Walsh Gives NFL 8 Tapes of Pats Cheating

[noa]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3386162

Ex-Pats employee Walsh sends NFL video of Pats' taping

After brokering a deal to protect himself, former New England Patriots employee Matt Walsh has finally turned over his evidence in the videotaping controversy.
The New York Times reported and the NFL confirmed on Wednesday that Walsh sent eight tapes to the league that show the Patriots recording the play-calling signals of five opponents in six games between 2000 and 2002.
Taping the signals of opposing teams is prohibited by league rules, and the Patriots were already fined $750,000 and docked a first-round draft choice in September for taping the New York Jets. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell left open the possibility that more penalties could be levied.
A Patriots employee from 1997-2003, Walsh reached an agreement to turn over the tapes in exchange for being indemnified from all future legal fees.
The New York Times obtained a list of the Walsh tapes, and the league confirmed that list, which says that the Patriots taped offensive and defensive coaches in regular-season games against the Miami Dolphins, Buffalo Bills, Cleveland Browns and San Diego Chargers. The team also made video of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 2002 AFC Championship Game.
Walsh's tapes do not include the video of the St. Louis Rams' walkthrough before the 2002 Super Bowl, as reported by the Boston Herald.
"Mr. Walsh has never claimed to have a tape of the walk-through," said Walsh's lawyer Michael Levy, according to the Times. "Mr. Walsh has never been the source of any of the media speculation about such a tape. Mr. Walsh was not the source for the Feb. 2 Boston Herald article."
Walsh has separate meetings scheduled on Tuesday with the commissioner and Senator Arlen Specter in which he is expected to provide additional details about the taping process.
Under his agreement with the league, Walsh can retain copies of his videotapes, but he cannot use them without the consent of the NFL.

[milkman]

Originally Posted by Garcia Bronco

Now that you've gotten that out of your system. There is no way that Tom Brady is a better QB than John Elway was. Don't insult yourself. Don't get me wrong, Tom Brady is good. I feel confident that his success has nothing to do with reviewing video tape of defense signals. He is however not the athlete on the field that John Elway was.

And Tom Brady has always had as much or more than John Elway ever did from a talent perspective. I doubt you followed the Broncos enough in the 80's to actually know what you are talking about.

I would argue that Randall Cunningham, Donavan McNabb, Michael Vick, and even Bobby Douglass are/were more athletic.

What Elway did better than anyone was combine his athletic ability with his ability to make plays in the passing game, with only Steve Young and Fran Tarkenton as real contenders.

[Cntrygal]

Originally Posted by chiefs1111

Why did they have to cheat to try and beat the Bills,thats just sad...........

To ensure against the proverbial "trap game"... after all, we kicked their ass in week 1 of 2003 (31-0) - only to lose with the same score in week 16.

Then the fish beat them 21-0......

So why tape the two teams vying for the bottom of the division? 4 wins

[Dylan]

I still believe that K.C. Chiefs will head into "Asterick Nation" to play Don Capers Patriots*. I believe when Goodell faces the press Tuesday, he'll say, that they knew all along the Patriots were stealing offensive as well as defensive signals. I/M/H/O, he should think that over carefully.

Goodell is on record for saying, the tapes had no value. Then why were they doing it? More importantly, if they had no value , why did the video equipment become more sophisicated in the last seven years before the were caught? What's interesting here, who was behind the camera taping after Walsh left? More to the point, the commissioner destroyed all the tapes and notes back in Sept. The New York Times was able to obtain a copy of the rule changes. I'll leave the link below. If you remember, it was someone from Goodell's office that leaked the tape to the press.

The NY Times and ESPN made the correct news judgment --assigning investigative reporters to this story months ago. The media will not let this go away. In my humble opinion, it seems Goodell is their main focus.

~SIGH...Done with my rant now~

I'll post the Times newsworthy article in the next post --

[Dylan]

The New York Times has obtained a copy of the confidential NFL Rulebook.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...0nfl.190.1.jpg

The story: Interesting. ....

In Cat and Mouse Game, Patriots Are Central Players
By GREG BISHOP and MICHAEL BRICK
Published: May 11, 2008

Long since the days of leather helmets and the V-formation, the N.F.L. has embraced technological advances that have brought dizzying changes to coaching strategy in the past decade.

