NFL's mouthpiece (ESPN) at it again with OTL piece on cameragate

AzPatsFan said:

Yes it could. I like how Kraft is silently shoving the shiv into Rodger, while smiling all the time. Today's OTL was a cry of desperation and hurt from Rodger, IMHO.

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No it could not. The Patriots are worth billions. The league cannot take the team away from Kraft

https://twitter.com/BenVolin/status/641245183041007616

Patriots response if it hasn't already been posted.

very well written and seems to be consistent with the pats new tact of defending themselves rather than taking the high road.

Gotta love the new stance. Some of the wording makes me wonder if the Pats are seriously considering retaining Kessler in a defamation suit against ESPN.

Color me very unimpressed with that NE response. They should have denied everything, forcefully, and in detail, or just made a brusque denial of everything. Hell, even doing nothing would have been better than what they did.

The most damning (and new) accusation was the stealing scripts one and the NE response is to spend a long paragraph denying taping practices or walkthroughs??

Like I said in the other thread, when you're accused of five things and you give a detailed and forceful denial of precisely one of those things, you are basically instructing people to think "Hmmm...those other things probably have something to them, then."

NE has to realize they are in a PR war and it's time they got off their butts and hired someone capable of fighting a PR war.

I'm supposed to give credence to a story that uses 90 anonymous sources, and relays accusations that literally none of them are willing to put their names next to?

Which anonymous sources are they talking to?

Was it the one who said the Patriots videotaped the Rams' walkthrough?

The one that told Mort that 11 of the 12 balls were underinflated by 2 psi?

The one that told Kelly Naqi that Jim McNally tried to introduce an unapproved football into the AFC Championship Game? (...haven't forgotten about that one.)

It seems to me as if there are a whole bunch of anonymous sources that have axes to grind. The play sheet stealing crap is the perfect accusation - the Patriots literally can't clear themselves. They would have to have a security camera in the opposing locker room to clear themselves, and if they did, they'd get in trouble for it.

Mike Reiss:

The theory that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell's shaky handling of Spygate contributed to such a strong reaction from him with Deflategate makes sense. Comments from anonymous owners in the "Outside the Lines"/ESPN The Magazine investigation were most notable, particularly that one owner viewed it as a "make-up call."

(read rest here: http://espn.go.com/blog/new-england...all-stands-out-from-tuesdays-patriots-stories)

QuantumMechanic said:

Color me very unimpressed with that NE response. They should have denied everything, forcefully, and in detail, or just made a brusque denial of everything. Hell, even doing nothing would have been better than what they did.

The most damning (and new) accusation was the stealing scripts one and the NE response is to spend a long paragraph denying taping practices or walkthroughs??

Like I said in the other thread, when you're accused of five things and you give a detailed and forceful denial of precisely one of those things, you are basically instructing people to think "Hmmm...those other things probably have something to them, then."

NE has to realize they are in a PR war and it's time they got off their butts and hired someone capable of fighting a PR war.

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I think their response was very professional. The one thing they don't want to do is get in the mud with espitn by getting too detailed and dignify their baseless story.

QuantumMechanic said:

Color me very unimpressed with that NE response. They should have denied everything, forcefully, and in detail, or just made a brusque denial of everything. Hell, even doing nothing would have been better than what they did.

The most damning (and new) accusation was the stealing scripts one and the NE response is to spend a long paragraph denying taping practices or walkthroughs??

Like I said in the other thread, when you're accused of five things and you give a detailed and forceful denial of precisely one of those things, you are basically instructing people to think "Hmmm...those other things probably have something to them, then."

NE has to realize they are in a PR war and it's time they got off their butts and hired someone capable of fighting a PR war.

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Yeah but at some point, the allegations are so ridiculous that even addressing them only serves to give them credence. The thing with replacing the "real" playbook with a fake one was literally taken from an episode of the "Brady Bunch" for f*ck sake!!!!!!!! At some point the BS becomes so obvious and ridiculous that only the dumbest of the dumb would espouse such nonsense without dying of shame.

I'm totally aghast at how dysfunctional the NFL looks right now.

MagicMarker said:

I just heard "Doug Gottlieb" on the radio -- typical media idiots --- "Spygate was way bigger than anyone thought". Really? I remember at the time, it was assumed the Patriots had been recording signals for years. NOBODY thought it was just a few games.

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I swear we (generally speaking) went through this whole discussion of "How long was it going on?" back in 07/08.

Most people who had given the matter any serious thought realized it had been going on since 2000. The ridiculous alternative would be that Belichick got the "no taping" memo in 2006 and decided to start at that point.

The spygate truthers latch onto to Arlen Specter's involvement and credit him with getting Goodell to publicly admit that the practice had been going on since Belichick became head coach. Ironically, Chris Mortensen mentioned in an article posted the week the story broke that it had been going on since 2000. Somehow, everyone ignored this and went with the juicier story.

AndyJohnson said:

No it could not. The Patriots are worth billions. The league cannot take the team away from Kraft

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Tell that to the FORMER owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. As I recall it was sold to an ex-Microsoftie for $2 billion dollars.

