quote:

Originally posted by Sportz Genius:
Funny how NE is already making excuses.

The only problem here is Goodell wants to sweep this under the rug as much as NE. He proved that by destroying the tapes NE already gave them. I don't understand why a third party isn't involved to keep a close eye on Goodell also.

Belicheck will soon be in the same boat as Clemens.

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Ex-Patriots Assistant Sends the N.F.L. Eight Tapes
By GREG BISHOP, New York Times
Published: May 8, 2008

A former New England Patriots employee has sent the N.F.L. eight videotapes showing the team recorded play-calling signals by coaches of five opponents in six games between the 2000 and 2002 seasons, in violation of league rules.

But the group of tapes does not include video of the St. Louis Rams’ walk-through practice the day before the 2002 Super Bowl. The employee, Matt Walsh, had been linked to such a tape by news media speculation.

Walsh emerged as a pivotal figure in the spying controversy that enveloped the Patriots last season after they were caught taping Jets defensive signals in the season opener.

Walsh, who worked for the Patriots from 1997 to 2003, agreed to turn over the tapes and other evidence by Thursday under an agreement reached last month between lawyers for the N.F.L. and Walsh. The agreement indemnifies Walsh from all future legal fees.

Walsh’s tapes show that the Patriots recorded the signals of offensive and defensive coaches in regular-season games against the Miami Dolphins, the Buffalo Bills, the Cleveland Browns and the San Diego Chargers and against the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 2002 American Football Conference championship game. In that game, the tape has been edited to show Steelers coaches signaling plays, followed by two different camera angles of the actual plays that were called.

The New York Times obtained a list of the Walsh videotapes. The information was later confirmed by Walsh’s lawyer, Michael Levy, from the Washington offices of McKee Nelson.

The N.F.L. declined to comment Wednesday evening because it did not have the tapes in its possession.

The Boston Herald reported the day before this year’s Super Bowl that a tape of the Rams existed, citing an anonymous source.

Walsh does not possess such a tape, Levy said.

“Mr. Walsh has never claimed to have a tape of the walk-through,” Levy said in a telephone interview. “Mr. Walsh has never been the source of any of the media speculation about such a tape. Mr. Walsh was not the source for the Feb. 2 Boston Herald article.”

On Tuesday, Walsh is scheduled to speak with Commissioner Roger Goodell and Senator Arlen Specter in separate meetings. Walsh could provide additional information at that time, including how the taping worked, how extensive it was, which Patriots employees were involved and the significance of the evidence he handed over.

The first tape is dated Sept. 25, 2000, from a game the previous day. The last is from Sept. 29 two years later. All the tapes are scheduled to arrive at N.F.L. offices Thursday morning.

Levy would not say whether Walsh was behind the camera on each tape, but confirmed that Walsh obtained the first seven tapes during his time in the Patriots’ video department, which ended after the 2002 Super Bowl.

The last tape, in September 2002 against the Chargers, was shot by someone else after Walsh left the video department for a job in the scouting department that ended in early 2003.

The Chargers tape shows raw footage, Levy said, of the San Diego coaches from the Patriots’ sideline, followed by a shot of the scoreboard showing time, down and distance. The tape contains no footage of actual plays during the game, only the sequence, which the Patriots could match to play tape.

The other seven tapes are more sophisticated. They show shots of the opposing coaches’ signals, followed immediately by a shot of the play, usually from the end zone camera, Levy said.

The tape from the A.F.C. championship game is the most extensive, showing two angles of each play.

Goodell has left open the possibility that additional evidence will lead to additional penalties against Coach Bill Belichick and the Patriots. After the Jets game, Goodell levied a total of $750,000 in fines and docked the Patriots a first-round draft pick.

After this year’s Super Bowl, Goodell met with Specter and revealed for the first time that Belichick’s illegal signal filming dated to the beginning of his tenure with the Patriots, in 2000. Some accounts said Belichick admitted to taping defensive signals, others just signals in general.

At the Super Bowl, Goodell said of the Patriots’ practice of taping, “I don’t think it taints their accomplishments.”

Under Belichick, the Patriots rose from one of the league’s middling teams to its best, winning three Super Bowls in four seasons. Last season, they went undefeated until losing to the Giants in the Super Bowl.

