After more than a week of complete silence -- and several weeks of deliberation -- former in-house Jets sideline reporter Jenn Sterger has met with the NFL in connection with its investigation of Vikings quarterback Brett Favre into voice messages and photos he allegedly sent Sterger in 2008, when he played for the Jets.
Dan Mangan of the New York Post reports that the meeting occurred on Thursday.
Sterger met for several hours with Milt Ahlerich, the league’s top security official. Another investigator attended the meeting, as did Sterger’s lawyer, Joseph Conway, and her manager, Phil Reese.
“We can confirm that a meeting took place with the NFL today and we cooperated fully by providing them with substantial materials in our possession,” Reese said. “We now await the NFL’s decision.”
That last line from Reese is a little odd, frankly. Why does he or Sterger care about the “NFL’s decision”? She did nothing to complain about the situation. Instead, a case of loose lips landed the situation on Deadspin.com. After someone supplied the photos and audio, Sterger’s people (in our view) spent weeks trying to get Favre to offer a settlement -- and buy Sterger’s silence -- without having to demand payment for the same.
Though Mangan speculates that the meeting “greatly ratchets up the chances that Favre will [be] disciplined by the league,” we’re not so sure about that. Among other things, Sterger will have had to explain away the information that her former friend, Alison Torres, shared with the league.
Torres contends that Favre and Sterger regularly exchanged text messages, and Torres has strongly suggested that Sterger collects photos like the ones Favre allegedly sent her.
“She could make millions if she ever cashed in on all the naked photos she gets from friends,” Torres told Steppin’ Out magazine last month.
Mangan co-authored an item for the Post regarding Torres’ comments, which tend to undermine Sterger’s claims. Amazingly, Mangan’s item regarding the meeting says nothing at all about the things Torres said.
We don’t know how this will all play out. But how can Mangan suggest that Sterger’s cooperation “greatly ratchets up” the prospects of discipline without at least mentioning his own article from last month?