John Tomase of the BOSTON HERALD has news that’ll surely cheer up Pats fans today: “new allegations have emerged about a Patriots employee taping the Rams’ final walkthrough before Super Bowl XXXVI. According to a source, a member of the team’s video department filmed the Rams’ final walkthrough before that 2002 game. The next day, the Patriots upset St. Louis, 20-17, on a last-second field goal by Adam Vinatieri for their first championship.”
Tomase has more detail in the piece, but you get the idea. We really are starting to wonder just how many people in the NFL despise Bill Belichick. We imagine there’s plenty of this going around all over the league, but leaks like these, the day before the Super Bowl, aren’t a coincidence.
Much like the recent news of a former Patriots employee, Matt Walsh, who might know more about Spygate than has been released publicly - being made known right before what should be the Pats’ finest hour. We’re guessing Roger Goodell now wishes he didn’t destroy those tapes.
1:15 pm on February 2nd, 2008
It’s interesting how this is all hitting the day before the Superbowl (errrr, I mean “Big Game”, please don’t sue me NFL!).
I think the NFL’s decision to play hardball with the media over the use of content previous to this season is a big motivator to take some of the luster off of what should be the biggest Superbowl ever.
I will say this much…. I don’t really blame them. What the NFL did as far as use of content was downright sleazy. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. If it weren’t for the broadcasters, radio shows, beat writers, and now especially bloggers, the NFL wouldn’t be as big as it is. To turn around and yank away all of the audio and video like that was not a good thing, and the NFL will feel the wrath one way or another.
You are seeing the end result right now. I predict this just gets uglier this offseason. Things will get even worse once a few players are outed as the drug investigations continue and build momentum.