Semi-OT: Official League Shill on McCann's Deflategate class

[QuantumMechanic]

The Official League Shill was at UNH the other day to be one of the featured guests in McCann's Deflategate class:

The MMQB’s Peter King speaks at UNH class on Deflategate | The MMQB with Peter King

The Shill did put some of the questions he was asked (and his answers) into the column:

Was this a makeup call by the NFL for Spygate? (I said I doubt it.)

• The Colts’ balls were below normal PSI, which has been under-reported. Why?(I said I agree, and I don’t know why.)

• As the issue has picked up steam, the league has had numerous opportunities to minimize it and they’ve doubled down on their position. Why? (I think it’s because Goodell believes Brady was complicit, I said.)

• Are there any negotiations to settle this case? (Not that I’m aware of, I said, but it’s unlikely we’d hear of them. Plus, there’s no longer any incentive for Brady to settle. )

• It’s clear how the NFLPA feels about the case, but how do actual players outside New England feel? (I said I thought the majority supported Brady.)

• How many more years will Goodell be commissioner? (No idea, I said.)

• NBA commissioner Adam Silver immediately tackled the Donald Sterling Clippers situation last year. Silver took care of it with league people. Why did Goodell farm it out? (Excellent question; Goodell obviously felt he needed an investigative team to sort through the layers.)

• Look at the power owners of the NFL and the conflict of interest that might exist on the field if one owner goes against the owner of a rival team. How does the commissioner’s office sort that out? (Interesting question, which makes Goodell’s impartiality vital.)

• If Goodell were to no longer be the commissioner, who would be the most logical replacement? (Chiefs owner Clark Hunt, I said, but I don’t think he wants the job.)

• Do you play fantasy football? (Yes. I am in a league run by my daughter, and I stink.)

• How credible a news source is ESPN, and why hasn’t Chris Mortensen apologized for getting the story wrong in January? (Very, I said. And I don’t know Mort’s business; I have enough of a problem getting my own stuff right.)

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

Woos

 

[fnordcircle]

Litmus test for someone's integrity on this topic is pretty easy imo:

Do you give a **** that the Colts balls were underinflated too? No? Then **** off.

 

[Fencer]

His presumably dishonest waffle on Mort is totally excusable -- it's little different from a BB "I don't know"/"I'm not thinking about that"/etc.

 

[JoeSixPat]

Litmus test for someone's integrity on this topic is pretty easy imo:

Do you give a **** that the Colts balls were underinflated too? No? Then **** off.

Right... and um Mr. King, aren't you a member of the media? Why didn't you make a point of that?

And for anyone who digs an inch beneath the surface they'd find that this is yet ANOTHER instance in which Goodell and his minions prove their bias

In the case of the Colts there were two readings and two different gauges just as with the Patriots, as we all know

The Wells Report is on the record that in the case of the Patriots they assumed the lower reading was the accurate one - and needed to assert that Walt Anderson - the guy who's memory was good enough to accurately remember 24 pre-game PSI readings - was WRONG about which gauge he said he used

In the case of the Colts, the Wells Report is on the record saying they assumed the HIGHER reading was the correct one.

Nope - no blatantly obvious bias there

So even if you accept - as Roger Goodell and the Owners do - that the Laws of Physics are suspended in the NFL - you also still have to accept that the Investigation can be shown as inherently flawed and grossly biased in many ways

King and others must know this - they just choose not to report on it

Their access to the NFL is dependent on maintaining a good relationship so, as with ESPN, they turn a blind eye and an innocent player who is likely the GOAT is slandered

 

[Koma]

Peter King has had his good moments and bad moments throughout this story. Early on, he was willing to listen to PBPF's (and others) explanation of the science. He did admit his "11 of 12 balls/Colts balls were fine" story was wrong and he was willing to appear at McCann's class and take questions. He's definitely been more reasonable than Mortensen, who won't admit his story was wrong, or Mike Silver, who is fully committed to the Patriots being guilty and will not tolerate any discussion on that topic.

Still, King can't or won't look at the big picture or put the pieces of the story together. Even though he says he believes the science, he's still say he can't be sure anything was done to the footballs. It's like he doesn't want to alienate part of his audience and people in the league by saying "The science shows no tampering occurred, which means no tampering occurred, at all, by anyone."

Look at two of his responses for an example:

• As the issue has picked up steam, the league has had numerous opportunities to minimize it and they’ve doubled down on their position. Why? (I think it’s because Goodell believes Brady was complicit, I said.)

• Look at the power owners of the NFL and the conflict of interest that might exist on the field if one owner goes against the owner of a rival team. How does the commissioner’s office sort that out? (Interesting question, which makes Goodell’s impartiality vital.)

The question King won't raise is that if Goodell was impartial, how could he believe Brady was involved? If Goodell's not being impartial, that's a fairly important detail. Instead of exploring that, King opts to sit on the fence and try to play both sides of the story.

 

[Ivan]

His presumably dishonest waffle on Mort is totally excusable -- it's little different from a BB "I don't know"/"I'm not thinking about that"/etc.

No, it's not. Claiming ESPN and Mortenson are very credible when it's more than obvious they aren't is as dishonest as it gets. King is a league shill, as he was labeled by Quantum noted in the op.

 

[Palm Beach Pats Fan]

That's a class that's sorely in need of a lab section!

Give me a football, pump, and gauge for each student and give us one of those big deli refrigerators that lets you dial in the temperature that you want. We'll start the lab at 1 PM. By 5 PM we'll all have the answer. Imbeciles can do the experiment correctly. I'll give Marshall Faulk a "walk-through" (pun intended).

