If secondhand accounts of speaking with Matt Walsh hasn’t filled your needs to hear from a videographer turned golf pro, the man himself will be on HBO’s Real Sports tomorrow night.
The Boston Globe has some excerpts from the interview and, needless to say, Walsh’s accounts don’t mirror those of Bill Belichick.
“Coach Belichick’s explanation for having misinterpreted the rules. To me, that really didn’t sound like taking responsibility for what we had done, especially considering the great lengths that we had gone through, uh, to hide what we were doing.”
Walsh goes into great detail about cover stories the team created for why they needed an extra camera and fingered Patriots video coordinator Jimmy Dee as the man who educated him about evading detection.
Walsh also scoffed at the notion that Belichick “couldn’t pick him out of a lineup,” saying Belichick’s wife bought him a Christmas gift and, via this account in the Providence Journal of the interview, repeated the story told by Arlen Specter about a quarterback telling him that tapes he made of Tampa’s defensive signals resulted in Drew Bledsoe being told the correct defense he was about to face 75% of the time during a 2000 game.
Walsh’s comments in full paint a far larger picture than the one that Roger Goodell gave on Tuesday. By destroying the evidence and declaring the case closed, the NFL created an appearance of covering their own rear when total transparency would be the easiest way for this to really fade into the night.
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May 15th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Whoa, there’s a shock!
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May 15th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Maybe that explains why Bledsoe sucked so bad as a Cowboy!
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 11:15 am
“Walsh also scoffed at the notion that Belichick”couldn’t pick him out of a lineup,” saying Belichick’s wife bought him a Christmas gift”
There are plenty of people that my wife bought Christmas gifts for that I couldn’t pick out of a lineup.
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Why is this a big friggen deal?
So now, they buy a TICKET sit in the front row, and do the same thing and it’s legal? Jesus.
In baseball, stealing signs is part of the game.
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Rating: 1 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Walsh is not credible to me. I can see him watching HBO with one hand down his pants.
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Rating: 1 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 11:21 am
I guess the “Patriot Way” is to lie and stick with it.
Robert Kraft should be embarrassed. If he had any integrity he’d fire Belichick.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Ugh I’ve moved on. When is training camp?
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Rating: 1 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Why doesnt the NFL interview the other 31 teams video crews. Im all for doing that.
Lets find out the real deal of whats going on in the NFL.
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May 15th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Belichick’s wife bought Walsh a Christmas gift? Was this before our after Bill allegedly started dating the Giants receptionist?
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 11:30 am
The fact that the Patriots didn’t cry foul or complain about Goodell’s punishment last year and the absensce of pursuing the Herald leads me to this conclusion…
The Patriots were cheating, they knew they were cheating, and they did more than we know about. To me they are clearly keeping quiet and just hoping this will go away instead of defending themselves… the appropriate action if you know you are guilty and have skeletons you don’t want revealed.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 11:33 am
I hate to say this, but I hope that Specter does hold the anti-trust exemption in Goodell’s face and forces him to come clean on this stuff. I said from the beginning that Belichek should have been suspended an minimum of 4 games.
There is no way that the evidence should have been destroyed. As far as I am concerned every W that that team has should have an * next to it and Super Bowl titles should be stripped. I that is not going to happen but I can dream can’t I?
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Rating: 3.5 / 5 with 4 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 11:37 am
Taping probably didn’t help them much in 2000. The Pats went 5-11.
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Rating: 3.5 / 5 with 4 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 11:40 am
/yawn
wake me up when it’s over.
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May 15th, 2008 at 11:48 am
I’d like a full investigation so I know whether to believe Walsh. First of all, I would never believe anything Walsh’s lawyer says. The whole US learned during the Clinton-Lewinsky incident that one of the purposes of an attorney in such high profile cases is to publicize your lies for you so you have deniability later. My guess is that 90% of what Walsh says is true but I’d like to know about the other 10%. An investigation of who Walsh told what about the SB walkthrough since he left the Patriots would be interesting. I’d also like to know how the rich pro-bono lawyer got the case and what is his connection to Specter, if any.
Do you actually read what you write? How does BB’s wife buying a gift for MW tell us anything about whether BB could pick him out of a lineup/ You neglected to say that the game in which the Patriots allegedly knew 75% of the defenses, they still lost. So much for the big advantage.
My opinion of the spying is that prior to 2006, BB found a loophole in the rule and he exploited it. He did not want to bring attention to the teams’ actions because he knew at best it was a loophole. I read the rule and thought the loophole was obvious. After 2006 when the NFL issued the memo expanded the rule, BB had no excuse.
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Rating: 2.35 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 11:48 am
So then the taping and knowledge of signs really didn’t matter. I believe the Patriots scored a whopping 16 points in that game.
Also, I have spoken with a friend of mine who played for the Patriots during the time in question (on defense) and he said that the hand signals certainly change, but are absolutely never the same as those used in the pre-season. Therefore, considering that the TB game in 2000 was the first of the Belichick tenure, and that the Bucs probably didn’t have the same signs in the pre-season meeting, how would the Pats have been able to call 75% of the defensive plays? Again, Walsh is not a credible source. I believe he lied to the Herald and overestimated his role and its importance to the Patriots stunning success in the 2000 campaign (5-11).
I’m sorry, but knowing the defensive alignment 75% of the time has GOT to get you more than 16 points.
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Rating: 2.35 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 11:51 am
If Goodell does’t think that knowing 75% of the defense’s plays prior to the snap isn’t a massive (and entirely unfair) advantage to the offense then he can’t know much about football.
Back when Madden used to allow you to display your play on the screen before the snap if you accidentally showed your defensive play to the other player you had to audible instantly or it was an automatic first down at best or six points at worst. If your opponent was dumb enough to do it even 10% of the time you would have expected to give them a pretty thorough kicking.
Didn’t Tom Brady give a statement saying it was ridiculous to infer that he was being given the opposing team’s plays through his earpiece. Did they only give the info to Bledsoe? Was Brady just too honorable to listen? If he was getting 75% of the defensive plays from the offensive coordinator how come he wasn’t completing an awful lot more passes?
Seriously what kind of completion percentage would Joe Montana have managed to post if you told him three quarters of the opponents plays? 80%? 90%?
The way this has been investigated (and seemingly then covered up) means we have no way of knowing what actually happened. This situation doesn’t help anyone; neither fans who want to know what went on, nor the Patriots organisation which now will probably have an asterisk placed against all its achievements this decade. In ten years this will all come up again during all of Fame discussions. What does seem clear is that Goodell seems to have been as anxious as the Pats that as little information about this as possible got out.
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Rating: 2.75 / 5 with 4 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 11:52 am
This story will not go away unless the Pats take responsibility for what they did, or at least show some sort of regret.
I mean the whole notion that it was a simple misunderstanding is insulting. The handling the issue “in house” by the Commish and destruction of evidence and downplaying of the facts just made it worse.
I suspected them all along because of how fast the QB was able to make the reads, and would just throw to spots in the defense without even reading the coverage.
There is film study, and then there is breaking the code and knowing exactly what the other team is calling. That is what they were doing.
Then using that edge to win 3 SBs.
The accomplishments seemed so incredible in the era of parity and salary cap, because they were winning very exiting, close games with “role players” and aging vets cast off from other teams, not a huge collection of all stars like Dallas and SF had in the 90s.
Who knows how much of it was good gameplanning and how much was cutting edge spy games.
Personally I have figure they would have lost all the close games if not for the edge in gameplanning gained immorally at least.
The punishment was huge by the Commish, but the details and explanation have not been sufficient.
Aparently the apology delivered at owner meetings won over a lot of people, perhaps a contrite statement from BB instead of spin and BS would satisfy the urge to continue dragging them through the mud.
There really is nothing more to gain by trying to discredit them further, but after the way they were built up, it is impossible not to enjoy tearing them down.
Just pretend you are sorry and admit you were wrong and we will leave you alone.
Rub your rings in our faces, say everyone else was doing it and all that crap you have been doing and we will find more details like the 75% succes rate of signal stealing. That sounds like enough incentive to continue cheating and test the new Commish.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 4 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Wow, it’s amazing how much Bledsoe was able to maximize his effectiveness with the Patriots due to Matt Walsh’s video tape.
And Belichick’s wife bought him a Christmas present. Woopde-doo. If I was a highly paid coach I would have my wife, or an admin assistant, buy gifts for the rest of the staff too. Does that mean I know who each and every one personally.
It’s like saying, “Of course George W. Bush knows me personally. He just sent me a check the other day!”
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 11:59 am
I doubt that this is the last we’ll see of Matt Walsh. Next up will be a book. He’s got to pay for that high priced lawyer some how.
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Rating: 1 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Belichick is a liar and a cheater. He should have been suspended for a year, and the Pats should have lost 3 first round picks.
The 2000-2007 Patriots = Total joke. They make a mockery of sportsmanship and fair play. Their legacy is forever tarnished.
The Pats’ records mean less than Barry Bonds’ records. Why? Because we all know that a lot of baseball players were doing steroids; but the evidence is that only the Pats were cheating by videotaping signals.
ps - How do you know when you have submitted a great post about the Pats?
1. When Florio refuses to put it on the message board - which happens often
2. When all the Pats homers give you a one rating.
I guarantee one or the other of these will be true regarding this post.
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Rating: 4.1 / 5 with 9 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
This is still the same Matt Walsh that stole videotapes, footballs and other stuff from the New England Patriots, was fired for reportedly recording conversations with front office personnel and most likely lied to the Boston Herald about having a tape of the walkthrough of the Rams, right?
Just wondering when he became such a credible witness?
Bret
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Rating: 2.6 / 5 with 5 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
I’m so sick of these Matt Walsh stories. Man he’s such an attention whore. At this point I could care less, on to the next story
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Rating: 1 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
How long does 15 minutes have to last? STOP TALKING ABOUT THIS FRUITCAKE AND LET HIM GO AWAY FOREVER!!!! I hate the Patriots as much as the next guy, and I love profootballtalk.com. I click here at least 20 times a day. I want FOOTBALL INFORMATION…not information on frickin Spygate any more. Matt Walsh wouldn’t know football if it hit him in his camera. LET HIM GO AWAY PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Now I know why he wanted immunity.
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Hmmmm I wonder what backup quarterback for Drew Bledsoe Walsh is describing? Doesn’t take a very smart man to figure out the golden boy isn’t as pristine as he’s made out to be.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)