Roger Goodell held a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, during which he danced around a bunch of questions and basically answered nothing. There was no better example of that than when he was asked about the false report that kicked off Deflategate back in January.
Ben Volin of The Boston Globe noted that the NFL has always made an effort to correct inaccurate reports, yet no one from the league office said anything after ESPN’s Chris Mortensen falsely reported that 11 of the 12 balls the New England Patriots used against the Indianapolis Colts were two pounds underinflated.
Why was that, Roger?
I asked Goodell why the NFL didn't correct the ESPN report from January. Here's his answer. Can you make sense of it? pic.twitter.com/IhVxt0JFdR
— Ben Volin (@BenVolin) August 11, 2015
If you want a lesson on how to spew nonsense instead of answering a question, that’s a good place to start.
Goodell didn’t need Wells’ investigation to tell him that the Patriots’ balls were not two pounds underinflated. How do you think Wells gathered the exact measurements of the balls? He and his investigation team got the measurements from the league, obviously. The NFL had ample opportunity to correct Mortensen’s report. It didn’t matter that a so-called “independent investigation” was underway.
Goodell’s excuse for not correcting the report is almost as lame as Mortensen’s. In reality, the league probably chose not to correct the report because their own officials were spreading bad information about the inflation level of balls.
The more we learn and the more blatant lies we hear from Goodell, the more it becomes obvious that the NFL worked backwards from a predetermined outcome.
