Six months after the NFL apparently leaked false information to Chris Mortensen of ESPN regarding the PSI readings for 11 of 12 Patriots footballs used in the AFC title game, the NFL expertly leaked true information to Stephen A. Smith of ESPN regarding the allegation that Patriots quarterback Tom Brady “destroyed his cellphone.”
Smith broke the news (sort of) four hours before the Brady ruling was issued, priming the pump for the headline that the NFL wanted the court of public opinion to be repeating like a sitcom catch phrase: “Tom Brady destroyed his cellphone.”
Via Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News, Smith was strident about those who doubted his less-than-unequivocal claim that he was “hearing” Brady destroyed his cellphone.
“This idiocy,” Smith said on his SiriusXM Mad Dog Sports Radio show. “Sometimes folks are just hard to take. And by the way, don’t bother calling me up about these so-called colleagues of mine. Colleagues who want to talk about me like a dog, questioning my knowledge of what I reported.”
Raissman quoted the explanation from MDS regarding the difference between someone from ESPN’s army of NFL insiders “reporting” that the NFL will contend the cellphone was destroyed and paid opinion factory Stephen A. Smith offering up a wishy-way, less-than-forceful claim that the phone was destroyed: “If ESPN’s respected veteran NFL reporters say they’re ‘hearing’ what Goodell is ‘likely’ to do, we can reasonably surmise that they’re ‘hearing’ it from well-placed sources within the league office. Even if such a report turned out to be wrong, if it came from a respected reporter it was probably based on contact with sources who are in a position to know what they’re talking about. When it comes from Smith, it doesn’t mean anything.”
“I will say this: I have no problem with some idiot blogger speaking against me or whatever,” Stephen A. Smith said. “They are trying to create headlines, trying to create hits for a website. But I do have a problem with folks who are supposed to be colleagues and contemporaries in this industry who understand the nuances of what surrounds this industry.”
We definitely understand the nuances. In this case, the nuance lost on Stephen A. Smith is that the league office specifically selected him as the guy best suited to blaze a Tuesday morning trial for the mantra that the NFL wanted everyone to be repeating at that night’s dinner table: “Tom Brady destroyed his cellphone.”
Smith wasn’t wrong in what he said. He was wrong to hedge by saying things like “I’m hearing” and “I don’t know.” And he’s wrong not to realize that, in the same way someone from the league office used Chris Mortensen to spread the false notion that 11 of 12 Patriots footballs were 2.0 pounds under the PSI minimum at halftime of the AFC title game, someone from the league office used Stephen A. Smith to introduce to an unsuspecting public the best-kept secret in the NFL from June 18 through July 28: “Tom Brady destroyed his cellphone.”
And so instead of reacting to the press release declaring that “Tom Brady destroyed his cellphone” by saying, “What the hell is this all about?” the prevailing reaction was, “Damn. Stephen A. Smith was right. Tom Brady destroyed his cellphone.”
