Several readers have sent to us the full, 15-minute interview of Patriots coach Bill Belichick by Armen Keteyian of CBS.

Here it is.

 

One key excerpt that didn’t make it onto the CBS Evening News was Belichick’s assertion, right out of the gates, that “more than one person” had told him that Matt Walsh had claimed that he had videotaped the Rams’ walk-through practice prior to Super Bowl XXXVI.

“Now that story has changed,” Belichick says.  “It seems like he has an agenda.”

This contention meshes with our strongly-held belief that Walsh was the source for the February 2 story in the Boston Herald that the walk-through practice had been taped.  So, apparently, Walsh lied to John Tomase of the Herald, and then presumably told the truth to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on May 13.

As to the videotaping of coaching signals, Belichick emphasized that he believed that he read the rules to prohibit the use of video shot in a game during that game.  And Belichick insisted that the Pats never used the video during the same game.

Regarding the September 2006 memo, Belichick said that he should have gone to the NFL and asked whether his past approach was still acceptable.

Keteyian then pressed him on the language of the memo, in an exchange that should have made it into the “real” broadcast, but didn’t.

(As to our summary of the excerpt of the interview that aired on Friday night, we based our conclusion that Belichick conceded that he became aware in September 2006 that the practice was against the rules on this narrative statement from Keteyian:  “Belichick acknowledged when the rule was clarified by the league in September 2006, outlawing videotaping of any type during a game, he stepped over the line.”  Belichick didn’t actually say that; he claimed that he should have sought clarification from the league, and then Keteyian pressed him on whether, given the plain language of the memo, clarification of any kind was needed.) 

Belichick’s primary argument in support of his position that they didn’t know the practice violated the rules was that the taping occurred out in the open.  But, as we see it, the alleged lack of secrecy doesn’t mean that Belichick believed the tactic was fully within the rules.  Perhaps there was no way to covertly tape the signals, and that the better approach was to tell Walsh to do what he did while acting that he was doing something that he was allowed to do. 

If, after all, no one complains about it, then there will be no problem.  The fact that Walsh wasn’t wearing a trenchcoat and a fake moustache doesn’t mean that the Pats weren’t preparing, if push came to shove, to say that they weren’t doing what they were doing.

Keteyian and Belichick also debated the question of whether the videotaped signals had any real benefit, and Belichick pointed out the reality that the information that was taped was available to anyone in the stadium could have seen the signals that were being taped.

With the benefit of seeing and hearing the full interview, we think that Keteyian did a fair and proper job of grilling Belichick, and that whoever cut the thing together for use on the CBS Evening News might have believed that the end result would make Belichick look good, when in reality it made him look bad.