The New England Patriots finally received a punishment for the videotaping incident that happened last season.
Roger Goodell and the NFL came down with a stern punishment, resulting in $1.1 million in fines and a loss of a 2021 third-round draft pick. The incident happened during Week 14 against the Cincinnati Bengals when the Patriots illegally taped their sideline. Bill Belichick wasn’t involved with this incident and it came down on a Patriots.com employee — not on the football operations side.
But, Belichick’s history of cheating played a factor in the harsh punishment, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. He was stripped of a first-round pick and fined $500,000 after Spygate — while Tom Brady took a major hit with Deflategate.
“It does seem steep, but I would say this, No. 1, the Patriots admitted that there was a transgression and No. 2, there was a history,” Schefter said on WEEI’s ‘The Greg Hill Show‘. “Even though it might seem severe and steep, the NFL has to send a message that even with the Patriots, a team that [they’ve had some good, close relationships over time — everyone knows Roger Goodell and Robert Kraft have had a good relationship — we’re going to impose punishment as we see fit.
“And in this particular case, the Patriots admitted it, everyone saw the tape, knew something happened, there was previous history. I think if there’s no history maybe it just goes away — it’s not a team like the Patriots that has got the attention it has, maybe it just goes away. But because it’s the Patriots, because they have been in the spotlight, because they have had the history, because there’s so much attention on it, there we go, there’s the third-round pick.”
The punishment took an extremely long time to get delivered, and it oddly came on the same night the Patriots signed Cam Newton. It’s unknown if it was a coincidence or not, but it definitely downplayed the significance from the public’s perspective. Both Newton’s signing and the punishment came within 30 minutes of each other.
Regardless of how it played out, the Patriots finally received their punishment and can move on from the incident. The Patriots didn’t get the benefit of the doubt and they surely won’t if another situation happens again going forward.
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