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Peter King Admits Mistake In Goodell Quote

ARLINGTON, Texas (KDKA) -- Sports Illustrated writer Peter King answered a lot of questions about a story where he quoted Roger Goodell talking about Ben Roethlisberger.

King admitted he made a big mistake.

In the piece, King wrote that during an interview on Jan. 7, no Steelers came to Ben's defense when Goodell was looking for input from players before he rendered a decision on discipline.

"Well, I got kind of hit with that one yesterday – that question – and I had no idea where it came from or any of that stuff, so I kind of was unaware of anything and then obviously it got built up real big yesterday.

"I don't really read a lot or any newspapers or magazine articles or watch too much TV sports things, so I don't get to see a lot of those things," Roethlisberger said Tuesday at Media Day.

As for Peter King, he spent the morning doing his national radio talk show and when it was done, he spoke to KDKA's Bob Pompeani about his report which he says was a big mistake on his part.

"We had talked about a lot of the players he disciplined and when we talked about Roethlisberger, one of the things he said is, 'I bet I talked to two dozen players,' prior to making his disciplinary decision on Roethlisberger and he didn't get support from any of the players.

"And the question that I had asked him before that had the word 'Steelers' in it. So, I assumed that he meant Steelers. Clearly he didn't say the word, 'Steelers' and so when I did the note in my column, in Monday Morning Quarterback, on Monday, I inserted the parenthetical 'Steelers' which I shouldn't have done.

"It's my mistake. I own up to it. It's a big error and I apologize," King explained.

King said he also wants to apologize to Roethlisberger in person for the mistake.

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