From NE response: "As recently as last month, over seven years after the retraction and apology was issued, ESPN issued the following apology to the Patriots for continuing to perpetuate the myth (...)" and

"This type of reporting over the past seven years has led to additional unfounded, unwarranted and, quite frankly, unbelievable allegations by former players, coaches and executives. None of which have ever been substantiated, but many of which continue to be propagated."

Not sure but I think they just called EspitN out and called their report unbelievable!

They should hand out tinfoil hats with espn logos on them at all the home games...

QuantumMechanic said:

Color me very unimpressed with that NE response. They should have denied everything, forcefully, and in detail, or just made a brusque denial of everything. Hell, even doing nothing would have been better than what they did.

The most damning (and new) accusation was the stealing scripts one and the NE response is to spend a long paragraph denying taping practices or walkthroughs??

Like I said in the other thread, when you're accused of five things and you give a detailed and forceful denial of precisely one of those things, you are basically instructing people to think "Hmmm...those other things probably have something to them, then."

NE has to realize they are in a PR war and it's time they got off their butts and hired someone capable of fighting a PR war.

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QM, the Patriots cannot win a PR war. They can hire a room full of media and PR people and it will not change this math to any real degree: NE is a geographic franchise, albeit popular in the area and with fans outside the area, against a far more massive group of green with envy-red with hate-empty between the ears money spending consumers. As well, the Patriots business is a single A college team compared to the NFL. The Patriots can call out the dogs of Tom Curran or Bruschi -- while the NFL can call out the third most valuable media company (aka the ministry of propaganda), a robust NFL network, other big media outlets that need NFL games to stay competitive, and countless other hacks and media spaces that suck up the NFL and/or those money spending consumers.
Give it up my brother, this is a fight the Patriots cannot win as it relates to PR/media. To try is bravado. So while I would not be against a more sternly worded release from the Patriots, the Patriots best recourse is to say little but what they do say is unambiguous and difficult to assail. Bottom line, when these Aholes have their massive minions of smear mongers and propaganda pushers while you have little comparatively, the more you say the more they will hang you on every word and/or push it as more nefarious stuff from these bad guy Patriots.
When you have countless billions and control big parts of the media, you overwhelmingly control the message/the PR. Just is what it is....

Galeb said:

I would like to have seen them do more, but if they criticize the league or any NFL employee, they can be punished. They'd almost certainly lose a court battle? How else can they fight without making it worse except behind the scenes? I hope they're working to ultimately remove Goodell, and what I would prefer is that they actively search for and release incriminating evidence on the NFL. If they can find some damning proof of a blown sting and coverup, they could probably get their pics back.

For the record, I view Kraft's public capitulation as a very bad mistake.

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I imagine this was part of a deal that Roger reneged on.

AzPatsFan said:

Kraft is fighting back!!!

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Huh? When?

DaBruinz said:

What "numerous league officials" did the Patriots out??

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Yeah, like who?

DaBruinz said:

So, let me get this straight.. Because the NFL took Brady to court in an effort to make sure the penalty stuck for something that Brady didn't actually do, it's the Patriots fault that the league's incompetence was put on display?

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.
That's it. You shined a spotlight on my ineptitude and I will never forgive you.

Christ who cares about any of this? We have four titles in the closet, Brady just took the NFL to the woodshead, and the league is full of children with tears streaming down their face pounding their tiny baby fists on their high chair tables.

The timing of this is fully meant as a lash-back from the NFL against the Patriots for beating the league in court. The only thing they've done here that had an actual real world effect is strip us of that other first round pick.

The world is going to hate the Pats forever, and until you go to your grave people are going to try to get a rise out of you by saying their "legacy is tarnished." Laugh at them and brush it off, and most importantly enjoy these last few years of the Brady-Belichick duo that we have left.

scott99 said:

Great job ! This is the eloquent way to put how most Pat's fans are feeling about this. ESPN dredging this up at THIS time, is an obvious attack at the Pat's legacy. They had no reason to dig this up, it has no bearing or relevancey to 2014 and 2015. No reason. They are being fed from the league, that could be the ONLY explanation.

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There must be more than just NewEnglanders who said " not that old spy-gate crap again!" And saw it for what it was.
Do MLB or the NBA have this kind of stranglehold on ESPN?

buile said:

I'll nitpick. The destruction was no more insidious than a teacher throwing away Johnny's cheat sheet during a test. You don't give it back saying "Now please put that away!"

Ignorant owners and players bought the hype of what taping the signals meant, so the fact the Pats went undefeated next year was retroactive proof that the biggest punishment ever handed down must still not be enough...

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I'll nitpick your first nit. Anything that was destroyed in the wake of Spygate, except for material gained in that one game in 2007 after the League Memo, was legit. A "cheat sheet" isn't legit. I think the Pats stretched the rules to the limit before that, but didn't break them. They then were smart enough to know what to do with the information they gathered and, apparently, built a process around using it.

But I agree with your second point. Every time the League "fixes" something "bad," the Patriots have allegedly done, they just get even better on the field, which is what really must piss the Owners off.