#DFG: Canceling the Noise

Is there any level of suspension that you would advise Tom to accept?


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Leather

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This whole thread (and no disrespect intended) reminds me of an 8 year old kid at a magic show trying to pull apart the two steel rings that the magician can seemingly "pull apart with magic".  People keep trying to pull apart the rings, even though you know deep down you won't be able to because it's a trick.
 
"Well, maybe if we twist it to the left this time, we'll be able to... *clang*... Nope, ok...What about if we slide it slowly this way..."
 
I know it's hard, but you'll be happier if you just put this whole thing down for a month or so.
 

geoffm33

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Mar 3, 2012
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Gorton Fisherman said:
So here's something that irritates me about about Deflategate truthers who insist that even if they were to admit that the Wells science has been effectively debunked, there are still "THE TEXTS!!" and "THE BATHROOM BREAK!!", and that those factors alone are still enough to convict the Patriots/Brady.
 
The Wells report conclusions basically rest on three major evidentiary components: science + texts + "suspicious activity" by McNally on game day (e.g. bathroom break etc).  The three components were not weighted equally by Wells; about half of the Wells report was dedicated purely to the science component. Using the combination of all three of these components, Wells concluded that it was "more likely than not" that intentional tampering occurred. As we all know, this is a relatively "weak" standard. "More likely than not" = "preponderance of evidence"; basically the accused is considered guilty if the "percentage" of evidence is as low as 51%-49% against.
 
If you now admit that the science is debunked/unreliable/non-probative, that eliminates one of the three evidentiary components. Moreover, it eliminates the most significant of the three components, judging by the degree of emphasis in the "prosecutor's" own argument. So now you're left with just texts + suspicious activity. Could Wells seriously argue that these two components by themselves still reach the "more likely than not" standard? If you take out the science, are you really still at 51%-49% against the Patriots/Brady? Let's say the science stuff had been completely omitted from the original Wells report. Would anyone fair-minded person still conclude that it is "more likely than not" that the Pats/Brady cheated on the basis of the remaining two factors alone? 
 
Seems crazy to me. 

 
 
As was nicely laid out upthread, the science/report by AEI doesn't just say the science is unreliable and should be thrown out, but goes as far as to show that there was in fact no deflation of the footballs to begin with.
 
So take that away and what context could one use for the other two components that would show the Patriots did anything wrong? 
 

AB in DC

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The sting question is a classic Hanlon's Razor situation.  NFL incompetence explains basically everything here -- there's no reason to attribute any malice on top of that.
 

drbretto

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Is this whole thing just not the craziest thing ever? Take the emotions out of it, and just stand back and look at all that has come over a ball that may have been a little bit less inflated than one would normally prefer. That fucking ball set off a chain reaction that is reminiscent of an emotional hurricane. It created this huge strife, over NOTHING. It's truly mind-boggling. 
 

( . ) ( . ) and (_!_)

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TheoShmeo said:
That the NFL didn't simply tell the Pats before the game not to screw with the balls is of course amazing and makes clear that the NFL was more interested in nailing the Pats than protecting the evenness of the playing field.  
 
I don't think this is amazing or relevant at all. Multiple sources have come out and said that before every game the teams take pot shots at each other and call the league with watch outs, but that the NFL might jot them down or might not.  It seems like these teams have cried wolf so many times that no one cares anymore.  I think the Colts complaints about ball pressure fell into this category.  Also nobody has every given two fucks about ball pressure in the NFL before.  It would have been more strange for the NFL to go out of their way to alert the Patriots about ball pressure concerns.  This is a rule tied to $25k fine that refs, teams, the league did not take seriously (see the Vikings/Panthers game with ball heaters).  
 
I don't think it's was a sting because it was never a big deal to anyone to begin with.
 
I do however think that an over zealous league official wet himself at the opportunity to nail the Patriots once the Colts tested a ball at half time.  From there this thing spiraled out of control because Irsay is an asshole and Mortenson grabbed his ankles for his NFL source.
 

MarcSullivaFan

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Hoo-hoo-hoo hoosier land.
loshjott said:
 
Why was it incompetent? It resulted (so far) in a major AFC rival losing their GOAT QB for a quarter of the season and loss of draft picks, and public ridicule. It was a pretty brilliantly played sting, if that's what it was.
First of all, I don't share the presumption that the Colts were involved in running the purported sting. They informed the league of their concern--which, while petty, is their right. If they were in cahoots, no one from the Colts would have touched the Jackson INT ball on the sideline. That would have gone straight to the league.

