The New York Times really struck a nerve with the NFL.
The NFL was angry at the Times story that linked the league to the tobacco industry ("N.F.L.’s Flawed Concussion Research and Ties to Tobacco Industry," published online on March 24), taking the rare step of publishing a two-part rebuttal that was more than 3,000 words in total. Then this week it had a law firm send a letter to The Times demanding a retraction, claiming the story defamed the NFL. Politico published the letter sent from the law firm to the NFL.
And New England Patriots fans will love this part: The law firm that sent the retraction letter on behalf of the NFL is Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison. Sound familiar? It might, because "independent" deflate-gate investigator Ted Wells is a partner in that firm.
There were two key parts to that Times story, which centered around the long-running concussion controversy. One was that the NFL used flawed concussion research from 1996 through 2001, omitting more than 100 concussions in its findings. The league said in its counterpoints that its studies "never claimed to be based on every concussion that was reported or that occurred." The letter to The Times claims that newspaper was falsely implying there was a "secret and nefarious plot" to repress relevant data, when there's no evidence to support that.
The other important part of The Times' story was the supposed connection to the tobacco industry, and that is what seemed to draw most of the NFL's ire. The letter said The Times never showed a meaningful tie between the NFL and the tobacco industry, though the NFL says The Times "through innuendo and a small handful of transparently meaningless 'connections,'" insinuated that the league took its strategy in addressing the health risks of concussions from "Big Tobacco."
(There's also some irony here: The letter from the law firm claims that The Times showed no direct evidence to the Big Tobacco link, just a "grand total of five pieces of circumstantial evidence, none of which—taken together or individually—comes close to establishing any meaningful 'tie' that reasonably can form the basis of the Times's knowingly false and incendiary charge" ... which is basically what every critic of Wells' investigation of deflate-gate has said repeatedly about his findings and conclusions against the Patriots and Tom Brady.)
The letter also includes this: "We also request that the Times's reporters and editors who worked on this story preserve their notes, correspondence, emails, recordings and work papers and all other electronic and hard copy documents generated or received in connection with their work." That seems to be threatening legal action if there's no retraction. Times sports editor Jason Stallman told Politico that he sees "no reason to retract anything."
The NFL rarely lashes out in this manner against negative stories about the league. This type of public battle seems to be unprecedented from the NFL. And it doesn't seem like it's over, either.
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