Then the students will scratch their heads and wonder why this is such as raging controversy even after 10 months, when with hardly any effort in an afternoon you can show that mother nature depressurizes footballs, and to what extent. Namely, to the same extent that the Patriots footballs were depressurized.

From now on, I'm always going to say "depressurized", not "deflated", because language is part of the problem. To deflate something is to let some air out, and nobody did that. It's an issue of pressure levels, not inflation levels. This may seem a minor point, but it may help people understand. They have no problem with grasping the reality of a low tire pressure reading on a cold morning without assuming that Tom Brady was somehow camped out in their driveway last night.

 

[Rob0729]

King really questions whether the Pats did anything wrong and has questioned the League's handling of this a lot.

If you want to attack someone for being in the bag for the NFL on Deflategate. Look to King's employee - Greg Bedard. His logic on how he is convinced the Pats were guilty is stupid on so many levels.

 

[Tony2046]

I'm not going to jump on King "the master fence rider" for the deflategate issue. He was one of the first ones that actually understood that the numbers don't add up. He went on the Rich Eisen show and questioned the seriousness of the incident and explained that in essence the NFL wanted to suspend Brady over 0.02 psi. I don't think he has fully committed to the idea that nothing happened but he has gone on record and said he doesn't understand why this has been such a huge issue.

He discusses this around the 5:00 mark. (FWIW: This was just a couple of days after the release of the Wells report)

 

[NashuaPats]

King is still promoting a lie with his test of the three footballs (11.5, 12.5, 13.5). The actual allegation is about 0.3 psi, not 1 or 2. He should have done the test with two balls, 12.5 and 12.2, and tested if the QB or anyone could tell the difference. But he lacks integrity... or perhaps more likely, intelligence.

 

[Buchanty]

As I have said before the only way for this doublespeak to end is for the NFL to declare that the weather was responsible for "depressurizing" (thanks @Palm Beach Pats Fan) the balls in the AFCC game. While I suspect most cogent commentators accept that the Ideal Gas Law is the culprit, they are not at all comfortable about taking the lid off the corruption within the league that turned this event into a farce. There is no reason to believe that the league and its principles will ever refrain from misrepresentation, deceit and lying; meaning that the waters could only get muddier, and the pundits' job security in sports journalism more tenuous. They are dependent on the majority audience with a low tolerance of complexity and lower level of comprehension. They are also aware that there remains just one pocket of interest in the truth, and that is the fans of New England.

This, sadly, is where strength in leadership is needed most. Goodell is neither competent or a leader, so we may have to wait for his successor before that desired admission is made. Like several other boneheads he confuses stubbornness for strength, and caprice for judgement. The same can be said for the media executives, and the extreme lack of strength in leadership at the company level (whether Disney, Comcast or any other mass communications enterprise) demonstrates that clicks are more important than ethics and morality.

I am glad however that a college course has been established to cover this topic, as it will generate new questions from the developing generations, as fine an example as you can find today of the calamities born of hubris.

 

[Fencer]

No, it's not. Claiming ESPN and Mortenson are very credible when it's more than obvious they aren't is as dishonest as it gets. King is a league shill, as he was labeled by Quantum noted in the op.

Do you also hate Belichick and Brady as liars? They say diplomatic things they don't mean all the time ... and I don't have a problem with that at all.

 

[BradyFTW!]

I'm not going to jump on King "the master fence rider" for the deflategate issue. He was one of the first ones that actually understood that the numbers don't add up. He went on the Rich Eisen show and questioned the seriousness of the incident and explained that in essence the NFL wanted to suspend Brady over 0.02 psi. I don't think he has fully committed to the idea that nothing happened but he has gone on record and said he doesn't understand why this has been such a huge issue.

He discusses this around the 5:00 mark. (FWIW: This was just a couple of days after the release of the Wells report)

My opinion is more or less in line with that. I wish King had gone out on a limb and spread this information more aggressively than he did. But at the same time, he at least tried to understand the issue and look at it objectively. If everyone else in the media had handled Deflategate like he did, I think we'd be looking at a much different overall narrative than we are today. So when it comes to passing out blame within the media, he's one of the last guys on my list. I just can't rip too hard on a guy who made a genuine, good-faith effort to understand and honestly report a topic, even if he didn't do as good a job as I would've liked.

 

[upstater1]

"• As the issue has picked up steam, the league has had numerous opportunities to minimize it and they’ve doubled down on their position. Why? (I think it’s because Goodell believes Brady was complicit, I said.)"

Complicit in what, exactly, Peter?

What evidence shows he was complicit?

 

[Tony2046]

Goodell is neither competent or a leader, so we may have to wait for his successor before that desired admission is made.

Fantastic post but I highly doubt that an admission will ever be made simply because I regard Goodell as the head of the 32 team monster. You could replace the head but the body would remain.

Although doubtful, the only way I see deflategate being exposed for what it truly is would be via a defamation lawsuit.

 

[Ivan]

Do you also hate Belichick and Brady as liars? They say diplomatic things they don't mean all the time ... and I don't have a problem with that at all.

So you don't think journalists have a responsibility to be honest?

Interesting.

 

[Jackson 2]

Peter King is a two-faced SOB. His stance on polarizing issues depends almost entirely on his audience. Ball-less.

 

[ausbacker]

Peter King is a two-faced SOB. His stance on polarizing issues depends almost entirely on his audience. Ball-less.

You're acting surprised media personalities take positions that encourage clicks? It's all been about the mighty dollar for some time now.

 

[Jackson 2]

You're acting surprised media personalities take positions that encourage clicks? It's all been about the mighty dollar for some time now.

Why do you assume I'm surprised? I'm anything but.