The 30 Greatest Sports Conspiracy Theories of All-Time - Elliott Kalb [119]
Four days later, before he had even had a chance to review the tapes, Commissioner Roger Goodell ruled that the Patriots had indeed violated league rules. He fined Belichick $500,000, the maximum penalty allowed under NFL bylaws for violating league policy. He also levied a $250,000 fine against the Patriots themselves, and took away a conditional 2008 draft selection (a first-round pick if the Pats made the 2007 playoffs, or second- and third-round picks if they did not qualify for the postseason). Belichick, however, was not suspended as a result of his actions.
“This episode represents a calculated and deliberate attempt to avoid longstanding rules designed to encourage fair play and promote honest competition on the playing field,” Goodell wrote in a letter to the Patriots.
“I specifically considered whether to impose a suspension on Coach Belichick. I have determined not to do so, largely because I believe that the discipline I am imposing of a maximum fine and forfeiture of a first-round draft choice, or multiple draft choices, is in fact more significant and long-lasting, and therefore more effective, than a suspension.”
As part of the league’s investigation, the Patriots were required to turn over all existing notes and tapes that related to the recording of opponents’ defensive signals. The Patriots complied with this demand, turning over six tapes which Goodell initially said were from the 2007 preseason and late 2006. He also said that the league confiscated some notes. After the league reviewed the materials, they quickly (and rather curiously) chose to destroy them.
On February 1, 2008, just two days before the undefeated Patriots were due to meet the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII, Republican Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania publicly criticized Goodell’s bizarre decision to destroy the materials.
“The American people are entitled to be sure about the integrity of the game,” Specter said. “It’s analogous to the CIA destruction of tapes. Or any time you have records destroyed.”
Citing a September 14, 2007, ESPN report in which Belichick had admitted to taping signals going back as far as 2000 (his first season as the Patriots’ head coach) Specter, the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, requested a meeting with Goodell. The commissioner, who said in a press conference on the same day Specter issued his criticisms that there was “no indication that [taping] benefited [the Patriots] in any of the Super Bowl victories,” agreed to the meeting despite previous plans to travel to Hawaii in advance of the Pro Bowl.
According to a phone interview Specter gave the New York Times’ John Branch afterwards, Goodell revealed in their meeting that the confiscated notes actually dated back as far as 2000 and that the materials had been destroyed, of all places, in Foxborough, Massachusetts, where the Patriots’ offices are located. Goodell’s explanation for destroying the materials—mainly that there was no use for them—didn’t wash with Specter, and he left the meeting unsatisfied.
“There are red flags all over the field,” Specter told Branch. “There are many matters which have not been explained. And the commissioner is stonewalling.”
Further complicating the issue was a Boston Herald report that claimed an unnamed source, later revealed to be former Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh, held evidence that the Patriots had videotaped the St. Louis Rams’ walk-through practice prior to Super Bowl XXXVI in February 2002.
The report was later proven to be false and the Herald issued an apology for the story. But Walsh, who had been fired by the Patriots after the 2002 season, was truly in possession of other tapes, and expressed