When the ruling for the New England Patriots’ first videotaping scandal came down in 2007, the NFL handed Bill Belichick a $500,000 punishment, the largest financial punishment ever for an NFL coach. This time, Belichick was on the hook for none of the Patriots’ fines. The NFL stripped the Patriots of a third-round pick while instituting a $1 million fine.
The Patriots coach went without a punishment after the team was caught illegally videotaping the Cincinnati Bengals sideline during Week 14. New England claimed the wrongdoing was accidental and a part of a project for a Patriots.com docuseries on scouts. Belichick distanced himself from the rule breaking, and it seems to have been a convincing enough story for him to go unscathed. Here’s what Belichick said back in December when the accusations first became public.
“Again, I have no involvement in this or knowledge of it,” he told reporters. “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.”
That seemed believable enough. The docuseries, titled “Do Your Job,” had a number of episodes which chronicled the different departments of the Patriots’ football operations, including diet, scouting and equipment management. That was — until this nugget came back into the news cycle.
During games, Walsh later told investigators, the Patriots’ videographers were told to look like media members, to tape over their team logos or turn their sweatshirt inside out, to wear credentials that said Patriots TV or Kraft Productions. The videographers also were provided with excuses for what to tell NFL security if asked what they were doing: Tell them you’re filming the quarterbacks. Or the kickers. Or footage for a team show.
That sounds a lot like what happened to the Patriots in 2019 — and it sounds a lot like their alibi.
But it seems the NFL has given Belichick the benefit of the doubt. He has successfully recused himself from direct blame for this misstep. And, in part because the news came out at the same time as the Patriots’ signing of Cam Newton, Belichick doesn’t seem to be drawing much ire from fans and media members after the NFL announced its punishment.
But judging from that punishment, the NFL failed to connect Belichick and the videotaping from 2019 — unlike the videotapes from the early 2000s.
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