As to the incompetence, we have the fact that (a) they were far from thorough in collecting and recording measurements before the game and at halftime; (b) they paid so little attention to the custody of the balls that one of their own employees was able to steal a ball and almost introduced a non-approved ball into the game; (c) they allowed a significant portion of the game to be played with the balls they later claimed to be illegally deflated. If it was a sting, why not pull a ball and test it in the first quarter? It's not as if they need permission to do so. They had a complaint about potential tampering. It's their job (not the Colts) to look into it.

Obviously you're right that the outcome was exactly what someone trying to nail the Patriots would have wanted. But that's a product of Goodell having nearly unfettered power over discipline, which resulted in the Pats getting hammered despite the lack of scientific evidence. I see it more as a case of paranoia-level suspicion of the Patriots left over from Spygate plus a lack of understanding of the science plus confirmation bias plus a strong desire to avoid admitting that they were wrong. I don't see a conspiracy.

Ironically, if the NFL had done a better job of taking and recording measurements, the Patriots might be in a better spot now. I imagine some tinfoil hatters would argue that the shoddy evidence collection was accidentally on purpose. But that would imply that the league could foresee the ideal gas law issue, which is clearly not the case.

I'm judging competence on process, not outcome. The process here was moronic if it was planned in advance.
 

Kenny F'ing Powers

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drleather2001 said:
This whole thread (and no disrespect intended) reminds me of an 8 year old kid at a magic show trying to pull apart the two steel rings that the magician can seemingly "pull apart with magic".  People keep trying to pull apart the rings, even though you know deep down you won't be able to because it's a trick.
 
"Well, maybe if we twist it to the left this time, we'll be able to... *clang*... Nope, ok...What about if we slide it slowly this way..."
 
I know it's hard, but you'll be happier if you just put this whole thing down for a month or so.
 
Notice how everyone ignored your post? It's not because your wrong. You're just screaming into the void.
 

lambeau

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Of course nothing will happen for a month, and then TB12's suspension will probably stand because he will turn down the offer of a reduction to two games in return for staying out of court. What then? Some of us can't help speculating, as we await camp.
And I think we can find some hope in the fact that IIRC Tagliabue was brought into Bountygate because the federal judge involved , Judge Ginger Berrigan, had indicated she leaned toward finding that the NFL process was quite flawed.
One of Kessler's submissions to her was the AEI reporrt, claiming Roger had shown bias by ignoring the "empirical basis" of the case--sound familiar? IMHO, Kensil, Wells, and Exponent showed bias which a federal judge might well discern.
I think the fact remains that Roger and his lawyer Gregg Levy were afraid of Judge Ginger. And I would think a lawyer would rather have TB12 for a client than Jonathan Vilma. Amirite?
 

nighthob

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JimBoSox9 said:
The problem with calling it a sting is I feel like generally the official party has to enable the suspect party to do the deed, or at least engage in some kind of active deception. All Kensil did was withhold information from the suspect. That's a trap clear as day, but not a sting.
Kensil told Patriots officials on the way into the locker room at the halftime "You guys are fucked" and the Colts claimed that they'd put air pressure on the pregame concerns list, which are supposed to be communicated. There's really no other way to classify this than as a sting operation carried out by the NFL's Keystone Kops.
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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KenTremendous said:
He'll reduce the sentence to 2 games, but no, he isn't just going to say: we were wrong, sorry guys.
 
This is the essential problem with the way Goodell runs the Justice Thunder Fist of the NFL Front Office. He wants the league to be the military, with strict codes and punishments and Serious Things Taken Seriously. But it's not. It's a big sloppy sports league. Most on-field stuff should be dealt with by saying "knock it off," but he never says "knock it off," he only says "How dare you!"
 
And when you deal with every tiny thing by saying "How dare you?!" you end up stepping in it, all the time. You commit a massive amount of resources and money and PR capital to determine whether two guys might have done something that no one has ever cared about, and that investigation completely misreads (willfully or accidentally) the science behind what happened -- which, again, no one knew about, because no one had ever cared about the gameplay issue it affected. But by turning over $5 million worth of legal rocks you discovered some grubby behavior. So you yell "How dare you!" the loudest you've ever yelled it -- because maybe recently some people have pointed out that you didn't really yell "How dare you!" to a couple guys who deserved to be yelled at, and you looked stupid. So you yell, you yell a lot, you yell so loudly that no one will ever be able to accuse you of not yelling!
 
