Maybe 11 of the 12 calls were apologies.
Patriots team president Jonathan Kraft said during an interview tonight on 98.5 The Sports Hub that while he’s not mad at Chris Mortensen, that he never apologized to the ESPN star reporter though Mortensen said he did.
“I think that throughout the whole situation that transpired, a lot of respected reporters have received information that was false and really could have only been leaked by the league,” Kraft said during the team’s pregame show. “And in the ordinary course we’ve talked to some of those reporters and we told them that we don’t blame them for the misinformation. We blame their sources for using them.”
While Mortensen said earlier this week the Kraft and his father had apologized, the son made it clear that didn’t happen. But rather than banging on Mortensen himself, Kraft reiterated their anger was with the league for not correcting the erroneous reports that 11 of the 12 balls used in the AFC Championship Game were significantly deflated.
“Still, it hasn’t been corrected publicly. I think when the Wells report came out, some of those details were made public,” Kraft said. “We’ve still never gotten an explanation from the league why the erroneous reports weren’t corrected. And I think the sources for the misinformation are the only ones who should be apologizing to the reporters. We haven’t, and we really have no need to.”
So while Mortensen’s version of the apology may not square with Kraft’s version of events, the salient point remains that Mort should not be the focus of this situation — the league officials who fed him the bad information should be.