Roger Goodell Resurrects NFL's Lie About PSI Data Collection In 2015, Dodges DeflateGate Question
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- Seemingly out of nowhere, DeflateGate was thrust back into the national spotlight this week.
Mike Florio released a news nugget from his new book, reporting that NFL general counsel and executive vice president Jeff Pash ordered the destruction of PSI data collected from random games around the league during the 2015 NFL season. Florio also reported that NFL executive vice president of game operations Troy Vincent leaked the false "11 of 12" report to ESPN's Chris Mortensen.
The topic, then, naturally was brought up during Roger Goodell's annual Super Bowl week press conference, which took place on Wednesday outside of SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. Goodell was vaguely asked for a comment about the report, and the commissioner chose to resurrect a lie that he and the NFL constructed years ago to explain the lack of publicly available data.
"[It's been] a long time since I've thought about DeflateGate, other than maybe your last question last year, I don't know," Goodell began. "But we were very clear that we were going to do spot checks to make sure that people were following the policies. That is something that we were fully engaged in. And I don't know what happened to the data, to be honest with you. We don't look back at that. We just make sure there's no violations -- that's the purpose of the spot checks. Are there violations? And if there are violations, we need to look into it. But thankfully, we did not see any."
Despite Goodell's insistence, the words simply aren't true.
In 2015, the NFL essentially chose to not believe in basic science, instead believing that the words of the brightest scientific minds in this nation were not telling the truth about the effects of temperature on the air pressure in footballs. So, the league set out to select "random" games in the 2015 season, with the officials recording the PSI numbers before the game and at halftime, with backup balls being used for the second half, and with the officials recording those PSI numbers after the game as well. The officials would then submit those numbers to the league office.
Unlike what Goodell said in 2016 and again on Wednesday, all of this is factual. As a matter of fact, the instructions for the procedure still live on the NFL's official operations page. (For now, at least.) They clearly state that the league would be recording the data.
"All game ball information will be recorded on the Referee's Report, which must be submitted to the League office by noon on the day following the game," the list says.
Not once in the 540-word instructions do the words "spot" or "check" appear. Variations of the word "record" and "measure" appeared seven times, as recording the PSI numbers was the main focus of the undertaking. The only thing being submitted to the league office was a report with the actual PSI numbers that were recorded.
Yet after the 2015 story, the league changed its story, instead claiming that the measurements were merely taken to be "spot checks" to show that the chain of custody of the balls was never broken. And because the officials never lost the footballs -- like they did the night of the 2014 AFC Championship Game in Foxboro, the night that DeflateGate was born -- the league tried to push the idea that the "experiment" in 2015 was successful.
Once that data collected in the 2015 season confirmed that yes, science does indeed govern our natural world, the NFL changed course, inserting the word "spot checks" into the equation and attempting to gaslight everyone by saying that was the plan all along.
Both Goodell and Vincent pushed the false "spot check" narrative in 2016, and Goodell brought it back on Wednesday.
The second part of the question posed by The Boston Globe's Ben Volin on Wednesday had to do with the commissioner's feelings on whether or not Tom Brady, the Patriots, and their fans "deserve" to see the results of the PSI measurements from 2015. Goodell didn't answer that question, which of course answered the question.
For anyone who thought the latest round of reporting from Florio might bring about some admission of guilt from the NFL for its many, many instances of deceitfulness during the entire DeflateGate escapade, Goodell shut that fantasy down rather quickly. The commissioner instinctively went into autopilot, which involves stacking lies and denial on top of lies and denial. That will always be the league's final stance on the matter, no matter how much time passes.