Live EventThe Unnamed Show With Dave Portnoy, Kirk Minihane, Ryan Whitney - Episode 35Watch Now
Stella Blue Coffee Golden Mug Giveaway | Enter to Win One of 10 PS5s LEARN MORE

Bob 'Father of Deflategate' Kravitz Still Refuses to Admit He Was Wrong

While Chris Mortensen is typically given credit for being the one who brought the clownshow that became Deflategate into the public eye with his infamous Tweet:

… the ace reporter who actually broke the story was Bob Kravitz, then of WTHR in Indianapolis. Mortensen gets all the accolades for taking the fiction invented by the NFL's criminal mastermind Mike Kensil and getting this great national goatfuck started. But in truth, he was just the Thomas Edison to Kravitz' Nikola Tesla. 

So it's interesting that Kravitz would revisit his diabolical invention after all this time. Now that he's seen "Four Games in Fall," the Deflategate documentary. Which sets the record straight as far as how the NFL, NFL-friendly media and junk-science-for-hire firms manipulated the public on the whole sordid mess. Thanks to interviews with legal experts, media experts, actual physicists and one boyishly handsome Deflategate expert in an Irish pub:

After seeing the truth laid out for him, like this, even after Kravitz has had the veil removed from his lyin' eyes, he's still clinging to his disproven beliefs.

Source (paywall) - Her name is Julie Marron and she’s the director of a recent documentary called “Four Games in Fall.” It’s about Deflategate. …

I know something about Deflategate.

I broke the stupid story.

But given my involvement, I wanted to speak to Marron, whose compelling documentary makes a strong case that the Deflategate science was flawed, that Exponent, the company hired to investigate the science, was basically a science-for-hire, doubt-science operation and that the NFL’s investigation was deeply flawed as well. …

I began wondering in earnest: Could I have been wrong about Deflategate, the scandal/fiasco that seized the American sporting consciousness for nearly a year and resulted in Tom Brady’s four-game suspension and other Patriots-related penalties? …

In the months to come, I made some mistakes, but reporting the existence of the investigation wasn’t one of them. …

It may very well be that science was flawed. We tend to believe whatever science confirms our currently-held bias. If you believed they were innocent, you seized upon the MIT study. If you believed they were dirty, you found evidence in another scientific study from another researcher from an equally august university. Clearly, the investigation was a mess. Clearly, Exponent, while it does some good work and has noted scientists on its payroll, does have a reputation as a science-for-hire outfit, like so many are. …

Six years later, I am trying to maintain an open mind. The documentary is fascinating and, if you’re interested, it’s available on Amazon, Google, YouTube and iTunes.

Was I wrong to think that something happened?

I don’t think I was….

While it’s not provable, I believe something untoward occurred in the minutes before the Patriots-Colts game.

Holy moly. I wish Kravitz had mentioned the stellar performance of the dreamy bohunk sitting behind the beer, but I don't want to distract from the larger point that these Deflategate Truthers still can't accept how wrong they were even when legal scholars, public relations experts and our leading scientists beat them over the head with the facts. They'd still rather cast their lot with the insipid evil of Roger Goodell and his minions. Over something that can be debunked by a 6th grade science fair project. Even after the NFL has spent the last six years not talking about the air pressure in footballs, when back then it was the most important issue in the world. Even after Brady has continued to win and set records, despite not being able to scooch some air out of the heavily guarded balls.

At least in Kravitz' case, I can kind of see it. Deflategate is the baby that came down his birth canal. It's part of his persona. And at some point the Backfire Effect kicks in. What sociologists call Identity Protective Cognition. Where something that you consider part of who you are as a person gets proven to be objectively false, you resist believing it because it will mean admitting you're a fraud. And I wish I could talk to him about it, but like so many other New Englanders:

So he has an excuse. Sort of. The question remains though why anyone who didn't create this nonsense just to help Ginger Satan carry out a vendetta against the Patriots would still go around believing it was real.