Based on a win-loss tally from games after the ones on tapes provided by Walsh, the Patriots went 9-6 against the Dolphins after the first taping. They also went 12-1 against the Bills, 3-0 against the Browns, 4-1 against the Steelers and 3-1 against the Chargers. This included three victories and no defeats in the playoffs.

“We consider the tapes of our coaching staff during our games against the New England Patriots to be a nonissue,” the Steelers chairman Dan Rooney said in a statement released in February.

Telephone messages to the five teams left Wednesday night were not returned.

Since Belichick’s first season in New England, when the Patriots finished 5-11 in 2000, they have gone 86-26 in the regular season, a .768 winning percentage. It remains unclear whether the league will make the tapes public. During the initial investigation into the Patriots, the league accepted seven tapes gathered by the team, dating to 2006, while collecting a written promise that it possessed no more. The N.F.L. destroyed the tapes that the Patriots turned over.

Under the indemnity agreement, Walsh’s lawyer gets to keep one copy of each tape, but cannot release it without the league’s consent.

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Originally posted by gianmarco:
Surprise, surprise...no Rams walk-through. He turned over all the stuff that the Pats have already admitted to. Fascinating.

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Originally posted by ravage:
Despite all the "what ifs" I talked about before, and I think they were viable scenarios at the time, this certainly sounds like nothing more than what the Pats already admitted too. To tell the truth I'm glad it's nothing more than that.

Walsh tried to play big man and now will look like an idiot. Of course, there is the possibility that he got paid to not hand over certain items. Hey, it's possible.

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Originally posted by ravage:
Agreed, although I don't believe it. Walsh looks like a fool this way. He would a much bigger sway if he had something worth giving. The thing that will hold most people up is that he had nothing so why did he want this guarantee from the NFL? Easy, he didn't want to give up the nothing he had after shooting his mouth off.

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Originally posted by ravage:
Agreed, although I don't believe it. Walsh looks like a fool this way. He would a much bigger sway if he had something worth giving. The thing that will hold most people up is that he had nothing so why did he want this guarantee from the NFL? Easy, he didn't want to give up the nothing he had after shooting his mouth off.

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Originally posted by gianmarco:

quote:

Originally posted by ravage:
Agreed, although I don't believe it. Walsh looks like a fool this way. He would a much bigger sway if he had something worth giving. The thing that will hold most people up is that he had nothing so why did he want this guarantee from the NFL? Easy, he didn't want to give up the nothing he had after shooting his mouth off.

He needed the guarantee because those tapes are stolen property. He had no business keeping those and speaks to his credibility that he would steal something like this back in 2002 even before all the Pat's recent success. To some he's been "hiding something big", but to me, he's been out looking for attention and money from the start. Why else would he keep these tapes back from 2002 when he was fired only to bring them to light 5 yrs later? Think he just enjoyed watching them with his family on Saturday nights?

quote:

Originally posted by ravage:

quote:

Originally posted by gianmarco:

quote:

Originally posted by ravage:
Agreed, although I don't believe it. Walsh looks like a fool this way. He would a much bigger sway if he had something worth giving. The thing that will hold most people up is that he had nothing so why did he want this guarantee from the NFL? Easy, he didn't want to give up the nothing he had after shooting his mouth off.

He needed the guarantee because those tapes are stolen property. He had no business keeping those and speaks to his credibility that he would steal something like this back in 2002 even before all the Pat's recent success. To some he's been "hiding something big", but to me, he's been out looking for attention and money from the start. Why else would he keep these tapes back from 2002 when he was fired only to bring them to light 5 yrs later? Think he just enjoyed watching them with his family on Saturday nights?

Technically I guess the tapes themselves were stolen propety. He had no confidentiality agreement with the Pats so a couple of stolen tapes wouldn't be worth much as far as a fine goes. It's barely petty theft. So that theory really doesn't fly any better than an ostrich.

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Heh, not only is it possible, I guarantee a few members here a SG will be certain that occurred. Always the conspiracy, always the coverup. Of course, this viewpoint will be considered naive. Oh well.

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Originally posted by Sportz Genius:
And skip goes with the "everyones done it so who cares" theory.

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Originally posted by Sportz Genius:
Gian has taken what's written in the press as gospel and has closed the book.