It’s unlikely that ESPN’s Chris Mortensen was going to out the source(s) of the blatantly false report from January that 11 of 12 Patriots footballs were a full two pounds under the 12.5 PSI minimum during a Friday appearance on WEEI. (That likelihood became even smaller once Mortensen canceled.)
John Dennis of WEEI reports, via Tom Curran of CSNNE.com, that one of Mortensen’s “main sources” for the false report was NFL V.P. of game operations Mike Kensil.
Curran reported more than six months ago that Kensil, a former Jets employee whose father once was the team’s president, was the “driving force” behind the investigation.
During a Thursday appearance on WEEI, Adam Schefter of ESPN seemed to suggest that Mortensen had multiple sources. Regardless of the total number, the information was false — and the report caused #DeflateGate to morph from a curiosity to, eventually, a federal case.
Before it became a federal case, it became a supposedly independent investigation. However independent the investigation was (or wasn’t), it wasn’t sufficiently independent to prompt Ted Wells to turn the focus back against the league for its potentially dissemination of false information to ESPN — and for its failure to immediately correct the information.