Mystery Deepens as NFL Remains Silent on Controversial Patriots Schedule Video Featuring Dave Portnoy

It’s wild how the NFL and Dave Portnoy, a pair that hardly saw eye to eye for over a decade, are now unexpectedly sharing the spotlight—right in the middle of a schedule drop no less. Just days after the ten-year mark of Portnoy’s infamous sit-in at the league’s lobby protesting the whole Tom Brady #Deflategate saga—a stunt that landed him in handcuffs and subsequently barred him and his Barstool crew from NFL happenings—Portnoy flips the script by unveiling the Patriots’ 2025 schedule with all the theatrical flair of an “emergency press conference.” Talk about irony. Remember that clown-nose Goodell tee Portnoy made? Yeah, he didn’t let that one slide, throwing shade even as the league remained silent this time around. The saga’s twists and turns, from ejections at Super Bowl LIII to mentions in Congressional hearings, make you wonder if the NFL is finally softening or just playing the long game of strategic ignorance. Either way, the dance between Barstool’s chief agitator and the league’s brass is far from over, and it’s as intriguing as it gets. LEARN MORE

The schedule release makes for strange bedfellows.Three years later, the Portnoy complaint made its way to Goodell’s Congressional testimony regarding workplace issues with the Commanders organization. Goodell claimed to have no knowledge of the issue.Only two days after the 10-year anniversary of Portnoy’s arrest for staging a sit-in at the lobby of the league office in protest of the Tom Brady #Deflategate suspension, Portnoy presented the Patriots’ 2025 schedule as an “emergency press conference.”Now, the league has no comment on Portnoy’s presence in the Patriots’ video. Even though Portnoy makes direct reference to the Goodell clown-nose shirt during his comments.The arrest resulted in a banishment of Portnoy and other Barstool personalities from league events. Portnoy commissioned a popular T-shirt featuring Commissioner Roger Goodell in a clown nose. Four years later, Portnoy was physically ejected from Super Bowl LIII in Atlanta.

For the NFL and Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, they’ve apparently found common ground after more than a decade of hostility.It remains to be seen whether this ends the league’s ban on Barstool. Based on Goodell’s 2022 comment and the league declining comment after the Patriots’ video, it looks like the league is declaring ignorance and retreating.