presumably, he realized early on that what the NFL said didn't make sense, which may have helped him be early -- relative to the other media at least -- in generally assessing the situation, and focusing his reporting accordingly.
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Analogy from my own career:
- I realized a certain technical claim that a software maker was making was ridiculous.
- They clammed up when I challenged them.
- I had a general reputation for being more technical than other analysis.
- Somebody has a story to leak about a more important product of theirs that didn't work, and chose me to leak it to.
- I relied on relationships and general technical understanding to run with the story from there.
- The whole thing was one of the biggest technology news events of its day.