The New England Patriots find themselves in a battle with the Buffalo Bills for the AFC East title with three games remaining in the 2019 season.
The Pats also find themselves in an investigation via the NFL which involved a videographer hired by the Patriots recording the Bengals sideline during Cincy’s Week 14 game against the Cleveland Browns. The Bengals are the Pats’ opponent this upcoming weekend.
Since the initial report, which will of course draw the attention of Bills fans, here’s what has happened come about.
The Patriots admitted to inadvertently violating league rules by videotaping the field from the press box last week. But the team explained it as nothing more than a videotaping of a documentary series for the team’s website. The Patriots went on to accepting responsibility for the incident.
Eight minutes of footage of the Bengals’ sideline during their game against the Browns was found. NFL sidelines use headset systems to call-in plays to players, but an advantage can still be gained via other signals used on the sideline.
The investigation is ongoing, but Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has spoken on the incident, too. He denies wrongdoing on his own part.
“I have no involvement in this or knowledge of it,” Belichick said. “I really don’t have any idea what exactly is going on. I can tell you that we’ve never as a coaching staff — I personally have never used any video footage at all, anything that those production people have done other than what’s shown on public television or something like that.
“We don’t have anything to do with what they do, so I really don’t have much knowledge of the situation at all.”
Belichick’s Patriots were previously involved with other competitive advantage investigations, including Spygate and Deflategate.
This investigation by the league into this latest incident is still ongoing.
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