NFL: New England Patriots deny filming team signals in games, Commissioner Goodell under fire
JUST as the ‘Deflategate’ scandal came to an end, the New England Patriots are under fire again after a damning new report.
SPYGATE has reared its ugly head again.
An explosive ESPN report claims the Patriots recorded signals from at least 40 games, much more than their coach Bill Belichick and commissioner Roger Goodell had previously led the public to believe. The report details a pattern of cheating that was spearheaded by Belichick, executed by the organisation’s mystery man, Ernie Adams, and covered up by the league and Goodell.
NFL owners were outraged at the kid gloves Goodell used to handle the scandal when it broke in 2007, and that set the stage for his combative — and ultimately failed — attempt to nail quarterback Tom Brady with a four-game Deflategate suspension this year.
“Goodell didn’t want anybody to know that his gold franchise had won Super Bowls by cheating. If that gets out, that hurts your business,” a senior executive whose team lost to the Patriots in a Super Bowl told investigative reporters from ESPN’s “Outside the Lines.”
Belichick kept the tapes and handwritten diagrams in a secret library that few inside the Patriots organisation had access to. When discovered by NFL officials, the tapes were crushed and documents shredded on Goodell’s orders. How much Spygate helped the Patriots is disputed throughout the article, but the recordings — no matter how many there were — were made during a stretch when the Patriots rose to the top of the league in the early 2000s, winning three Super Bowls in a four-year stretch.
A 30-minute conversation between Goodell and Belichick took place on Sept. 12, 2007. A day later, Goodell handed down a $500,000 fine for Belichick, a $250,000 fine for the organisation and the loss of their 2008 first-round draft pick.
An ESPN source with first-hand knowledge of the investigation summed it up: “Goodell didn’t want to know how many games were taped and Belichick didn’t want to tell him.”
Goodell would say before the Super Bowl later that season that he believed the Patriots had six tapes and the recordings were “quite limited.” Such statements were difficult to question given that the evidence had been destroyed.
Anonymous Patriots coaches and employees told the website the Patriots’ cheating went beyond recording opponents. Low-level staffers were ordered to sneak into opponents’ locker rooms and hotel rooms to steal play calls, playbooks and scouting reports. Teams were so wary of the Patriots’ ways, they would have dummy sheets of scripted calls to throw them off.
Former Jets coach Eric Mangini famously blew the whistle on Belichick and his former team after the season opener in 2007, won by New England, 38-14. Mangini and then-Jets GM Mike Tannenbaum had warned the Patriots, according to the report, yet the Patriots recorded the Jets’ signals anyway.
“He’s pissing in my face,” Mangini, who rose under Belichick’s tutelage with the Browns and Patriots, allegedly told a confidant.
And it’s that flagrant attitude that explains why many owners were behind Goodell’s aggressive Deflategate approach.
It was “time for a makeup call,” one owner told ESPN.
The Patriots swiftly responded to the network’s report Tuesday morning.
“The New England Patriots have never filmed or recorded another team’s practice or walk-through,” the statement reads. “The first time we ever heard of such an accusation came in 2008, the day before Super Bowl XLII, when the Boston Herald reported an allegation from a disgruntled former employee. That report created a media firestorm that extended globally and was discussed incessantly for months. It took four months before that newspaper retracted its story and offered the team a front and back page apology for the damage done.
“Clearly, the damage has been irreparable. As recently as last month, over seven years after the retraction and apology was issued, ESPN issued the following apology to the Patriots for continuing to perpetuate the myth: ‘On two occasions in recent weeks, SportsCenter incorrectly cited a 2002 report regarding the New England Patriots and Super Bowl XXXVI. That story was found to be false, and should not have been part of our reporting. We apologise to the Patriots organisation.’
“This type of reporting over the past seven years has led to additional unfounded, unwarranted and, quite frankly, unbelievable allegations by former players, coaches and executives. None of which have ever been substantiated, but many of which continue to be propagated. The New England Patriots are led by an owner whose well-documented efforts on league-wide initiatives — from TV contracts to preventing a work stoppage — have earned him the reputation as one of the best in the NFL.
“For the past 16 years, the Patriots have been led by one of the league’s all-time greatest coaches and one of its all-time greatest quarterbacks. It is disappointing that some choose to believe in myths, conjecture and rumours rather than giving credit for the team’s successes to Coach Belichick, his staff and the players for their hard work, attention to detail, methodical weekly preparation, diligence and overall performance.”
This story was originally published on the New York Post
Originally published as NFL: New England Patriots deny filming team signals in games, Commissioner Goodell under fire
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