ESPN piece on Goodell

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Mackeyser

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Those investigators hadn't come up empty: Inside a room accessible only to Belichick and a few others, they found a library of scouting material containing videotapes of opponents' signals, with detailed notes matching signals to plays for many teams going back seven seasons.

emphasis mine.

So the narrative that they didn't find anything during Spygate and that there were only a few tapes that they just recorded over like how my Pop used to use the same VHS tape to record his daily soap opera (don't judge)... Well, now we know...

Seven seasons... cheating bastards.
 

bubbaramfan

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Goodell should be fired. He was so worried about what the patriots cheating would do to the MFL's image, if he had just done his job and investigated and punished the cheaters, the NFL's image, (and his), would have elevated from doing the right thing. Instead, he tried to sweep it under the rug.

How's it working for you now Roger? How's your and the NFL's image now?
 
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WestCoastRam

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I ate this for breakfast and it was yummy. I ate it for lunch and it still tasted good. Anyone wanna give a guess what I'm having for dinner?
 

Mackeyser

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In fact, many former New England coaches and employees insist that the taping of signals wasn't even the most effective cheating method the Patriots deployed in that era. Several of them acknowledge that during pregame warm-ups, a low-level Patriots employee would sneak into the visiting locker room and steal the play sheet, listing the first 20 or so scripted calls for the opposing team's offense. (The practice became so notorious that some coaches put out fake play sheets for the Patriots to swipe.)

emphasis mine.

Just...wow.
 

Elmgrovegnome

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During the walk-through, the Rams had also practiced some of their newly designed red zone plays. When they ran the same plays late in the Super Bowl's fourth quarter, the Patriots' defense was in position on nearly every down. On one new play, quarterback Kurt Warner rolled to his right and turned to throw to Faulk in the flat, where three Patriots defenders were waiting. On the sideline, Rams coach Mike Martz was stunned. He was famous for his imaginative, unpredictable plays, and now it was as if the Patriots knew what was coming on plays that had never been run before. The Patriots' game plan had called for a defender to hit Faulk on every down, as a means of eliminating him, but one coach who worked with an assistant on that 2001 Patriots team says that the ex-Pats assistant coach once bragged that New England knew exactly what the Rams would call in the red zone. "He'd say, 'A little birdie told us,'" the coach says now.


Martz says now that he returned Goodell's call from the 49ers' practice field. During a five-minute conversation, Martz recalls that the commissioner sounded panicked about Specter's calls for a wider investigation. Martz also recalls that Goodell asked him to write a statement, saying that he was satisfied with the NFL's Spygate investigation and was certain the Patriots had not cheated and asking everyone to move on -- like leaders of the Steelers and Eagles had done.
"I wish the evidence had not been destroyed because at least we would know what had been done."
Former Indianapolis Colts president Bill Polian
"He told me, 'The league doesn't need this. We're asking you to come out with a couple lines exonerating us and saying we did our due diligence,'" says Martz, now 64 years old and out of coaching, during a July interview at his summer cabin in the Idaho mountains.
A congressional inquiry that would put league officials under oath had to be avoided, Martz recalls Goodell telling him. "If it ever got to an investigation, it would be terrible for the league," Goodell said.
Martz says he still had more questions, but he agreed that a congressional investigation "could kill the league." So in the end, Martz got in line. He wrote the statement that evening, and it was released the next day, reading in part that he was "very confident there was no impropriety" and that it was "time to put this behind us."
Shown a copy of his statement this past July, Martz was stunned to read several sentences about Walsh that he says he's certain he did not write. "It shocked me," he says. "It appears embellished quite a bit -- some lines I know I didn't write. Who changed it? I don't know."
Since Spygate broke, Martz says he has continued to hear things about the run-up to that Super Bowl. Goodell "told me to take him at his word," he says. "It was hard to swallow because I always felt something happened but I didn't know what it was and I couldn't prove it anyway. Even to this day, I think something happened."

A few excerpts. The piece is long and it doesn't have much new info.
 

RamBill

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Andy McCollum:patriots Legacy Tarnished if ESPN Report True

Former Ram Andy McCollum played nine seasons in St. Louis and started at center for the Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI against the New England Patriots. McCollum called in to The Wendy’s Big Show on Tuesday to give his reaction to a new ESPN report that brought forth more evidence the Patriots videotaped the Rams’ walk-through prior to that Super Bowl.

