A new report by ESPN says the New England Patriots’ Spygate scandal was a LOT worse than it was made out to be at the time and the reason we didn’t know it was because NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell helped cover it up.
Goodell was pals with Patriots owner Robert Kraft. He even helped Goodell get his job, and is on the committee that decides Goodell’s salary.
On the first Sunday of the 2007 season, Bill Belichick and the Patriots were caught taping signals against the New York Jets. Goodell acted immediately.
Four days after the game, he fined Belichick $500,000, and the Patriots $250,000. They also lost a first-round draft pick.
Goodell then sent League officials to Gillette Stadium to destroy all the evidence of spying by literally stomping on videotapes and shredding documents.
Goodell later said he did it so the information could never be used again. But he never tried to actually determine just how much spying the Patriots had done or how much it had helped the team.
Obviously, other team owners, coaches, and players were NOT happy about it. So in April of 2008, there was a meeting between Goodell and all the owners and head coaches.
At one point, Belichick took the floor and said he had merely misinterpreted a league rule about taping opposing teams. Nobody really believed him.
They also didn’t believe Goodell’s assertion that the Patriots only taped a “handful” of games in ’06 and ’07, and that no game outcomes were affected by the spying.
Goodell tried to make good with the other owners by promising that any cheating in the future would be dealt with forcefully.
According to ESPN, Goodell throwing the book at the Pats over Deflategate was a make-good for what he did during Spygate. And it may have worked, because sources say the other owners loved it, even though the punishment didn’t stick.
As for what the Patriots actually did during Spygate, it’s pretty slimy. They videotaped opposing teams’ signals in at least 40 games between 2000 and 2007.
And they would have the guys doing the taping disguise themselves, so the other team didn’t know they were Patriots employees. They would do things like cover team logos with tape, or turn their shirts inside out.
They also stole playsheets from other teams’ locker rooms. They would scramble the visiting team’s coach-to-quarterback frequency so they couldn’t communicate. And Belichick would hire players let go from other teams, just to get intel from them.
ESPN spoke to a lot of people inside the game who think their teams were cheated out of wins. Some even call into question the three Super Bowls the Patriots won during those years.
Being pals with Kraft may have had something to do with this alleged coverup. But Goodell had another motive: He wanted to avoid a massive scandal, like the steroid controversy that hobbled Major League Baseball.
Whatever the case, the Patriots released a statement yesterday about ESPN’s report saying that they didn’t do it. Obviously.
