ESPN apologizes for Patriots report – not the one that matters

National Football League commissioner Roger Goodell said in 2008 that he found no evidence of the video taping and the Herald later retracted the story as false.

During a late-night (or, depending on how you view it, early-morning) edition of SportsCenter on Thursday, ESPN apologized to the New England Patriots.

Spygate has been brought up in recent weeks as part of discussions about DeflateGate.

The term Spygate spawned from the Patriots filming the Jets’ defensive signals from the sideline during the first game of the 2007 NFL season.

PFT noted that the network cited a report by the Boston Herald (via the Boston Globe), regarding the team videotaping the St. Louis Rams final walk-through practice as factual. The Herald apologized for the story in 2008 after it was proven no such tape existed.

I then scrolled through the corrections page to see specifically where ESPN.com corrected its report from Chris Mortensen that 11 of 12 Patriots footballs were measured at two pounds under the minimum during halftime of the AFC title game.

At about 12:20 a.m. ET on Thursday, ESPN anchorman Steve Levy took a few seconds to offer an apology to the Patriots organization for SportsCenter citing an incorrect report.

“The Boston Herald regrets the damage done to the team by publication of the allegation, and sincerely apologizes to its readers and to the New England Patriots’ owners, players, employees and fans for our error”. “People believed that the Patriots filmed the Rams walkthrough, and that was that”, CBS News explained. The paper admitted three months later the report was inaccurate and apologized for publishing it. The paper ran a front-page headline which said “Sorry, Pats”.

Speaking of things buried in obscure locations, the apology appears nowhere that we can find it on the front page of ESPN.com or the ESPN.com NFL home page or the ESPN.com Patriots page.