Then a bunch of reasonable people point out that the science that justified all that yelling might have actually been wrong. This isn't really your fault, necessarily -- because who the fuck ever cared about the Ideal Gas Law in football? Who even knew this was a thing? -- but it still might be wrong. And if the science was wrong, the whole thing is pointless. The $5 million of legal rocks you turned over might all be worthless. All of the Integrity of the Game speeches, all the We Care About Fair Play speeches, all the yelling and yelling and yelling and yelling might have been because the lawyer you paid $5 million never considered that if balls lose pressure in cold air they might gain pressure in warm air, and if the Colts' balls were measured later in the halftime than the Pats' balls they might have more air pressure, oopsie, sorry, but you can't have your $5 million back.
 
So now what do you do? Well, a normal person with a moderated sense of his self-worth and position in the universe might take a deep breath and say, "You know what? This whole thing was messy, and unfortunate, but at the end of the day, there are simply too many questions about what happened, or didn't happen, and too many issues with the measurements of the footballs -- because we had never, as a league, put in place an official policy to track football air pressure. And ultimately, it doesn't seem fair to levy a massive penalty here, because the process by which we investigated the issue was just too problematic."
 
That is not what he will do. He will thank Tom Brady for his testimony, and for his New Spirit of Cooperation he will reduce the penalty against him. But he will stand by Wells and the Wells Report. He will say that Wells's work is unimpeachable, his honesty and integrity unquestioned, and his investigation thorough and satisfactory. Because when you are a person who yells "How dare you!" over and over, year after year, you simply cannot all of a sudden take a measured or reasoned response to anything. It isn't possible. The person who yells "How dare you!" all the time just doesn't ever admit his own fallibility in any meaningful way. I would be utterly shocked if that happened.
 
NESN apparently likes this post, KT. A lot.
 

BlackJack

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I think it's because NESN also wants to fuck that post.  And then be eskimo brothers with Bergs.
 

simplyeric

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drleather2001 said:
 
I know it's hard, but you'll be happier if you just put this whole thing down for a month or so.
What's the fun in that? This has been the best Super Bowl win ever, because this issue 'forces' me to keep thinking about football and the Patriots and the playoffs and the super bowl through a time when I'd otherwise not really think that much about it.

It's not like we're cutting ourselves over this. This is fun.
 

bankshot1

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RedOctober3829 said:
It will only be fun if Brady is serving a 2 game suspension in weeks 16 and 17 after the Pats have wrapped up the AFC.
Two games? For what?
 
I hope if Brady goes to court he gets a very positive outcome, and vindication.
 
IMO "fun" would be Brady etal accepting the SB 50 trophy from Goodell and telling him to get the fuck off the podium.
 
The podium is for winners.
 

Bergs

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drbretto said:
I love how the post they linked wasn't KT's actual post, but Bergs' desire to have sexual relations with it. 
 
My 15 minutes of fame have arrived at last.
 

amarshal2

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wilked said:
 
Off topic but this is empirically untrue.  
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring
 
...you know, just in case anyone here was going to let that link influence their future negotiations.  They'd be making a mistake.  Sure, sometimes you'll set the "floor" too low but other times you'll anchor the person on a much lower price than they had in mind.  Research shows that the person who makes the first offer often comes out better.  
 
Not the link I was looking for but it'll do: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/news_articles/2014/04022014-negotiate_first_offer.aspx
 

ifmanis5

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Ken's post was great but I'd be shocked if RG reduces the sentence in any way and there won't be any backroom deals either. It'll stand and we'll go to court.
 

dcmissle

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So judges do not do that.  Judges do not say -- and are not allowed to say -- "I will sentence you toward the lower end of the sentencing guidelines ... but you must promise in exchange not to appeal the underlying conviction."
 
RG is supposed to be the judge, right?  Vincent hands down the penalty; RG is the impartial reviewer.  Or so the League would have it, in the teeth of  Kessler's procedural attack.
 
If I'm Kessler I take this and run with it.  Better yet, I insist that RG confirm his offer in writing.
 
But who knows if the report is true or not.  Felger dearly wishes it to be true, so he commence browbeating Brady for being "selfish" in turning down the supposed deal.
 

joe dokes

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So judges do not do that. Judges do not say -- and are not allowed to say -- "I will sentence you toward the lower end of the sentencing guidelines ... but you must promise in exchange not to appeal the underlying conviction."
 
