Ryan Lochte to Matt Lauer: "I Let My Team Down"

Ryan Lochte hired a PR consultant used in crises by Justin Bieber, Alec Baldwin, and Manti Te’o among others. He gave another interview to NBC’s Matt Lauer. In the teaser he appears penitent and tearful and claims he “let his team down.” Full interview to come Monday, because it’s NBC.

It’s not clear yet whether this interview will help. Lochte’s detractors may not be satisfied with anything less than spending the next four years wearing a hair shirt and maintaining a rigorous self-flagellation regimen.

Brazilian Police are surely pleased the story has fixated on mild exaggerations from a still intoxicated, sleep deprived, and non PR-consulted Ryan Lochte instead of Rio gas stations employing rent-a-cops to extort money from prominent American athletes (over a trifling amount of damage if any).

But, yes, the true crime was taking what presumes was his scheduled flight home before he had any reason to suspect that would be problematic.