ESPN Changes Michael Vick Report After NFL Tweets About It

On Thursday afternoon, ESPN reported that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell would reinstate the suspended former Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, and that if a team signed Vick, he would then be suspended for his first four regular-season games.

That came as news to the NFL, which went on Twitter to dispute the report.

Greg Aiello, the spokesman for the league, posted this on Twitter Thursday evening: "Despite what ESPN says, commish has made no decisions on MVick." Other NFL employees then re-tweeted Aiello's tweet.

ESPN's Chris Mortensen had previously tweeted that a three-hour meeting between Goodell and Vick would lead to a conditional reinstatement and a four-game suspension after training camp if Vick could sign with a team. But when Mortensen saw the NFL PR staff's tweets, he responded, "Despite what anyone says, ESPN did not report a decision has been made, based on what I just read on dot.com."

But then Mortensen went to ESPN.com and tweeted again: "I take that back. After this 12-hr drive, I just read the espn.com story and the lead is erroneous. Guess I can't get to bed yet."

After that tweet, ESPN changed its report, and the story that's currently posted at ESPN.com says only that "Goodell may be close to reaching a decision" and that a reinstatement "could also include a four-game suspension."

So two days after sitting on a story about a star quarterback that everyone else was reporting, ESPN rushed into a story about a star quarterback without getting all its facts straight. As Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk noted, ESPN has had a very bad week.