Posted on 05/08/2008 11:37:23 AM PDT by tobyhill
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Let’s see how other teams treat these guys this next season....
Sports gambling is illegal in most states.
They may as well paint bullseyes on their helmets this next season.....
And guess what? They'll keep on winning.
There is no rule against the CF camera in baseball and in any event it's there for BOTH teams to use. In the case of NE there IS a rule about filming the opposing teams signals.
This is BS, and certainly nothing to be wasting congressional time on.
I agree with this.
I still don’t see why recording hand gestures made in public is such a bad thing in the professional sports world
Their entire history under Belichek is a wash as far as 95% of the NFL fanbase is concerned. But, no, Goodell won't strip any titles.
Sent them to the NFL? WTH for?
He should have sent copies to Fox and ESPN.
Not even the justice department.
We’re talking about a GAME, here. So WHO CARES?
NO FEDERAL LAWS WERE BROKEN. And NO FEDERAL LAWS ARE NEEDED. Thus, the federal government can butt out and let the NFL take care of it.
If the NFL won’t take care of it you can always take a moral stand and stop watching or supporting NFL Football.
Again, it is a GAME!!! It is MEANINGLESS to the survival of this nation.
If I had lost enough to be extrememly interested in someone getting to the bottom of this I think I would have more to worry about than this.
Sorry, I have no sympathy to spare for gamblers.
The team broke no laws, only league rules.
I was at a Texas Rangers game last week and I swear the outfielder for KC gave me a hand gesture.
And the Pats will be forever known as the "Black Sox of the NFL"
Congress has nothing better to do? We have the subprime mortgage mess, illegal immigration, border guards in jail, and congress critters on the take, and they go after football fraud. What a bunch of losers.
I hope the D.C. Madam gave her black book to the media and all these randy politicians get exposed for what they are.
Precisely.
Videotaping the opposing team's signals isn't even against the rules---the rule was about where the camera recording the signals could be placed. And for those of you out there who still believe the Pats taped the St. Louis walk-through before the Super Bowl, guess what---Matt Walsh could not provide the NFL with that tape. It doesn't exist. Boston Herald reporter John Tomase made that story up, seemingly, out of whole cloth, as he's refused to name his source---undoubtedly Matt Walsh himself. Yet when the time came to put up or shut up, guess who shut up? Matt Walsh.
Tomase, in other words, is a complete fraud, and that part of the story was 100% bogus.
That Congress is wasting any time on this at all, while this country is in the middle of a war and an economic crisis, should have everyone reaching for the pitchforks.
And the Pats will be forever known as the "Black Sox of the NFL"
Spoken like someone who perceives his ox has been gored. When you're on the top, like the Patriots are, someone is always looking to tear you down, and when they can't do it on the field, they try to do it by other means---even the most flimsiest of means. All your bellyaching and hyperventilating indignity means absolutely zero.
Is it against the rules?
Matt Walsh never said he had tapes of the SB walk-thru. But Matt Walsh did, in fact, "put up" a tape of the AFC Championship game from that same year against the Steelers (the game before the SB) that is apparently quite clear in showing the extents Belichek would go to cheat. That tape, along with several others made against division rivals and a few others.
The facts are in Goodell's hands and this time, apparently Walsh's attorney wants everybody to know just in case they disappear again.
Corporate espionage? That's a stretch. They did not have people inside the other teams organizations or in their employ. They were not paying people working for other teams to give them inforomation. Were they?
As for competitor spying, don't they all look at game films, send scouts to games?
What is the differnce if they watch a coaches signals, then watch a play with the naked eye but meticulously document each without the aid of a camera? Is that OK?
It isn’t illegal in Las Vegas, and you can bet your boots that millions upon millions were bet upon games in which the Patriots cheated.
There is a huge risk of bettors having had inside knowledge of the Patriots’ cheating and betting accordingly.
This is actually not a whole lot different than Wall Street insider trading, potentially.
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