Report: Patriots’ Spygate scandal was bigger in scope than first realized
As it turns out, Spygate had a larger scope than we realized.
ESPN had a huge story on Tuesday morning, saying when the league investigated the New England Patriots in 2007 they were found to have “a library of scouting material containing videotapes of opponents’ signals, with detailed notes matching signals to plays for many teams going back seven seasons.” There were 40 games worth of tapes, ESPN said.
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The tapes and notes were found, and then destroyed on commissioner Roger Goodell’s orders: league executives “stomped the tapes into pieces and shredded the papers inside a Gillette Stadium conference room,” the ESPN story said.
And this all leads us back to deflate-gate, and Goodell’s overreaction to it.
The story said owners were upset with how Goodell handled Spygate. It’s no secret to anyone anymore that Patriots owner Robert Kraft has been one of Goodell’s biggest allies. In an emergency session at the league’s spring meetings in 2008, Goodell told the owners cheaters would be dealt with forcefully, ESPN wrote. One owner told ESPN that deflate-gate was “a makeup call” for the spying scandal.
Goodell, on ESPN Radio less than an hour after the Spygate story was published, said he hadn’t seen the story but Spygate had nothing to do with the current scandal.
“I’m not aware of any connection between the Spygate procedures and the procedures we went through here,” Goodell told ESPN Radio. “We obviously learn any time we go through a process, try to improve it and get better at it, but there’s no connection in my mind to the two instances.”
The ESPN story goes into detail about how the Patriots used the taped information, highlighting a 2000 game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. In the preseason, the Patriots taped the Buccaneers’ defensive signals. New England played Tampa Bay in the season opener. Backup quarterback John Friesz was told to memorize the signals in the preseason film, watch the Bucs’ signals from the sideline during the regular-season game, relay the defensive play to offensive coordinator Charlie Weis who would relay them to then-starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe, ESPN reported. Although the Patriots lost that game, ESPN said the Patriots knew 75 percent of the Buccaneers’ defenses that day and the Pats “realized that they were on to something.” A former Patriots assistant, who wasn’t named, told ESPN the system of videotaping signals and cataloging signals “got out of control.”
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Maybe the most shocking tale comes way down in the story, after all the descriptions of the Patriots’ spying, when former New England coaches and employees are cited as describing an even more effective cheating system:
“Several of them acknowledge that during pregame warm-ups, a low-level Patriots employee would sneak into the visiting locker room and steal the play sheet, listing the first 20 or so scripted calls for the opposing team’s offense.”
Maybe you thought deflate-gate was dying down. Nobody figured on Spygate getting more fuel, eight years after the fact.
(UPDATE — The Patriots responded to the ESPN story. Here’s the team’s statement, via CSNNE:
“The New England Patriots have never filmed or recorded another team’s practice or walkthrough. 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 apologize to the Patriots organization.’
“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 rumors 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.”
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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab
