New England Patriots Spygate 2.0?

[Troy Brown]

Just now, BayRaider said:

It’s been all over the internet for years as common knowledge with tons of testimonies. Don’t sit here and tell me Pat spying was the Jet game. It was multiple years of collections with a super advanced decoding system. 

I didn't say that it was only the Jets game, but there seems to be a pretty large gap between 7 years and 1 game. I've never seen it as common knowledge and I frequent these here internets. Surely you'd have a link, bud

[BayRaider]

3 minutes ago, Troy Brown said:

I didn't say that it was only the Jets game, but there seems to be a pretty large gap between 7 years and 1 game. I've never seen it as common knowledge and I frequent these here internets. Surely you'd have a link, bud

Google “Spygate way worse than anyone thought” and you’ll find a solid 10+ articles and tons of videos from 2015-2016. The one I posted earlier is the most detailed. 

And actual news sites, not blogs. 

Edited December 10, 2019 by BayRaider

[Troy Brown]

Just now, BayRaider said:

Google “Spygate way worse than anyone thought” and you’ll find a solid 10+ articles and tons of videos from 2015-2016. The one I posted earlier is the most detailed. 

And actual news sites, not blogs. 

oh okay so you don't have one lol

[Troy Brown]

I'm not even denying that it could be true, but I'm not going to search for a link on something you're claiming to be common knowledge

[Nex_Gen]

18 minutes ago, BayRaider said:

This is the type of attitude Pats fans had the first time when it was the biggest cheating scandal ever. Knowing what the other team is gonna do is the biggest advantage one can possibly have, and they had collections of signal tape if you read the link I posted. Spygate of course was not solely the Jet game, no where even close, hence the punishment. 

I’m sure IF something does turn up, and Pats get punished, many Pat fans will cry “NFL out to get us!!!”. When in reality the original spygate was so down played by the NFL because it would of ruined the NFL and all of its integrity. 

A seesaw does work two ways....

[BayRaider]

5 minutes ago, Troy Brown said:

oh okay so you don't have one lol

 

How lazy can you be man? I hardly have time for this.

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/espn-report-patriots-spygate-scandal-2015-9

https://nypost.com/2015/09/08/spygate-much-worse-than-belichick-goodell-divulged-report/

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/09/08/report-patriots-spygate-cheating-was-widespread-over-many-years/

https://www.wcvb.com/article/spygate-far-worse-than-anyone-initially-thought-espn-reports/8071514#

An ESPN Outside the Lines report, citing interviews with more than 90 sources around the NFL, says that the Spygate cheating lasted “at least 40 games over a period of several seasons from 2000 to 2007,” and that the league never fully investigated all the accusations against the team.

[KManX89]

[Troy Brown]

1 minute ago, BayRaider said:

 

How lazy can you be man? I hardly have time for this.

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/espn-report-patriots-spygate-scandal-2015-9

https://nypost.com/2015/09/08/spygate-much-worse-than-belichick-goodell-divulged-report/

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/09/08/report-patriots-spygate-cheating-was-widespread-over-many-years/

https://www.wcvb.com/article/spygate-far-worse-than-anyone-initially-thought-espn-reports/8071514#

An ESPN Outside the Lines report, citing interviews with more than 90 sources around the NFL, says that the Spygate cheating lasted “at least 40 games over a period of several seasons from 2000 to 2007,” and that the league never fully investigated all the accusations against the team.

HOW CAN I BE LAZY? Jesus! hahaha, it's your claim!!!! Yeah, sure, sounds feasible, I also still think that scenario was funny given it was Mangini that reported it and videotaped the next year or whatever it was.

Wasn't there something about this being a relatively new rule and the spot had been changed from something that was legal? I don't remember, I'm definitely not going to research it as a thesis or whatever. 

[Cutler06]

Is that their motto in NE ?????  "If you're not cheating, you're not trying  " Great legacy for Brady and BB

[Chiefer]

7 hours ago, INbengalfan said:

Maybe they just wanted to set him up for another "We're on to Cincinnati".  I mean, really, how many times do we have to play them the week after losing to the Chiefs?

The new meme is “Cincinnati is onto us”

[Chiefer]

1 hour ago, Troy Brown said:

I'm not even denying that it could be true, but I'm not going to search for a link on something you're claiming to be common knowledge

Well you are a Patriots fan, why would you?

[Jakuvious]

4 hours ago, drd23 said:

 

So this is a big deal, right? I feel like this statement was kind of glossed over in this thread, but this seems huge. Because this is them admitting that people working for the Patriots violated NFL rules. And okay, maybe, if this were the Browns or the Lions or the Rams, okay, whatever, stupid thing happened, slap on the wrist, move on. But this is the Patriots. Violating NFL rules on filming what they shouldn't where they shouldn't. There's no way the penalty isn't going to be massive, right? Even if it is just some stupid accident they knew nothing about.

This is like Vontaze Burfict coming out and tweeting "Yeah, I hit that guy in the head." Just the repeat offender escalation on this penalty is going to be nuts.

[BayRaider]

9 minutes ago, Jakuvious said:

So this is a big deal, right? I feel like this statement was kind of glossed over in this thread, but this seems huge. Because this is them admitting that people working for the Patriots violated NFL rules. And okay, maybe, if this were the Browns or the Lions or the Rams, okay, whatever, stupid thing happened, slap on the wrist, move on. But this is the Patriots. Violating NFL rules on filming what they shouldn't where they shouldn't. There's no way the penalty isn't going to be massive, right? Even if it is just some stupid accident they knew nothing about.

This is like Vontaze Burfict coming out and tweeting "Yeah, I hit that guy in the head." Just the repeat offender escalation on this penalty is going to be nuts.

Yes this is big, at least to the point of a huge investigation. Maybe nothing turns up, but it will be highly investigated and in the media.

It just got really downplayed during release because of the documentary shooting, which is a nice excuse (although also true). 

[kyle21121]

Guilty or innocent they should dock NE 7 first rounders. 

[BayRaider]

This is how big the first Spygate actually was that the NFL swept under the rug to prevent their brand from folding:

(Released in 2015)

From interviews by ESPN and Outside the Lines with more than 90 league officials, owners, team executives and coaches, current and former Patriots coaches, staffers and players, and reviews of previously undisclosed private notes from key meetings :

IN AUGUST 2000, before a Patriots preseason game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Jimmy Dee, the head of New England's video department, approached one of his charges, Matt Walsh, with a strange assignment: He wanted Walsh to film the Bucs' offensive and defensive signals, the arm waving and hand folding that team coaches use to communicate plays and formations to the men on the field.

Walsh later told investigators that, at the time, he didn't know the NFL game operations manual forbade taping signals.

Not coincidentally, the Bucs were also New England's opponent in the regular-season opener. A few days before the game, Walsh told Senate investigators, according to notes of the interview, a backup quarterback named John Friesz was summoned to Belichick's office. Offensive coordinator Charlie Weis and a professorial, quirky man named Ernie Adams were present. Adams was -- and still is -- a mystery in the Patriots building, though known to have a photographic memory.

Adams' title was football research director, the only known person with that title in the NFL.

Days before the Tampa Bay game, in Belichick's office, Friesz was told that the Patriots had a tape of the Bucs' signals. He was instructed to memorize them, and during the game, to watch Bucs defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin and tell Weis the defensive play, which Weis would relay over the radio headset system to quarterback Drew Bledsoe. That Sunday against the Bucs, Walsh later told investigators, the Patriots played more no-huddle than usual, forcing Kiffin to signal in plays quickly, allowing Weis sufficient time to relay the information.

Walsh later told investigators, Friesz, who did not respond to messages to comment for this story, told Walsh after the game that the Patriots knew 75 percent of the Bucs' defenses before the snap.

Now, the Patriots realized that they were on to something, a schematic edge that could allow their best minds more control on the field. Taping from the sideline increased efficiency and minimized confusion. And so, as Walsh later told investigators, the system improved, becoming more streamlined -- and more secretive. The quarterbacks were cut out of the process. The only people involved were a few coaches, the video staff and, of course, Adams. Belichick, almost five years after being fired by the Browns and fully aware that this was his last best shot as a head coach, placed an innovative system of cheating in the hands of his most trusted friend.

AS THE PATRIOTS became a dynasty and Belichick became the first coach to win three Super Bowls in four years, an entire system of covert videotaping was developed and a secret library created. "It got out of control," a former Patriots assistant coach says. Sources with knowledge of the system say an advance scout would attend the games of upcoming Patriots opponents and assemble a spreadsheet of all the signals and corresponding plays. The scout would give it to Adams, who would spend most of the week in his office with the door closed, matching the notes to the tapes filmed from the sideline. Files were created, organized by opponent and by coach. During games, Walsh later told investigators, the Patriots' videographers were told to look like media members, to tape over their team logos or turn their sweatshirt inside out, to wear credentials that said Patriots TV or Kraft Productions. The videographers also were provided with excuses for what to tell NFL security if asked what they were doing: Tell them you're filming the quarterbacks. Or the kickers. Or footage for a team show.

The cameramen's assignments differed depending on the opponent. For instance, Walsh told investigators that against Indianapolis he was directed to take close-ups of the Colts' offensive signals, then of Peyton Manning's hand signals. Mostly, though, the tapes were of defensive signals.

As much as the Patriots tried to keep the circle of those who knew about the taping small, sometimes the team would add recently cut players from upcoming opponents and pay them only to help decipher signals, former Patriots staffers say. In 2005, for instance, they signed a defensive player from a team they were going to play in the upcoming season. Before that game, the player was led to a room where Adams was waiting. They closed the door, and Adams played a compilation tape that matched the signals to the plays from the player's former team, and asked how many were accurate.

During games, Adams sat in the coaches' box, with binoculars and notes of decoded signals, wearing a headset with a direct audio line to Belichick. Whenever Adams saw an opposing coach's signal he recognized, he'd say something like, "Watch for the Two Deep Blitz," and either that information was relayed to Brady or a play designed specifically to exploit the defense was called. A former Patriots employee who was directly involved in the taping system says "it helped our offense a lot."

Several former New England coaches and employees say that the taping of signals wasn't even the only cheating method the Patriots deployed. 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. Numerous former employees say the Patriots would have someone rummage through the visiting team hotel for playbooks or scouting reports.

Walsh later told investigators that he was once instructed to remove the labels and erase tapes of a Patriots practice because the team had illegally used a player on injured reserve. At Gillette Stadium, the scrambling and jamming of the opponents' coach-to-quarterback radio line occurred so often that one team asked a league official to sit in the coaches' box during the game and wait for it to happen. Sure enough, on a key third down, the headset went out.

A former member of the NFL competition committee says the committee spent much of 2001-06 "discussing ways in which the Patriots cheated," even if nothing could be proved. Theories ran wild and nothing -- the notion of bugging locker rooms or of Brady having a second frequency in his helmet to help decipher the defense -- was out of the realm of possibility. There were regular rumors that the Patriots had taped the Rams' walk-through practice before Super Bowl XXXVI in February 2002, one of the greatest upsets in NFL history, a game won by the Patriots 20-17 on a last-second Adam Vinatieri field goal.

The rumors and speculation reached a fever pitch in 2006. The allegations against the Patriots prompted NFL executive vice president of football operations Ray Anderson to send a letter to all 32 team owners, general managers and head coaches on Sept. 6, 2006, reminding them that "videotaping of any type, including but not limited to taping of an opponent's offensive or defensive signals, is prohibited from the sidelines."

But the Patriots kept doing it. In November 2006, Green Bay Packers security officials caught Matt Estrella shooting unauthorized footage at Lambeau Field. When asked what he was doing, according to notes from the Senate investigation of Spygate that had not previously been disclosed, Estrella said he was with Kraft Productions and was taping panoramic shots of the stadium. He was removed by Packers security. That same year, according to former Colts GM Bill Polian, who served for years on the competition committee and is now an analyst for ESPN, several teams complained that the Patriots had videotaped signals of their coaches.