With the advances have come new temptations for coaches to gain an unfair advantage. Every Monday during the football season, the league says, it fields complaints from and about many teams.

If a persistent problem is identified, the league’s eight-member competition committee suggests changes to rules. In discussions of changes since 2000, one team, the New England Patriots, has surfaced more than any other, according to a longtime N.F.L. team executive with direct knowledge of the meetings.

The committee heard accusations that the Patriots had taped opposing coaches’ signals, placed microphones on defensive players to steal quarterbacks’ audible signals and manipulated clocks and coach-to-quarterback radio systems.

The league has handled the complaints internally, finding no proof for all but one, which was lodged by the Jets last year, said its chief spokesman, Greg Aiello. In the Jets case last fall, when the Patriots were caught using video cameras to film defensive signals, the team and its coach, Bill Belichick, were fined, and the team forfeited a first-round draft pick. Since then, a former team employee has sent the league videotapes containing evidence of similar spying dating to 2000.

A spokesman for the Patriots, Stacey James, said the accusations were without merit, except for a videotaping violation to which the team has admitted.

In an e-mail message responding to questions posed by The New York Times, James said, “We believe that this inquiry is patently biased and that a truly objective report would investigate all instances of these complaints, not exclusively those against the Patriots.”

Even when suspicions and accusations have not resulted in disciplinary action, an internal committee has responded to them during the updating of the league’s confidential rulebook, known as the game operations manual, to keep pace with the high-tech spying complaints, league officials say.

“What we wanted to do was give some clarification, give some forewarning that we have new technologies, too,” said Ray Anderson, the league’s executive vice president for football operations, who oversaw the changes to the manual. “We did all of that, very frankly, to upgrade after we saw in various places and heard in various places the suspicions by a variety of folks.”

Copies of the 2007 manual obtained by The Times show that many of the recent changes concern policies on the placement of cameras and microphones, among other tactics the Patriots have been accused of pressing to their advantage.

The N.F.L. team executive said the Patriots were the subject of most of the accusations discussed in the rules committee’s deliberations. The team’s recent success and tight-lipped approach, as personified by Belichick, has played a role.

“They were the only team, really,” the executive said. “Clearly, they were the team mentioned far more than anybody else.”

Once the Patriots were caught taping, it only served to heighten speculation about what else they might be doing.

The Jacksonville Jaguars lodged a complaint against the Patriots about the failure of a coach-to-quarterback radio system during a January 2006 playoff game, a former Jaguars executive said.

The N.F.L. team executive said the rules committee had discussed that complaint in particular. Aiello said the league had found no violation.

“Other than the videotaping of coaching signals, there has been no evidence to substantiate a claim of misconduct by the Patriots on any of these matters,” Aiello wrote in an e-mail message.

But in the league’s changes to its operations manual for 2007, it mandated that neutral operators, who have not previously worked that team’s home games, run the coach-to-quarterback radio systems, as well as game clocks, for playoff games. This off-season, Commissioner Roger Goodell put in place more measures to offset cheating. They included lowering the standards necessary to impose discipline, along with yearly certification by each team that it had complied with rules and reported violations.

The N.F.L. has disclosed only select passages from the operations manual. Among professional sports leagues, the N.F.L.’s position on its manual is hardly unusual. The National Basketball Association has an operations manual distributed only to league and team personnel. Major League Baseball has a book of bulletins sent only to its clubs. The National Hockey League also has an internal document.

The manual, which is separate from the playing rules, governs the use of new technologies, in addition to covering mundane matters like the color of yellow that must be painted on goal posts.

League officials rewrote many sections of the manual at the outset of the 2007 season, before the Patriots were caught using video technology to steal signals from coaches of the division-rival Jets.

In a preface to the 2007 operations manual, league officials listed “changes to policies.”

In addition to requiring neutral operators for coach-to-quarterback radio systems during playoff games, the league said players with radio components in their helmets must wear a decal — a lime-green dot — “displayed on the midline of the rear of the helmet.”

Under radio system malfunction, the league promised to make unannounced visits to teams to make sure no one tampered with the systems.

And under stadium video locations, the guide to changes said, “Reworded: entire section.”

The N.F.L. team executive said the changes to the manual matched complaints against the Patriots.

“When they change the rules, they don’t mention teams,” the executive said. “But in my mind, a lot of it was from New England.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/sp...ts&oref=slogin