Listen to McCollum Talk Rams/Pats
 

Mackeyser

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It didn't matter that Berman only ruled on whether the league had followed the collective bargaining agreement, not on Brady's guilt or innocence.

Too bad Pats fans and media who slobber all over the Pats *cough* Peter King *cough* don't seem to get that distinction...

"In 20 years," says a coach of another team, "nobody will remember Deflategate."

You mean how it's 15 years later and Spygate is still very much not only remembered, but dominates the thoughts of fans' minds when they think of the Patriots, for or against?

Sorry, but this cheating organization and Belicheck in particular, has been pulling a Cleveland Steamer on the league and fans since Bill was in Cleveland and then brought Ernie Adams and his cheating ways to New England and, frankly, I'm just not into that. At all.

What that says about New England fans and how they just can't get ENOUGH of it, well...
 

V3

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If anyone has recently ingested some poison or simply just wants to lose some weight via bulimia, I'd suggest going to any site with forums where Pats fans may lurk. Just reading the comments from the ESPN site and then on Reddit made me want to vomit all over my keyboard. I'm not sure how much more I can take of Pats fans. How anyone could hate any other team more than the Patriots is beyond me.

Seriously, FUCK THEM! They are beyond delusional. And what's worse is they're getting other fans so sick of hearing about it that now they don't care what happened, either. WTF ever happened to integrity or honor in this country?
 

RamBill

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Former Rams coach Mike Martz says NFL asked him to exonerate Patriots
By Nick Wagoner

http://espn.go.com/blog/st-louis-ra...artz-says-nfl-asked-him-to-exonerate-patriots

EARTH CITY, Mo. -- Of the many interesting and deeply reported details in Seth Wickersham and Don Van Natta Jr.'s story about the New England Patriots and the NFL, there's one section of particular interest for the St. Louis Rams and their fans.

In it, they detail the fallout of the initial Spygate incident before Super Bowl XXXVI in which it was alleged that the Patriots taped or viewed the Rams' pre-game walkthrough before playing New England in that game. More than 13 years after the Rams lost to the Patriots in one of the biggest Super Bowl upsets of all time, former Rams coach Mike Martz revealed some intriguing details of how the NFL handled the investigation into Spygate.

According to the story, Martz said that after the league had conducted its 2008 investigation, commissioner Roger Goodell called him and encouraged him to release a statement saying he was satisfied with the investigation and its subsequent fallout. At the time, Martz was working as the offensive coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers and said he took the call while on the 49ers practice field.

Martz recalled a five-minute conversation in which he said Goodell sounded "panicked" about U.S. Senator Arlen Specter's call for a deeper look into the situation. Martz said Goodell asked him to write a statement clearing the Patriots and asking everyone to move on.

From the story:
"He told me, 'The league doesn't need this. We're asking you to come out with a couple lines exonerating us and saying we did our due diligence,'" says Martz, now 64 years old and out of coaching, during a July interview at his summer cabin in the Idaho mountains.

A congressional inquiry that would put league officials under oath had to be avoided, Martz recalls Goodell telling him. "If it ever got to an investigation, it would be terrible for the league," Goodell said.

That's not where the story ends, though. Martz actually complied with the request and sent a statement to the league. When Wickersham and Van Natta showed him the statement that was released, Martz didn't recognize it.
Shown a copy of his statement this past July, Martz was stunned to read several sentences about Walsh that he says he's certain he did not write. "It shocked me," he says. "It appears embellished quite a bit -- some lines I know I didn't write. Who changed it? I don't know."

Within the past few years, Martz had hoped to get back into the NFL, which could offer a logical explanation on why he didn't publicly reveal this information until now. But there's no doubt that Martz was disturbed enough by what he thought was New England's wrongdoing to change how he operated as coach of the Rams.

The Rams fired Martz in 2006 in part because the loss to New England still lingered amongst the decision makers in the front office. Before he left St. Louis, Martz had grown so weary of potential videotaping that he had large pillars and a screen built on a hill overlooking the practice fields at Rams Park in an effort to block would-be videotapers from checking into a hotel across the street and filming the practice. It cost the team tens of thousands of dollars.

The pillars (without the screen) still stand today as a sort of tribute to paranoia. But based on the findings in the piece and how Martz still feels about the situation, that tribute isn't the only thing that still lingers.
 

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I changed my User Name at a Different site to : We_WON_SuperBowl36
 
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