WTF ESPN?

Why is anyone surprised? ESPN pumped the fake story in the first place. No way do they do a mea culpa.

The frustrating thing is friends and message board folk that I talk to all the time were ALL OVER Deflategate when it first broke, 'Cheatriots should fire Belichick', 'how can anyone believe them ever again?' 'all their SB's are tainted'...based on nonsense. Same stuff bubbled up (to a lesser extent) a few days ago when the McNally stuff 'broke'.

Now, when I vehemently defend the team, call them biased idiots and send them all the latest to keep them up to speed on this non-scandal (well, at least for the Patriots since it looks like the NFL and Kensil need to get their house in order) all I hear is 'this is why everyone hates you, you're all arrogant blowhards claiming everyone's out to get your precious team'. They can't see--or refuse to acknowledge--that they and the media are the reason this story blew up, the Patriots ARE targeted unfairly. It's why I was so ridiculously pissed at how cameragate played out, because everything since then has been lead with 'can we ever trust BB after Spygate?' It's ****ing ********.

jmt57 said:

Slightly off-topic, but on ESPN's NFL Live today the panelists were talking about Goodell and the NFL concurrently undergoing several investigations. Bill Polian was running through those (PSI, Browns texting, etc.) and mentioned Atlanta piping in crowd noise. He quickly made a short comment, something to the effect that the league doesn't care about that (fake crowd noise) since they don't see it as a competitive advantage.

This coming from the former head of the NFL's competition committee and GM/President of the club that originated the concept of piping in crowd noise to disrupt the opponent, in order to gain a competitive advantage.

Oh, the irony....

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Did he mention the Jets tampering investigation?
Somehow I'd bet not.

I thought Skip made a personal apology on First Take yesterday to McNally for ripping him on Wednesday morning ?

BTW, I do think ESPN isn't running with the Schefter story more because this whole thing is a huge black eye for their network more than they don't want to be fair to the Patriots. They want this whole story to go away because their mistake has become one of the biggest part of this story.

Saint Pat said:

I thought Skip made a personal apology on First Take yesterday to McNally for ripping him on Wednesday morning ?

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Skip is a doofus. One day he is damning the Patriots and the next he's slobbering over Tom Brady's knob and by association the Pats. Then rinse and repeat the process.

So now BSPN is gonna hide after they Blew Up this BS D'gate caused all kinds of havoc towards Brady, BB, Pats and us Fans especially right after Pats won AFCCG that we couldn't even enjoy Win & 2 weeks leadin iup to SB. NOT GOOD ENOUGH! they should be held accountable. Publically callin out to Boycott Sponsers of ESPN and Kraft FINALLY Steppin Up, Sue Them and let them know they just can't accuse without all facts or lead to beLIEve. Make an example out of them.
and for chitz & giggles throw in Schefter & his girlfriend Mortensen too, FIRE THEM for always takin pleasure in reporting anything negative invovling Pats.

ESPN more interested in ratings than being right. NFL interested in dollars . Not wasting my time pining for any sort of justice or fairness. We are #1. The rest is noise.

In Bristol, louder is always better.
Even more so than being right, it turns out.

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http://www.boston.com/sports/column..._espn_mess_nfl_shouldnt_be_allowed_to_bu.html

Kdo5 said:

Skip is a doofus. One day he is damning the Patriots and the next he's slobbering over Tom Brady's knob and by association the Pats. Then rinse and repeat the process.

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That's why Skip is terrible. He just say things to get a reaction. You can't trust anything he says as genuine. Fits perfectly with the TMZ style espn wants to copy so badly

Kdo5 said:

Skip is a doofus. One day he is damning the Patriots and the next he's slobbering over Tom Brady's knob and by association the Pats. Then rinse and repeat the process.

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I agree with your assessment of Skip. I don't mind listening to him when he talks glowingly about TB12 though. I think he was mislead by Kelly Naqi's ****ty reporting though. He did the show in the morning then in the afternoon Adam Schefter told us what really happened.

Why all of you have gotten worked up about this non-story from the beginning is beyond me. The only thing it ever did for me was gave me more enjoyment from the Super Bowl victory. Outside of that, I'll wait for the Wells report, then I'll proceed to **** on the proper parties (it certainly looks like ESPN will be a part of that) after all is said and done. Until then, I don't see the need to waste any more energy on this outside of a post here and there.

Brady_to_Moss said:

People still watch/listen to ESPN?

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For some of us rural, it's the only sports talk there is... Which is more than unfortunate.

Hey, what ever happened to the final Predict the Score Contest---did you win?? When or where was it posted???

Stopped watching the network when they had the torches lit and the pitchforks lined up.
M&M, 1st take, nfl live can all go pound salt. Gonna suck when PATS are on MNF, cuz will have no choice but to watch

patsfan4life said:

Stopped watching the network when they had the torches lit and the pitchforks lined up.
M&M, 1st take, nfl live can all go pound salt. Gonna suck when PATS are on MNF, cuz will have no choice but to watch

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Agree. I rarely watch ESPN, I use NFLN for football and they don't cover Hockey. And yes, they can go pound sand.

PRESS RELEASE:

A few days ago I was greatly troubled by a report made by ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” program. They asserted that a Patriots game day employee was a willing partner in an effort to introduce an unauthorized football into the AFC championship game. This false accusation was discredited within hours by ESPN’s own senior football writer Adam Schefter. However, in the ensuing days ESPN and the Outside the Lines have neither retracted this story nor apologized to the Patriots game day employee who was wrongly accused. A journalist should never get the story wrong because he or she is in a rush to get the story first. If this happens, however, there is a right thing and a wrong thing to do when going forward. The right thing for ESPN to do is to retract this story and also to apologize to Mr. McNally, without further delay.


Sincerely,
Robert Kraft
CEO
Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots

I trimmed my tv costs down mid-January and have not been able to view all of the sports channels since. Most of my NFL news comes from this forum. I find it somewhat frustrating about it but also happy that I am no longer supporting these mediots. Which brings me to the idea of a New England area/fan boycott of these NEP's negative news outlets and a internet blitzing of these efforts. Surely they will get the message if the local furniture stores and other retailers are not renewing their advertising contracts because nobody from the area is watching their shows. Stop discussing their programming (or lack of it) here on the boards and start saying we will no longer watch their crap. We have the power, let's get this going!

Well said once again PBPF.

and add..."It is a stain on ESPN that I have to remind them of their duty here."

Here's my Patriots press release.

Dear members of the media and NFL posse,

we won. Go **** yourselves.

Sincerely yours,

New England Patriots - Super Bowl champions.

And I would make sure that someone reminds ESPN that Mr. Kraft is chair of the NFL Broadcast committee......