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 1:38 pm
Is Walsh getting paid by HBO for this interview?
The agreement between Walsh, the NFL, and the Patriots protects him against lawsuits but what about when he goes on HBO? If Walsh says something on HBO that he did not cover with Goodell or Specter, does he open himself up for defamation lawsuit?
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
How come HBO didnt ask Walsh what he got fired for?
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Rating: 2 / 5 with 4 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Well, let’s see. Walsh lies about his background on his official golf pro site, lied about his background and experience in another pre-Spygate news story, illegally made secret tapes of conversations with his colleagues, and apparently lied to members of the media off the record that he had tapes of the Rams walk through.
So we’re assuming he’s gotten all the lying out of his system and is now a trustworthy source, right?
Well maybe not - apparently he’s also told Specter - and Specter passed along the comments of this “fine young man” in Senate floor speech, that he also witnessed taping after he was fired as he was a season ticket holder and saw team personnel taping at game against Pittsburgh.
Unfortunately for Walsh he got caught in another lie as that game wasn’t played in Foxoboro - it was played on the road.
But we can trust him NOW, right?
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Rating: 2.7 / 5 with 7 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Sure doesn’t seem like Roger Goodell has the NFL’s best interest in mind anymore…or at least the whole league’s
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Rating: 4.15 / 5 with 6 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Tainted.
The Patriots need further punishment.
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Rating: 3.8 / 5 with 10 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Oh, boy. As I said all along.
Look the Patbackers are running and trying to make everybody is a lie’s but the pats. LOL, all too funny. Keep squirming.
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Rating: 4 / 5 with 8 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
I wonder where Ken Lay and Enron would be today if they were allowed to perform there own internal investigation and then tell the world the results. What a joke Goodell is, the Senator is doing the right thing. Football is a multi-billion dollar industry, take them down senator! Take them down to china town!
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Rating: 4.35 / 5 with 6 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
So Bill Belicheck, an egomaniac who limits what members of his team say to the press, is not fully aware of the employees who work for him? Maybe if this was the guy who sold beer in the 400 level or the woman who worked 11-7 at the ticket booth he could make this argument.
But this guy was taping teams for Belicheck and his coaches to use to prepare for games. He didn’t know who he was? Please.
And you can talk about the integrity of Matt Walsh, but isn’t Belicheck also the guy who was in court regarding a relationship with a woman on his staff? So maybe he didn’t know who Walsh was because he was neglecting his wife.
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Rating: 4.35 / 5 with 6 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
“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.”
This game was the first time the Patriots faced the Bucs under Belichick. So…….what tapes exactly were they relying upon to steal signals. This is such a ridiculous story.
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 4 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Mr. Relevant Irrelevant strikes again!
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Joesixpack - What about Walsh’s statements is so incredulous? The Patriots admitted to illegally taping opposing team’s defensive signals for almost a decade. The tapes produced show a fairly elaborate editing process that took someone quite a bit of time to do. You don’t spend all that time and energy into doing something if you don’t plan on using that information. The only way to use that information is to let the offensive coordinator and starting QB what the defensive play is. There are only a couple of people on the sideline that are patched in to the QB helmet and O-Coordinator, which makes the backup QB the perfect person to decipher the defensive signals and relay that info to the proper personnel. In 2000 and 2001 guess who that person would have been?
Walsh might be a scoundrel, but his general story is backed up by the Pats and the tapes. In a court of law that would make him a pretty credible witness. Will you attempt to argue that the “smartest” head coach in the NFL doesn’t understand a league memo handed out right before the season that explicitely states what he’s doing is wrong?
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Rating: 4.35 / 5 with 6 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
“But we can trust him NOW, right?”
so in your opinion, who’s telling the truth here? from my vantage point, it doesn’t seem like you can trust anyone involved in this. they’re all lying.
the patriots likely did more cheating than what they got punished for and belichick has been lying about this since day one.
goodell is just looking to end this as quickly as possible rather than finding out what really went on.
walsh may or may not be telling the complete truth, but he does seem to know what he’s talking about. attacking him doesn’t change what the patriots did. seems to me that patriots fans are using him as a strawman with the notion that tearing walsh down somehow puts the patriots in a more favorable light.
i don’t think the patriots should be punished further, but rather than killing walsh, your anger should really be directed at belichick who brazenly defied a memo clearly outlining that what they were doing was considered cheating. they got caught. whether walsh does or does not have a tape does not change that. whether walsh got all the facts straight about a game that happened years ago doesn’t change that.
stop whining and just deal with it.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 4 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
“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.”
And yet Bledsoe only threw for 190 yards and got sacked 6 times in that game. So without the info he throws for 48 and gets sacked 24 times? (Actually, that does sound a little like Drew.)
