Case closed?
Goodell: No reason to punish Pats further
NFL. In the end, it appears Spygate will end not with a bang, but a whimper.
According to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, yesterday’s much-ballyhooed meeting involving Goodell and former Patriots employee Matt Walsh produced no new evidence that would lead the league to punish New England any further for the Patriots’ videotaping practices.
“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,” Goodell told reporters.
After a three-plus hour meeting between Goodell and Walsh — and after reporters got a look at the raw video Walsh turned over to the league — the commissioner told reporters yesterday what the league viewed on the new tapes was not surprising.
“The fundamental information that Matt provided was consistent with what we disciplined the Patriots for last fall,” Goodell said.
The biggest question surrounded wh-ether or not Walsh had a tape of the Rams’ walkthrough prior to Super Bowl XXXVI. Goodell said Walsh, who worked for the Patriots from 1997 through 2003, said he was in the Superdome while St. Louis was going through its final walkthrough, setting up video equipment in anticipation of the game — a practice that is not uncommon. However, Walsh told the commissioner he didn’t tape the walkthrough, and he doesn’t know if such a tape even exists.
“We were also able to verify that there was no Rams walkthrough tape,” Goodell said. “No one asked [Walsh] to tape the walkthrough. He’s not aware of anybody else who may have taped the walkthrough. He had not seen such a tape. He does not know of anybody who says there is a tape.”
The Boston Herald reported in February an unidentified employee illegally recorded the walkthrough before New England upset St. Louis, 20-17.
The Patriots did issue a strong statement yesterday that focused on the possibility of a tape of 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. Despite our adamant denials, the report ran on February 2, 2008, the day before Super Bowl XLII. That game was the second-most watched program in television history and it is unfortunate that today’s news will not also reach an audience of that size.
“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.’”