By Bryan Burwell
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Wednesday, May. 14 2008
Roger Goodell tried to make it easy for us. With the simple gesture of a
furrowed brow and the sly evoking of a parental prerogative, the glib and
telegenic NFL commissioner attempted to make the unsettling mess of Spygate go
away with a few words.
Essentially, he told us what parents have been telling disagreeable kids for
centuries: It's over because I said it's over. "I don't know where else I would
turn," Goodell said after a 3 1/2 hour meeting with former New England Patriots
employee Matt Walsh.
The commish said there were no new bombshells to drop, no surprisingly
salacious tidbits to spread, no more blame to thrust upon the slightly
tarnished legacy of the Patriots' dynasty or their Machiavellian head coach
Bill Belichick.
However, just like those disagreeable kids, I'm not in the mood to quickly
dismiss anything just yet, particularly after Tuesday's press briefing where
the smooth and polished commissioner spoke to a room full of inquisitors in New
York and tried once again to minimize the colossal damage to the NFL's
integrity that the Patriots created with the Spygate scandal.
If that scandal has come to an end, it's not because the story no longer has
legs. It's only because Goodell wants it to go away. But we have tapes that
conclusively tell a story that the team broke the rules. We have a coach and an
organization that has lied before, and deserves our suspicions that they
probably are lying again when they say they didn't understand rules so
clear-cut and simply worded that only a fool would misinterpret them. And so
now we're supposed to believe that the genius Belichick can read the most
elaborate offenses and defenses in football but can't read simple English in
the NFL rulebook?
What makes no sense is the suggestion by Belichick that he misinterpreted the
rule. In September 2006, the NFL sent out a memo to all teams concerning the
elevated suspicions that teams were bending the rules about video spying. Ray
Anderson, the NFL's senior vice president for football operations, wrote,
"Videotaping of any type, including but not limited to taping of an opponent's
offensive or defensive signals, is prohibited on the sidelines, in the coaches'
booth, in the locker room, or at any other locations accessible to club staff
members during the game."
How exactly can you misinterpret that?
So why should we believe him when he now says he never used any of the
confiscated tapes improperly (during the same game they were taken)? Why should
we believe him when he says the tapes were intended to be used only against
division rivals on their second meeting of the season when there were tapes of
the Pittsburgh Steelers, San Diego Chargers and Cleveland Browns, none of whom
play in the AFC East?
Listening to the various versions of Belichick's truth is like listening to
boxing promoter Bob Arum when he said famously many years ago, "Yesterday, I
was lying. Today, I'm telling the truth."
But there are other disturbing questions in this story that need to be asked
and answered. I don't doubt the Boston Herald's original honest efforts in
reporting that the Patriots videotaped the Rams' walk-through before the 2002
Super Bowl. Their reporting wasn't fabricated. They didn't create this story
out of thin air. So was Walsh (assuming he was the source) embellishing the
story then, or is he lying now when he told the commissioner there were no
videos of that walk-through?
Yes, you better believe somebody's lying, and it's probably more than one
somebody. And even if the Rams were foolish enough to allow Walsh, who was
fully dressed in Patriots gear, to roam their sidelines during that Saturday
walk-through and have access to their final pregame preparation, please don't
try to blame the victims for the scandal.
This story is not over, not one little bit, no matter how much the commissioner
and the Patriots want it to go away. It won't ruin their accomplishments, it
won't turn Belichick into a phony genius, but it will leave an indelible mark
that can't be ignored, forever distorting the dynastic legacy of the Patriots
once-proud name.
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Wednesday, May. 14 2008
Roger Goodell tried to make it easy for us. With the simple gesture of a
furrowed brow and the sly evoking of a parental prerogative, the glib and
telegenic NFL commissioner attempted to make the unsettling mess of Spygate go
away with a few words.
Essentially, he told us what parents have been telling disagreeable kids for
centuries: It's over because I said it's over. "I don't know where else I would
turn," Goodell said after a 3 1/2 hour meeting with former New England Patriots
employee Matt Walsh.
The commish said there were no new bombshells to drop, no surprisingly
salacious tidbits to spread, no more blame to thrust upon the slightly
tarnished legacy of the Patriots' dynasty or their Machiavellian head coach
Bill Belichick.
However, just like those disagreeable kids, I'm not in the mood to quickly
dismiss anything just yet, particularly after Tuesday's press briefing where
the smooth and polished commissioner spoke to a room full of inquisitors in New
York and tried once again to minimize the colossal damage to the NFL's
integrity that the Patriots created with the Spygate scandal.
If that scandal has come to an end, it's not because the story no longer has
legs. It's only because Goodell wants it to go away. But we have tapes that
conclusively tell a story that the team broke the rules. We have a coach and an
organization that has lied before, and deserves our suspicions that they
probably are lying again when they say they didn't understand rules so
clear-cut and simply worded that only a fool would misinterpret them. And so
now we're supposed to believe that the genius Belichick can read the most
elaborate offenses and defenses in football but can't read simple English in
the NFL rulebook?
What makes no sense is the suggestion by Belichick that he misinterpreted the
rule. In September 2006, the NFL sent out a memo to all teams concerning the
elevated suspicions that teams were bending the rules about video spying. Ray
Anderson, the NFL's senior vice president for football operations, wrote,
"Videotaping of any type, including but not limited to taping of an opponent's
offensive or defensive signals, is prohibited on the sidelines, in the coaches'
booth, in the locker room, or at any other locations accessible to club staff
members during the game."
How exactly can you misinterpret that?
So why should we believe him when he now says he never used any of the
confiscated tapes improperly (during the same game they were taken)? Why should
we believe him when he says the tapes were intended to be used only against
division rivals on their second meeting of the season when there were tapes of
the Pittsburgh Steelers, San Diego Chargers and Cleveland Browns, none of whom
play in the AFC East?
Listening to the various versions of Belichick's truth is like listening to
boxing promoter Bob Arum when he said famously many years ago, "Yesterday, I
was lying. Today, I'm telling the truth."
But there are other disturbing questions in this story that need to be asked
and answered. I don't doubt the Boston Herald's original honest efforts in
reporting that the Patriots videotaped the Rams' walk-through before the 2002
Super Bowl. Their reporting wasn't fabricated. They didn't create this story
out of thin air. So was Walsh (assuming he was the source) embellishing the
story then, or is he lying now when he told the commissioner there were no
videos of that walk-through?
Yes, you better believe somebody's lying, and it's probably more than one
somebody. And even if the Rams were foolish enough to allow Walsh, who was
fully dressed in Patriots gear, to roam their sidelines during that Saturday
walk-through and have access to their final pregame preparation, please don't
try to blame the victims for the scandal.
This story is not over, not one little bit, no matter how much the commissioner
and the Patriots want it to go away. It won't ruin their accomplishments, it
won't turn Belichick into a phony genius, but it will leave an indelible mark
that can't be ignored, forever distorting the dynastic legacy of the Patriots
once-proud name.