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
At least he and spectar are still trying to get the truth out. I think there are a lot of fans out there who want to know how deeply through the league these practices run. Goodell obviously has ulterior motives and is trying to get this wrapped up as quickly as possible (to keep his league from being tainted). For him to go back 5 or 6 years and question the validity of SB wins, would just drag the league through the mud with cheating accusations coming from every direction.
Whether it’s found out that the whole league was cheating or not, a la Barry Bonds and the steriods era, anytime there’s talk of the Pats past few SB wins, or crazy talk of them being a dynasty, there now should always be an asterisk attached for the cheating era.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
The reason they have no one to blame but themselves is they would have got away with it completely, if only they had stopped cheating in 2006 when they were called out and “reminded” of the rules behind the scenes.
The information had to be so valuable that it was worth risking the reputation, and testing the new Commish even after his warning.
Look how hard it has been to get the truth or a witness about what was admited to.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Maybe we can move on from Matt Walsh and get to real NFL news like rookie free agents getting cut, 3rd string quarterback’s mama’s making quilts, etc.
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Rating: 1 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
I just want to point out that the secrecy involved in this taping operation doesn’t necessarily mean that people are knowingly doing wrong. What is extremely important to this kind of scouting operation is that the other team is unaware. If the opposing team finds out, then the film then becomes useless.
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May 15th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Pats fans, quit directing your anger at everyone except the person who is to blame, your “so-called genious” cheating coach.
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Rating: 2.35 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
So who in the media has asked this sage Walsh to name the guy from the other team standing next to him with a camera doing “the same thing as me.” He straight out tells the NYTimes that at one game he stood right next to a camera man from another team who was taping signals and no one, NO ONE with any journalistic integrity wants to know what team that videographer was from? I bet all you haters are praying that guy wasn’t from YOUR team! If anyone ever does have the balls to ask, I would hope that team would be fined the same amount and would become the object of all of your hatred. Oh wait, then he will be the liar and source without credibility that Pats fans say he is, right?
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Rating: 3.65 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
“The 2000-2007 Patriots = Total joke. They make a mockery of sportsmanship and fair play. Their legacy is forever tarnished. ”
Envy is certainly an ugly emotion. That’s one thing the cadre of obsessive commenters has demonstrated on this site over the last few months.
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May 15th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
catesinator - we need to make you an honorary Patsfan!
Yes - as you pointed out, consistent with what Belichick had told the commissioner, he never used any of the video made in the games they were made in. They were used later on for analysis, just as the Dolphins and other teams admit they have done.
So you are absolutely correct - Belichick, Jimmy Johnson, and the other coaches who engaged in the same or similar practices WERE smart enough to see that there was a gaping loophole in the NFL rules. And of course not even the NFL attempts to deny that the rule was unclear - that’s why they clarified it in 2006.
Now if you’re talking post 2006? I agree with you. But I don’t think we need to insult people’s intelligence by explaining why a 2006 rule wasn’t relevant in 2001.
I guess another analogy would be, suppose you were a team employee and another team had an open walk through before a big game, and wasn’t smart enough to close it to non-team members. Would you close your eyes and not watch? Of course not. Yet apparently some would call that cheating.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
May 15th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
“So who in the media has asked this sage Walsh to name the guy from the other team standing next to him with a camera doing “the same thing as me.” He straight out tells the NYTimes that at one game he stood right next to a camera man from another team who was taping signals and no one, NO ONE with any journalistic integrity wants to know what team that videographer was from? I bet all you haters are praying that guy wasn’t from YOUR team! If anyone ever does have the balls to ask, I would hope that team would be fined the same amount and would become the object of all of your hatred. Oh wait, then he will be the liar and source without credibility that Pats fans say he is, right?”
lol. it’s patriot fans who are calling this guy a liar. so if he’s a liar, then why should we believe him? is he a liar or isn’t he patriot fans?
the reason the patriots are getting punished is because they defied a direct order to stop doing the taping, long after walsh was fired. this other team was cheating too, let’s find out who it is, but is it possible they didn’t have the balls to keep doing it after the memo from goodell?
seems possible only belichick would have the arrogance to keep doing it in defiance of the league. that’s the real issue here patriot whiners.
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May 15th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
First of all, espnsux, ESPN does not suck…second, why all the anger and rage pats fans? It’s almost as if the patriot nation forgot that Belichick cheated. You have no one to blame but the “genius” himself. That organization will be dragged through the mud for years to come.
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May 15th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Subzero: you right ESPN does not totally suck and here is some evidence that they can still be logical when they arent going off on tangents: http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3394809
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