Youkilis vs Wild said:
Fair enough on Point A. But I still have a VERY hard time believing ESPN just decided to throw together a 50-source, 11,000 word story over Labor Day weekend. That's just not how this stuff works. I think they had it planned for the NFL opener, which features the Patriots fresh off what most of the country, rightly or wrongly, considers a cheating scandal.
You know that articles get killed all the time, right? Just because you have an 11,000-word story doesn't mean that the magazine or cable channel will run with it.
If the Pats lost the Deflategate thing, there is no story today. If the Pats played ball with the NFL, there is no story today. I don't like to immerse myself in conspiracy theories, but people (mostly Mike Felger) have been saying that the NFL had an ace up its sleeve and that the Pats should be careful about fighting Deflategate too hard. Well, here's your ace, Kenny Rogers.
So while the careful reader will deduce that this story really is more NFL incompetence, the NFL is betting that more people will see the headlines and scream "Durrrrr Cheatriots! Durrrr." and the NFL will win another news cycle (after getting its ass trounced in previous cycles).
And, you have to give it to the NFL, they understand that the majority of their fans are complete, fucking morons.