NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell confirmed Tuesday that the information given to him by Matt Walsh during their meeting was consistent with the information the New England Patriots supplied to the league during its investigation into the team's videotaping of opponents' sideline signals.
Goodell said the videotapes given to him by Walsh, a former Patriots employee, showed that the Patriots videotaped the signals from several opponents' coaches. There was no information or videotapes concerning the St. Louis Rams walkthrough the day before Super Bowl 36. A source told the Boston Herald earlier this year that evidence existed that proved the Patriots videotaped that walkthrough.
Goodell said two new pieces of information came to light in his discussions with Walsh, but neither was a competitive issue. There was a tape of a player who was practicing inappropriately while on injured reserve. Goodell said he would not take further action against the Patriots for that matter.
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Asked if he considered the Spygate investigation closed, Goodell said: "As I stand before you today, and having met with Matt Walsh and more than 50 other people, I don't know where else I would turn."
Media reports said Tuesday's meeting between Goodell and Walsh went longer than anticipated. The meeting was expected to last about an hour but instead went about three hours and 15 minutes.
No new fireworks came from Specter, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, who has criticized the league's handling of the case. When his afternoon meeting with Walsh in Washington ran long, Specter postponed his news conference until Wednesday.
Walsh did not comment after his morning meeting with Goodell and left through a different exit to avoid the media gathered outside his session with Specter.
Walsh provided some closure -- and a new nugget -- about one of the most serious allegations made against New England. He had no knowledge of anybody with the Patriots taping the Rams' final walkthrough leading up to the 2002 Super Bowl, Goodell said.
The Boston Herald reported in February that an unidentified employee illegally recorded the walkthrough before New England, a two-touchdown underdog, upset St. Louis 20-17.
But Walsh did claim a New England assistant asked him what he saw during the walkthrough.
"For the past three-and-a-half months, we have been defending ourselves against assumptions made based on an unsubstantiated report rather than on facts or evidence," the Patriots said in a statement.
They added: "We hope that with Matt Walsh's disclosures, everyone will finally believe what we have been saying all along and emphatically stated on the day of the initial report: 'The suggestion that the New England Patriots recorded the St. Louis Rams' walkthrough on the day before Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002 is absolutely false. Any suggestion to the contrary is untrue."'
The Spygate investigation began after the NFL confiscated tapes from a Patriots employee who recorded the New York Jets' defensive signals during the 2007 opener. Patriots coach Bill Belichick was fined $500,000, while the team was fined $250,000 and forced to forfeit its 2008 first-round pick.
The tapes Walsh provided confirmed what was already known. The clips cut between shots of opposing coaches sending in signals and the play that followed. Walsh did not shoot the footage of the cheerleaders, NFL officials said.
Goodell said Walsh had no information about any other spying by the Patriots.
"There was no bugging of locker rooms," Goodell said. "There was no manipulation of communication systems. There was no crowd noise violations anywhere that he was aware of. No miking of players to pick up opposing signals or audibles."
During the Rams' pre-Super Bowl walkthrough in 2002, Goodell said, Walsh was in the stadium in his Patriots gear setting up equipment. NFL officials noted that it's common for personnel not connected to the team to be present on that day.
Walsh told Goodell that then-Patriots assistant Brian Daboll approached him later, said NFL attorney Gregg Levy, who attended the meeting. Walsh said he told the coach that running back Marshall Faulk was returning kicks and described the Rams' use of tight ends in their formations. Daboll did not mention the conversation when he was interviewed by NFL officials about the walkthrough, Levy said.
Rams spokesman Rick Smith declined comment.
Goodell made no mention of the incident during his news conference. He realized the oversight later, Levy said, and asked Levy to share the information with reporters.
The NFL is looking into the allegation, Levy said.
Daboll, now the Jets quarterbacks coach, said in a statement: "I have cooperated with the league's investigation and was completely truthful and forthcoming. The league has requested to speak to me again. In light of this request, I will not comment further other than to say that I have been and will continue to be completely truthful, cooperative, and forthcoming with the league."
Walsh shared two potential violations of league rules unrelated to Spygate, Goodell said: A player on injured reserve practiced when he wasn't allowed to in 2001, and Walsh scalped eight to 12 Super Bowl tickets for Patriots players over two seasons.