 
Not quite the same, but plea agreements often contain an appeal waiver. Of course, that's when the Judge and prosecutor aren't the same person.
 

dcmissle

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The analogy is imperfect but gets to the guts of what Kessler will argue -- that the hand-off to Vincent was bogus and the impartial review a sham.  So go ahead Roger, put that offer in writing.
 

lambeau

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http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2015/06/02/roger-goodells-full-statement-on-brady-suspension-appeal-of-deflate-gate-to-nflpa-text/
 
Roger is both judge and appeal hearing officer--he hands down Commissioner Discipline and then he  hears the appeal on it as Commissioner; he now denies delegating discipline to Vincent--he only delegated signing the letter.
(Maybe he forgot to call Gregg Levy and thought if he didn't sign the letter his hearing the appeal would look better--he got confused and didn't realize delegating to Vincent would invalidate the discipline--he's walking it back.)
 

Stu Nahan

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This is clearly going to end up in court. The media circle jerk is something to watch though. Leaked reports, hot takes, reasoned analysis, and so much more just keep the story and the NFL in the news. No matter what happens, RG and the NFL have already won.
 

tims4wins

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KenTremendous said:
For something I've been thinking about almost continuously since February, it's surprisingly hard to talk about without sounding like an insane person.
Wow. This sums it up so incredibly well.
 

koufax32

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As the mushroom cloud of this slowly dissipates I find myself leaning more and more toward the Perfect Storm theory of how this all happened. How did it start? A winning franchise beats two teams that are run on some level by whiny brats. The Colts just happened to be beaten before they actually played the afccg (since they already got their banner). How did it escalate? Dummies in high positions had never heard of pV=nRT. How did it blow up? The league borrowed a page from the WWE playbook and allowed NE to reprise their role as arch villain, not just for the SB but going forward. They had the NFL's version of the Miami Heat: the team that everybody tunes in to watch so they can root against them. Nobody on Park Ave. thinks this is a bad idea because they either dislike the Patriots themselves or are so concerned about the RG administration's probability of short term survival that they are willing to sacrifice the legacy of a historic dynasty for the short term goal of driving ratings and popularity. RG can even play the role of White Hat sheriff in this drama. The problem is there's no getting out now. Roger Goodell's George Clooney has knowingly driven his boat into this storm. It has gotten bigger and messier than he hoped or expected but he's stuck in it. Hopefully it will ultimately be the cause of his demise as well.
What a fascinating combination of events at just the right time.
 

ipol

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I'm not breaking ground by saying that Tom Brady isn't regarded with quite the same respect Patriots fans hold for him in relation to the rest of the football watching country. This point was made clearer to me earlier today when listening to the Grantland NFL podcast and Barnwell referenced Brady's "fake humility" and Mays response was to say he could only listen to that for so long before he would have to take a long walk in order to cleanse himself. I've actually always enjoyed their musings, though for differing reasons, so I nearly raised an eyebrow as they talked about Brady's deposition. Their thoughts were illuminating in that, even among fairly level headed fans and students of the game, this telenovella was played out many months ago. And, also, that it doesn't matter who wrote the script.
 

Gator4MVP88

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( . ) ( . ) and (_!_) said:
 
I don't think this is amazing or relevant at all. Multiple sources have come out and said that before every game the teams take pot shots at each other and call the league with watch outs, but that the NFL might jot them down or might not.  It seems like these teams have cried wolf so many times that no one cares anymore.  I think the Colts complaints about ball pressure fell into this category.  Also nobody has every given two fucks about ball pressure in the NFL before.  It would have been more strange for the NFL to go out of their way to alert the Patriots about ball pressure concerns.  This is a rule tied to $25k fine that refs, teams, the league did not take seriously (see the Vikings/Panthers game with ball heaters).  
 
I don't think it's was a sting because it was never a big deal to anyone to begin with.
 
I do however think that an over zealous league official wet himself at the opportunity to nail the Patriots once the Colts tested a ball at half time.  From there this thing spiraled out of control because Irsay is an asshole and Mortenson grabbed his ankles for his NFL source.
I agree that it was going to be ignored. So where would we be today had Brady not thrown that pick? Or if he didn't throw it until the 4th quarter when the game had already been decided?
 

ifmanis5

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I'm surprised that there isn't a whole separate thread for the Mort tweet. It's the most fascinating part of this whole insane traveshamockery. Who was the source for that? Why has it not been retracted? Why did the NFL just let it sit there for two weeks? Plus, I'm looking forward to Bill Simmons' first HBO doc on the subject. 'What if I told you what you wanted to hear and you believed it even though it was totally wrong? Would you still believe it since it made you happy?' It neatly fits the recent media trends of news outlets as sources of affirmation rather than information and the whole idea of Fanboyism. That tweet and its fallout is whole media college course unto itself.
 

txexile

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ifmanis5 said:
I'm surprised that there isn't a whole separate thread for the Mort tweet. It's the most fascinating part of this whole insane traveshamockery. Who was the source for that? Why has it not been retracted? Why did the NFL just let it sit there for two weeks? Plus, I'm looking forward to Bill Simmons' first HBO doc on the subject. 'What if I told you what you wanted to hear and you believed it even though it was totally wrong? Would you still believe it since it made you happy?' It neatly fits the recent media trends of news outlets as sources of affirmation rather than information and the whole idea of Fanboyism. That tweet and its fallout is whole media college course unto itself.
 
