Patriots release emails between NFL and team to 'correct misinformation'
The ongoing "Deflategate" battle between the New England Patriots and the NFL continues.
The Patriots have now released emails between the team and league pertaining to the misreported information about the AFC Championship balls that circulated in January and February.
NFL has found that 11 of the Patriots footballs used in Sunday’s AFC title game were under-inflated by 2 lbs each, per league sources.
— Chris Mortensen (@mortreport) January 21, 2015
The emails, posted to a website created in response to the Wells Report, were "presented to illustrate the attempts by the Patriots to ask the NFL to correct initial misinformation being reported by the media and to investigate sources of such misinformation, which could only have been league personnel."
The Patriots were furious that the NFL refused to correct a report stating incorrect psi levels in the footballs, and another ESPN story that falsely claimed the Patriots tried to introduce an unapproved kicking ball into the AFC Championship. All of the reports cited league sources, which the Patriots interpreted as leaks from the league office.
This is a fairly strong stance for the Patriots to take, escalating an already acrimonious situation. As the emails show, there was a lot of tension between Patriots general counsel Robyn Glaser and NFL general counsel Jeff Pash.
In one exchange, Glaser called Pash's response to the Patriots request for correction "pretty disingenious," with Pash responding that Glaser's tone was "personal and accusatory."