Patriots taped Rams before Super Bowl

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs07/news/story?id=3227245

Saturday, February 2, 2008
Report: Source claimed Patriots taped Rams before Super Bowl
ESPN.com news services

An unnamed source has claimed a New England Patriots employee secretly videotaped the St. Louis Rams' pre-game walkthrough the day before Super Bowl XXXVI, the Boston Herald reported Saturday.

According to the report, an unnamed source close to the team during the 2001 season said that following the Patriots' walkthrough at the Louisiana Superdome, a member of the team's video staff stayed behind and taped the Rams' walkthrough -- a non-contact, no-pads practice at reduced speed in which a team goes through its plays.

The cameraman was not asked to identify himself or produce a press pass and rode the media shuttle back to the Patriots' hotel after it was over, a source told the Herald. It is not known what became of the tape afterwards, or whether the cameraman made the tape on his own initiative or at someone else's instruction, according to the report.

Asked about the report, Patriots media relations Stacey James said "The coaches have no knowledge of it," according to the Herald.

The next day, the Patriots upset the favored Rams 20-17 for their first Super Bowl championship. New England will play the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII on Sunday, in a bid to become the first NFL team to finish a season 19-0.

Former St. Louis Rams quarterback Kurt Warner, currently with the Arizona Cardinals, told ESPN.com investigative reporter Mike Fish that if the league has heard those claims, he's surprised the NFL has not spoken to former Patriots video department employee Matt Walsh. He said if Walsh or any other source has information, it should be investigated.

Walsh, a former Patriots video assistant, has suggested to ESPN.com that he has information that could have exposed the Patriots prior to the NFL catching New England taping the New York Jets' defensive signals during the 2007 season opener. The Patriots were fined $750,000 and lost a first-round draft pick as punishment.

"If I had a reason to want to go public, or tell a story, I could have done it before it even broke," Walsh told ESPN.com. "I could have said everything rather than having [Jets head coach Eric] Mangini be the one to bring it out."

"If they're doing a thorough investigation -- they didn't contact me," Walsh told ESPN.com. "So draw your own conclusions. Maybe they felt they didn't need to. Maybe the league feels they got satisfactory answers from everything the Patriots sent them."

Walsh, 31, now an assistant golf pro at the Ka'anapli Golf Resort in Lahaina, Hawaii, worked for the Patriots from 1996 until the winter of 2002-03 when he was fired. He has hinted to ESPN.com that he has information that could be damaging to both the league and the Patriots, but declined to make it available, saying that it could possibly be seen as stolen property.

Walsh said he is fearful of potential legal action against him by either the league or Patriots if he details what he knows. He has refused to provide evidence of potential wrongdoing unless ESPN agreed to pay his legal fees related to his involvement in the story, as well as an indemnification agreement that would cover any damages found against him in court. ESPN denied his requests.

Friday, Senator Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said he had written NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, seeking an explanation as to why evidence in the NFL's investigation of the Patriots videotaping was destroyed.

"I am very concerned about the underlying facts on the taping, the reasons for the judgment on the limited penalties and, most of all, on the inexplicable destruction of the tapes," Specter said in the letter to Goodell.

Specter, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the matter could put the league's antitrust exemption at risk. In a phone interview with The New York Times, which first reported Specter's interest in Spygate, he said the committee at some point will call on Goodell to address the antitrust exemption as well as the destruction of the tapes.

Goodell, in his previously scheduled news conference Friday from Phoenix, said, "I am more than willing to speak with the senator. There are very good explanations why the tapes were destroyed by our staff -- there was no purpose for them."

There were six tapes, according to Goodell -- some from the 2007 preseason, and the rest from 2006. He said he had them destroyed because he was confident that the Patriots had turned over all of the tapes and notes the NFL had requested in its investigation. He also said they were destroyed in order to prevent leaks to the media -- as some footage from one of the tapes was shortly after the story broke.

"We wanted to take and destroy that information," Goodell said. "They may have collected it within the rules, but we couldn't determine that. So we felt that it should be destroyed."

Patriots coach Bill Belichick had little to add on the subject.

"It's a league matter," he said Friday during his news conference. "I don't know anything about it."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.