Cheating Patriots coach faces more scrutiny

He did try to brush it underneath the rug, by addressing it in Week 2 and being done with it. He didn't want to know any more about it than what Bill Belichick told him and tried to get everyone to move on ASAP. No in-depth investigation until down the line, after the Super Bowl, when his hand was forced.

What he didn't anticipate was people wanting to see the evidence, and papers like the NYT unearthing people like Matt Walsh who might shed more light on the Patriots' scheme.

 

Certainly I understand that point. It was a terrible PR move for the Commissioner to destroy those tapes. Maybe Goodell chose to do so because the tapes contained extremely damaging information. If he did, shame on him. Yet we don't know. We will never know now. As the cliche goes, however, it is innocent until proven guilty and we can only trust what Goodell is telling us (for better or for worse). By saying that the destruction of the tapes signifies a larger pattern of cheating, we are further punishing the Patriots for the Commissioner's stupid decision. I would like the tapes to still exist, because I hate that this story will continue on and on.

 

Oz, I hope that you are not arguing that the world of journalism has covered itself in glory in its coverage of this story. Unearthing people like Matt Walsh? To shed light on the Patriots' scheme? How do you mean unearth---he wasn't exactly hiding underneath a rock, was he? And what, exactly, has Matt Walsh told us? He handed six tapes over to the Commissioner and did not possess any information not already known to Goodell. And that's not even mentioning how Walsh improperly obtained those tapes, too.

And what NYT article are you referring to? Does that include the detailed expose by Bob Hohler on Walsh's life that ran in the Globe in late February/early March? Does that story talk about Walsh's termination from the team? His dismissal from his college golf team (I won't provide the details, but it doesn't speak well of his character)? Or is just Harvey Araton getting on his soapbox and taking an extremely rash and severe point of view?

Most importantly, however, is what you would have liked Goodell to have done differently during Week 2. How do you define an in-depth investigation? He learned that the Patriots violated a rule in Week 1 and imposed punishments he deemed justified. Should he have extended his investigation to the 2001, 2003 and 2004 seasons? If so, had it been a team that hadn't won three Super Bowls, would you want the investigation to span the same amount of years?

And the evidence was seen in Week 2. Some leak provided Jay Glazer with various cuts of video footage viewed by Goodell. I believe it was Goodell who planted it, considering his wife works for FoxNews and Glazer's with FoxSports.

But where can we really go from here? What's the objective to continuing with an investigation behind what happened yesterday with Matt Walsh. O.K., next we talk to Brian Daboll and ask him whether he asked Walsh about the Rams walkthrough. Suddenly the possibility is reduced from "Did the Patriots film the Rams' walkthrough" to "Did the Patriots film crew verbally report any observations from the Rams' walkthrough"?

Do you see how the questions keep changing? What's done is done. If you think the Patriots won three Super Bowls because of this taping thing, then you'll never be convinced otherwise and you'll never be satisfied unless the championships are taken away from that organization.

 

Thank you, HB. You can never go wrong with a GF reference.

 

The destruction of evidence is not proof of guilt, but it is absolutely fair reason to call for a deeper investigation.

 

Well, where would you move next? Walsh told you everything he knows. How can you get Tomase to give up his source? Is it even worth interviewing Daboll? Goodell said he has interviewed over 50 people during the last eight months regarding this controversy. Given that he was trying to be the new hard-ass in town since his first day on the job, I have great faith that Goodell's priority is to uphold the rules of the NFL.

 

Fact: New England Patriots fans did not exist until 2004. Prior to that, they were called Red Sox fans.

 

Thanks for the brain power, Dangerous. I even think you may have gotten the order of the teams confused.

 

I don't trust Goodell to handle this. He proved that when he destroyed evidence for no good reason. And we're supposed to trust that he has done everything possible because he said so?

 

I actually like what Goodell did in Week 2. He saw a timebomb and moved to diffuse it quickly. He got the evidence and dished out a quick, tough punishment. He did the Patriots a favor, making sure Spygate didn't hang over the franchise, and he did the NFL a favor in trying to move on ASAP. For that, he did his part as commish to look out for the league's best interests.

I just wish in the weeks that followed he did more to address whether the Patriots did anything more than what was reported. Had he (even privately) closed some of the loose ends that existed in the weeks that followed, loose ends the NYT, the Boston Herald, Arlen Spector and others tried to tie up. And in that sense Goodell tried to sweep it under the rug. He dealt with it in Week 2, then attempted to pretend nothing else was there to look at. Had he been more forthcoming, had he released the original tapes rather than choose to destroy them, maybe he wouldn't have had to endure this past week.

 

2001 actually, and the argument can be made that people started hopping on the wagon when Kraft bought the team.

 

Let's see -- unemployment in PA is high, jobs and people are leaving PA in droves, there are problems with infrastructure and a fight over privatizing the turnpike in the state, our country is embroiled in an awful and expensive war, gas prices are through the roof, health care costs are through the roof, they esimate that by the end of the year 1 in 5 homeowners will be in foreclosure, our jail system is way overcrowded mostly because of insane drug laws and illegal immigrants are putting a big strain on our economy and to top it off the Republican party is begnning to resemble the Titanic -- yet the primary thing on Arlen Specter's mind is a football team that may or may not have stolen signals to win a few games?

Does anyone else find this downright absurd? This guy should be kicked out of office -- or at the very least laughed out of Washington D.C.