Game on.
Only weeks after NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell voiced his growing displeasure at the length of time it was taking to come to an agreement with Spygate whistle blower Matt Walsh, a deal was finally reached this week and on May 13 Walsh will at last tell Goodell what he knows, or thinks he knows, about how the Patriots have done their business during the creation of the first pro football dynasty of the new Millennium.
The Patriots issued a prepared statement that they were “pleased’’ Walsh was finally coming forward. There is no truth to the rumor it was written by Pinocchio but it was like saying they’d pleased to get an audit letter from the IRS so they could straighten out a misconception or two about their finances.
As for Goodell, he’s about as “pleased’’ that Walsh is stirring up this unsavory mess once again as he was having to lift a No. 1 draft pick from a team owned by not only one of his benefactors during his battle to win the job from retiring Paul Tagliabue but also one of the men who sits on the committee that decides his compensation package.
But there is no getting around this now, neither by the Patriots, the NFL or Walsh, who has hinted about the dark deeds he claims to have knowledge of during his employment in New England’s video and personnel departments without having yet made a single public charge.
Goodell would like nothing better than to be able to come out of that meeting saying, “Nothing new here, folks’’ and moving on but unless that is truly the case he will not find that as easy as he found it destroying the original videos confiscated from the Patriots’ film archives of opposing team’s defensive signals.
He made that clear when he told a collection of sports editors from around the country that if Walsh indeed had a tape of the St. Louis Rams walk-through practice the day before Super Bowl XXXVI someone’s head would roll and it would not be his or Walsh’s.
That statement surprised some but he said it (though he’s praying he won’t have to back it up) because he knows he will be closely watched by Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter as well as by many NFL teams who have something less than charitable feelings toward the Patriots in general and head coach Bill Belichick in particular.
Walsh is already schedule to fly to Washington and meet with Specter and his investigators after he meets with Goodell in New York so any thought of a cover-up, if one is necessary, is all but impossible now.
But what may prove to be more important than it originally appeared was a passing reference to “alleged audio taping’’ Walsh may have done of his one-time boss, Patriots’ personnel guru Scott Pioli. Oddly, it was Pioli himself who first made knowledge of these taped phone conversations public when he went on the offensive with the Boston Globe a month or so ago, claiming Walsh was fired for illegally and surreptitiously tape recording one or more of his conversations.
Beyond the fact it’s illegal in Massachusetts to tape a conversation without the prior agreement of both sides, not much has been made of this yet but the fact the indemnification agreement specifically spoke to that issue and seemed to offer protection to Walsh from the Patriots or the league going after him for doing so (which by the way probably doesn’t protect him from the state going after him) it makes you wonder what might have been said that shouldn’t have been said.
The botched manner in which Pioli and the Patriots tried to pressure Deion Branch into firing his agent as a requirement for signing a new deal is the reason New England had to agree to trade him to Seattle because had they not they would have lost in arbitration and also been subject to forced depositions that could have been embarrassing to them and at least one of Branch’s teammates. If that’s any example of how Pioli does his business who knows what Walsh might have on tape?
None of that has anything to do with illegal video taping of the kind alleged in the Boston Herald on the eve of last February’s Super Bowl however, when the paper reported a source claiming the Patriots had illegally taped a final walk through practice of the St. Louis Rams the day before Super Bowl XXXVI. Some NFL observers believe such a tape exists and Walsh shot it. The Patriots have tried to cover themselves in all ways, saying it was never shot and then saying, well, if it was we had nothing to do with it. So which was it? It never existed or Walsh did it but we never asked him to?
Those are two of many questions Walsh will hopefully finally shed some light on. Whether any of this becomes public will be up to Goodell, Walsh, Specter and the truth, although the latter is too often the least important of the factors that go into such matters.
Case in point: Goodell and the NFL claimed to be outraged that a snippet of the video of Jets’ defensive coaches’ hand signals ended up in the hands of FOX-TV’s Jay Glazer. Later we find out all the tapes were destroyed in Foxborough and never even brought back to the commissioner’s office by two of Goodell’s henchmen.
If so, then who could have leaked the tape to Fox? It would seem difficult to conclude it was anyone but the people claiming to be outraged. If you find this difficult to believe, remember Pres. Bush pounding the podium about how he was going to find out who leaked the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame to the media. Who’d it turn out to be? His own vice-president’s hand maiden, Scooter Libby.
So it goes in any high stakes business. The truth gets perverted and twisted beyond recognition. Whatever the truth is in this case that could certainly happen once again but Roger Goodell no longer has certain options formally available to him.
First, there’s no destroying the evidence this time per the agreement with Walsh, whose attorney gets to keep copies of some of the items Walsh will provide and access to the rest.
Second, everyone is watching now and many people with a very skeptical eye toward the way Goodell does his business.
Third, unless Matt Walsh is a suicidal maniac he at least believes he has something more damning about the Patriots’ past practices than what has already come out. If he does, nothing will keep the lid on that bottle for long.
Hopefully, regardless of how it ends, this is the final stage of what has been a sad circumstance in which players and an organization that has achieved so much have been left tainted by their own actions and the innuendo of a former employee.
14 responses so far ↓
1 januaryman // Apr 28, 2008 at 3:50 am
Just a quick side comment - it was Richard Armitage who admitted “outing” Valerie Plame, not Scooter Libby. Otherwise, nice piece.