The Mort tweet -- and his failure to own up to it -- is puzzling. It's not uncommon for a reporter to be burned by a source. Even if the source is wrong -- even maliciously wrong -- the reporter is obliged to protect the source. But there's no reason why a wronged reporter can't come forward and say "I can't share my source, but in retrospect what I published was incorrect. I know now that etc. etc. was what actually happened, and I regret the error." I know nothing about Mortensen but am predisposed to like him from his Twitter profile and the nice family photographs he uses. Why he doesn't correct the error on his own is an utter mystery. My assumption is that he has been told by ESPN not to say a thing about the story and his role in it, for fear of undoing ESPN's lucrative NFL broadcasting contract.
 

Bleedred

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txexile said:
 
The Mort tweet -- and his failure to own up to it -- is puzzling. It's not uncommon for a reporter to be burned by a source. Even if the source is wrong -- even maliciously wrong -- the reporter is obliged to protect the source. But there's no reason why a wronged reporter can't come forward and say "I can't share my source, but in retrospect what I published was incorrect. I know now that etc. etc. was what actually happened, and I regret the error." I know nothing about Mortensen but am predisposed to like him from his Twitter profile and the nice family photographs he uses. Why he doesn't correct the error on his own is an utter mystery. My assumption is that he has been told by ESPN not to say a thing about the story and his role in it, for fear of undoing ESPN's lucrative NFL broadcasting contract
Has anyone reached out to him via his email address or twitter account or whatever to ask him, why, now that it's demonstrably been shown to be false, he hasn't made a correction (not even an apology, but a correction)?
 

djbayko

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txexile said:
 
The Mort tweet -- and his failure to own up to it -- is puzzling. It's not uncommon for a reporter to be burned by a source. Even if the source is wrong -- even maliciously wrong -- the reporter is obliged to protect the source. But there's no reason why a wronged reporter can't come forward and say "I can't share my source, but in retrospect what I published was incorrect. I know now that etc. etc. was what actually happened, and I regret the error." I know nothing about Mortensen but am predisposed to like him from his Twitter profile and the nice family photographs he uses. Why he doesn't correct the error on his own is an utter mystery. My assumption is that he has been told by ESPN not to say a thing about the story and his role in it, for fear of undoing ESPN's lucrative NFL broadcasting contract.
Mortensen is part of the new wave of Twitter "journalism", except it's not not really journalism - it's gossip and innuendo. Applying real journalistic standards to this platform (or the number of platforms where the same shoddy standards have spread) means they will be woefully behind their peers. Sports journalists make dozens of assertions on Twitter every week - some prove to be true, some prove to be false, and many we'll never really know - but they almost never retract and/or apologize for them. To do so would be to set an awful precedent that they are practicing journalism online and force them to change their ways. Expecting him to do so for a tweet that is higher profile is probably foolish. A select few have put 2 + 2 together and realized Mort was used. Most people don't care, haven't noticed, or are willfully ignorant. There is very little upside from his perspective.

It's a sad state of affairs, and we should applaud the rare instances where journalists actually go out of their way to correct themselves.

As for why the NFL let this false rumor stay out there, I think we all know the reason for that.
 

txexile

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Bleedred said:
Has anyone reached out to him via his email address or twitter account or whatever to ask him, why, now that it's demonstrably been shown to be false, he hasn't made a correction (not even an apology, but a correction)?
 
Not sure about his email. He basically disappeared from Twitter, after the release of the Wells report when it became publicly known just how wrong Mortensen's information had been. He had been a very active tweeter, but after that May 6 date he would be missing for a week or two at a time. He would pop his head back up for a quick tweet, which resulted in a huge shitstorm directed his way by irate Patriots fans. Then he'd disappear again for a week, etc. I have seen no apology, correction or explanation from either him or ESPN since the May 6 Wells report.
 
Edit add: I remember the day Mortensen's 11 out of 12 tweet was published. I (a lifelong Patriots fan) was outraged at the team for screwing up so badly and was frankly considering washing my hands of them. So if his tweet affected the thinking of a fan so much, imagine how much it cemented into place the "Patriots guilty yet again" meme, which basically provided the winds that filled the sails of Goodell and the NFL investigators ever since.