“Tom’s balls are perfect” an iconic poster read just days after ball-tampering allegations surfaced against Tom Brady and the New England Patriots. The infamous deflategate scandal shook the NFL and cost the team a million dollars and a first-round pick in the subsequent year’s draft.
Owing to the magnitude of the news, journalists wasted no time in reporting the incident, Peter King , a reputed NFL reporter was one of them, he wrote a detailed column on the league’s investigations into the Patriots’ wrongdoings. But it eventually turned out that the claims made by King in his piece were far from the truth and he was heavily criticized for the same.
Now that Peter King has decided to put his pen down after over four decades of reporting the game, he had to make it crystal clear that his reporting of the deflategate scandal remains his biggest regret to date. Appearing on the Maggie & Perloff show, he had this to say:
I called two people who I was sure would know exactly what happened. And they both confirmed the ESPN story, and so I wrote it, talked about it, and it turns out I was wrong. Peter King said
What had happened was after ESPN broke out the story regarding the results of the investigation of the scandal, King reached out to two of his trusted sources.
Peter King received a lot of criticism from fans and Patriots owner Robert Kraft for his erroneous reporting
Peter King’s sources had confirmed ESPN’s report. The journalist claimed that Tom Brady had been using deflated footballs for the last decade as his equipment guys had control over the balls during home games. But the claims were wrong, a Wells Report confirmed that just one ball out of the 22 readings taken failed to meet the NFL’s inflation requirements.
Naturally, Peter King’s credibility took a massive hit. He began to suffer the wrath of Boston fans. But to his credit, he took accountability for this and then proceeded to tender his resignation to Sports Illustrated. While the outlet did not accept it, King could not help but feel shame over the incident.
King told Maggie & Perloff:
That brought me a lot of shame. It doesn't matter who I talked to. It doesn't matter who told me anything. It's my rear end on the line when I say something, when I confirm a story. And I was wrong. And that is something that will haunt me, really. It bothers me, literally bothers me to this day. Peter King said
Robert Kraft criticized King over this incident as well. That error did not mark the end of his professional career. He moved on to NBC after a while and started Football Morning in America. The journalist is happy to have had a fruitful career and more importantly to have been a “long-termer in an increasingly short-term business”. He will go down as one of the best to do it and hopefully, he will make the most out of his retirement because he deserves it.
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