2 Sike Mando // Apr 28, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Lets see. Today’s theory is that the Patriots “had to agree to trade him to Seattle,” a trade in which the Partiots got a first-round draft pick.
And now lets see some more. A week or so before the trade, noted Boston sportswriter Ron Borges wrote that seeking a first round pick for Branch would be “absurd.”
Absurdity abounds.
3 Ron Borges // May 3, 2008 at 7:35 am
Good catch on armitage. Libby was simply a lying co-conspirator.
Absurdity thy name is Sike Mando, emphasis on the sike.
4 baby armed assassin // May 3, 2008 at 1:50 pm
“As for the former, no one knows what that will take but Bill Belichick and Scott Pioli. If their trade demands are absurd (read that a first-round pick or more when Donte’ Stallworth was worth only a fourth and a backup player, and Ashley Lelie cost basically a third-round pick and a short-yardage runner), what then happens to Branch?”
- Ron Borges, Boston Globe 9/1/2006
5 Addie Endelman // May 9, 2008 at 4:58 am
“Third, unless Matt Walsh is a suicidal maniac he at least believes he has something more damning about the Patriots’ past practices than what has already come out. ”
I guess he’s a suicidal maniac. He’s got nothing. Can you give up on this story now?
6 Ron Borges // May 11, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Did i start this story? And i wouldn’t say he’s got nothing. He’s got offensive signals being stolen apparently according to the Times story. What i find interesting is NFL spokesmen saying ”there’s nothing new here” before they even look at the films. I’m glad these guys aren’t investigating anything important like why gas prices are through the roof at the same time oil companies are making record profits. What would they say? “Nothing new here.”
7 Addie Endelman // May 12, 2008 at 5:44 am
I didn’t say you started it, but it’s certainly a common topic in your posts here. Offensive signals? Don’t they use a headset and a huddle? Even if they are flashed from the sidelines, don’t they have dummy signals as well? How they hell do you tape offensive signals? Can you explain that?
8 Sike Mando // May 12, 2008 at 6:56 am
Ron, you are getting sloppy in your desperation.
You wrote:
“And i wouldn’t say he’s got nothing. He’s got offensive signals being stolen apparently according to the Times story.”
Oh really…….
When Belichick got fined, the NFL said in a press release:
The fine of $500,000 was for for using video equipment to videotape “an opposing team’s offensive or defensive signals.”
So the “offensive signals” part of it only appears to be “new” to you.
As for oil profits, while there’s no math on this exam, aren’t “prices through the roof” the very reason they are making “record profits.”?
9 Shamrock4751 // May 12, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Oil companies are not controlling price of oil, demand is. Specifically China and India which have $15TRILLION economies combined and grow at 10%/year. Last year China had 170m motor vehicles registered and that # will grow by 17m this year. That’s nearly 1.5m per month. Oil supply can’t possibly keep that pace.
Also, the United States got into a $3trillion war and is having to borrow every penny. That is killing the dollar and oil is priced in dollars.
The difference is ‘record profits’ but if oil companies lowered the price, there would be severe shortages.
Not to go off on a non-football point, but just setting the record straight.
10 Ron Borges // May 12, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Addie,
Probably with a video camera.
11 Ron Borges // May 12, 2008 at 6:31 pm
I don’t know what any press release said but here is what NFL Comm. Roger Goodell said at the annual owners meetings in April on the subject of what the original tapes showed.
QUOTE: “I don’t like anybody putting out accusations against the league or any of our clubs, which he has certainly implied, if not said,” Goodell said. “If it’s just taping of defensive signals, we know that. The Patriots admitted to that.”
So where’s the mention of offensive signals Sike Mando? Or did Goodell forget what was on the original tapes? Or do you know better than Goodell knows what was on those original tapes?
12 Ron Borges // May 12, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Sike mando: from the Hartford Courant story of May 8, 2008:
“When the Patriots were penalized for videotaping Jets defensive signals in the season opener last September, Belichick claimed he had misinterpreted the rule and told NFL commissioner Roger Goodell that he had taped defensive signals of opposing coaches throughout his coaching tenure. However, Belichick did not admit to taping offensive signals to Goodell according to a league official.
“It’s like we said in the statement, it had to do with [the Patriots] taping defensive signals,” the official said last month.
NFL spokesman Greg Aiello contradicted that statement by Wednesday telling the Associated Press: “This is consistent with what the Patriots had admitted they had been doing, consistent with what we already knew.”
But when the agreement was announced April 23 that Walsh would hand over videotapes and other documents to the league, the statement released by the NFL that day specified that Belichick had only taped defensive signals.
“Commissioner Goodell determined last September that the Patriots had violated league rules by videotaping opposing coaches’ defensive signals during the Patriots games throughout Bill Belichick’s tenure as head coach,” the statement said. “Coach Belichick admitted to his use of the taping practice on a regular basis as a result of what he said was his misinterpretation of the rule.”
Why don’t you try and get your facts straight?
13 Addie Endelman // May 13, 2008 at 8:54 am
As usual, you have no coherent response Ron. Goodell is proving today that he is the worst pro sports commissioner of all time. This little spectacle he is staging will cost him his job. No owner wants to be subjected to this circus. He’s a goner as soon as it’s possible.
14 dbavder // May 13, 2008 at 10:08 am
Hey Ron,
How’s reality hitting you?
In its official, thoroughly considered press release on the taping issue, the Commissioner’s Office stated “offensive or defensive signals.” Later oral statements and other releases do not have the same authority.
Which straw are you going to grasp for now?
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