{"id":7968,"date":"2019-12-10T13:46:56","date_gmt":"2019-12-10T13:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/?p=7968"},"modified":"2019-12-10T13:46:59","modified_gmt":"2019-12-10T13:46:59","slug":"nfl-investigating-the-patriots-for-cheating-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/nfl\/nfl-investigating-the-patriots-for-cheating-again\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL Investigating the Patriots for Cheating. Again."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BY ADAM GREENE<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Stop\nme if you\u2019ve heard this one. A New England Patriots employee was\nbusted recording the coaches and staff on a team\u2019s sideline that,\nin fact, did not belong to the New England Patriots. A clear\nviolation of NFL rules or, for lack of a better term, cheating. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No,\nyou haven\u2019t accidentally hopped into a souped up DeLorean and\ntraveled back to 2007. This happened this weekend when a Patriots\nvideographer, allegedly recording a scout for a segment of \u201cDo Your\nJob\u201d at the Cleveland Browns vs Cincinnati Bengals game was busted\npointing his camera not at said scout, but instead at the Bengals\ncoaches on the sidelines. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nBengals. That\u2019s right. If Bill Belichick are guilty of Spygate part\ntwo they were busted because they were trying to steal defensive\nsignals from the 1-12 Bengals. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\nsounds about right. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of\ncourse, the Pats had an excuse ready to go and NFL Network\u2019s Adam\nSchefter was more than happy to parrot it right out of his\ntwitter hole<\/a>. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schefter\u2019s\n\u201csource,\u201d who is probably not employed by Robert Kraft and the\nNew England Patriots football club at all was quick to wave away any\ncontroversy. That it was all innocent public relations stuff for\ntheir webshow. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When\na Bengals staffer busted the videographer, he was so innocent of any\nwrongdoing that he asked to \u201cdelete\nthe footage and it all be forgotten<\/a>.\u201d Because that\u2019s\nwhat you do when you\u2019re innocent. Destroy evidence. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nNFL\u2019s crack investigative squad has opened\na case<\/a>, but for those of us already cynical over the\nfirst outright cover up of the original Spygate led by NFL\nCommissioner Roger Goodell, there\u2019s not a lot of hope anything will\nbe resolved to anyone\u2019s satisfaction. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When\nSchefter\u2019s shielding wasn\u2019t good enough and no one managed to\ndestroy or erase the tape this time (like Goodell\nordered in 2007<\/a>), New England finally had to admit\ntheir guilt<\/a>. Only it was an accident. They promise.\nAnd we should believe them because their track record is one of\nhonestly, fair play and integrity. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn\nSunday, Dec. 8, the content team sent a three-person video crew to\nthe Bengals-Browns game at FirstEnergy Stadium in order to capture\none part of a longer feature on the Patriots scouting department, in\nthis case a Patriots pro personnel scout while he was working in the\npress box,\u201d the team\u2019s statement said. \u201cWhile we sought and\nwere granted credentialed access from the Cleveland Browns for the\nvideo crew, our failure to inform the Bengals and the League (uh\nhuh)<\/strong> was an unintended oversight (sure)<\/strong>. In addition to\nfilming the scout, the production crew \u2014 without specific knowledge\nof League rules (makes sense)<\/strong> \u2014 inappropriately (you\ndon\u2019t say?) <\/strong>filmed the field (not you guys)<\/strong> from the\npress box. The sole purpose of the filming was to provide an\nillustration of an advance scout at work on the road (what other\nreason could there be?<\/strong>). There was no intention of using the\nfootage for any other purpose (I\u2019m convinced)<\/strong>. We understand\nand acknowledge that our video crew, which included independent\ncontractors who shot the video, unknowingly (Ok, *wink*) <\/strong>violated\na league policy by filming the field and sideline from the press\nbox.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nmuch as everyone hates the NCAA, make no mistake. After the team got\nbusted cheating the first time back in 2007, they would have been\nstripped of all their titles, all their wins and Belichick would have\nbeen banned from the league for life. Goodell covered up for him, not\nonly destroying the SpyGate evidence we know about, but likely hiding\nthe fact that the Patriots taped the St.\nLouis Rams walkthrough before Super Bowl XXXVI<\/a>. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fun\nfact, in no other investigation, BountyGate\non down<\/a>, did Goodell feel the need to destroy evidence\nbefore it was viewed publicly. In fact, Rog had no problem with the\naudio of then New Orleans Saints defensive Gregg Williams calling\non his team to hurt opposing players in exchange for fabulous cash\nand prizes<\/a> getting leaked. Those Spygate tapes,\nthough. They had to be immediately\ndestroyed<\/a>. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we\u2019ve got one this time and the news is out before Goodell could get his grubby little hands on it and cover it up, for whatever good it will finally do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Get the latest NFL football odds and information\u2013follow BetOnline.ag on Twitter<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nBetOnline.ag\non Instagram<\/a>\u2013Follow\nfor the latest odds, stats and information!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY ADAM GREENE Stop me if you\u2019ve heard this one. A New England Patriots employee was busted recording the coaches…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":7969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7970,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7968\/revisions\/7970"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}