The NFL will investigate both claims.
Last week, Walsh sent the NFL eight videotapes of the Patriots recording playcalling signals. The tapes included signals by coaches of five opponents in six games from 2000-02.
Walsh worked for New England from 1997 to 2003. His name surfaced just before this year's Super Bowl, nearly five months after the Patriots were sanctioned.
After more than two months of negotiations, lawyers for the league and Walsh agreed April 23 to terms that would allow him to talk with Goodell. They included an agreement by the Patriots not to sue Walsh and to pay his legal expenses and his airfare to New York from Hawaii, where he is now a golf pro.
Specter, from Pennsylvania, met with Goodell in February after raising the possibility of congressional hearings if he wasn't satisfied with the commissioner's answers about the handling of the investigation. Specter has criticized the NFL's decision to destroy the tapes it initially confiscated.
Why did Goodell show Walsh's tapes Tuesday but not do the same with the others last fall? He said releasing them during the season could have put some teams at a competitive advantage or disadvantage.
Contributing: Associated Press
SPEAK OUT ON THIS ARTICLE
NewarkYMCA on Tue May 13, 2008 01:05 pm
bombo21 on Tue May 13, 2008 01:07 pm
boltsrule on Tue May 13, 2008 01:29 pm
Through normal film study every team records an opponent's tendencies by charting down, distance and field position during their week of preparation by using league sanctioned videotape. The extra step the Pats took to record the actual signal given with the down, distance and filed position as well as corresponding play was illegal and gave them a distinct advantage over every opponent. As Mark Schlereth and Cris Carter said, the information being recorded at the game does give them an advantage because it gives the player an additional piece of information to predict play calls.
It is a shame that Goodell did not come down harder on the Pats but he is trying to protect the league revenues by not spoiling the "darlings" of the NFL. True fans of other teams dislike and disrespect the Pats because they cheated their way to the top and admitted it. No matter how quickly this door is closed, the Pats legacy is tarnished. The only good thing about the Walsh tapes is that it gave everyone outside of the League offices a glimpse of the blatant violation of league rules and the extent to which the Pats manipulated the system to gain a competetive advantage.
You can talk about steriods and other performance enhancers all day but unless 22 players are on the juice, Spygate far eclipses all as a more severe and pervasive form of cheating. It was a conscious decision by Pats officials and coaches to violate league rules in an attempt to give the entire team an unfair advantage and for that they will forever be reviled by true football fans who understand how this information helps and can be used.
mempatfan on Tue May 13, 2008 01:32 pm
Because this is what Goodell knew already. That is why he imposed the fine and the loss of a draft pick.
The subject will be mulled over by analysts and the media but Spygate is over. All that is left is questions. Since we cannot get the truth from those who have it, all we can do is argue back and forth, with Patriots fans on one side and the majority of the rest of us on the other.
Why tape the other teams signals if you arent going to use it?
Why tape the Browns and the Chargers in years they were bad teams?
If taping signals gives an advantage why only tape some games?
If taping games is illegal, and we find 8 illegal tapes, can we assume there were more than 8 tapes at one time? is it possible considering the illegality of taping signals to use for games that some tapes have been destroyed?
If there have been tapes destroyed, wouldnt it be most likely that these would be the most incriminating tapes? like maybe a Super Bowl or playoff game walkthrough tape?
If as stated by Walsh the taping goes back to 2000, over 100 regular season games, and only 8 tapes remain, why just these 8? are you telling me that they studied signals of other coaches before games intermitently? Once in a great while they 'dabbled'? Needed to disect the 5-11 Chargers but didnt bother with the playoff teams?
With the success the Patriots and Belichick have experienced over the last decade I feel the punishment levied by the League was a small pat on the wrist. Yes they lost a first round draft pick, the last. With the winning tradition developed over these years, the Patriots more than make up for it with the free agents they pull. The Patriots are the Yankees of football, where aging superstars get there shot at a Super Bowl. And dont tell me the fine levied meant anything. Bill got away with it, he is Rolo Tomasi.
neadams on Tue May 13, 2008 01:55 pm
slouch on Tue May 13, 2008 02:04 pm
It just took Goodell a long time to destroy all the rest of the materials Walsh brought with him....
