How will NFL reprimand Pats for Spygate 2?
Peter King and Mike Florio discuss how they think the NFL could and should handle the Patriots' Spygate 2.
Video Transcript
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MIKE FLORIO: Welcome to "PFT OT" on Yahoo Sports, reviewing some of the biggest stories in the NFL. He's Peter King, and I'm Mike Florio. And look, a topic that we discussed last week-- Spygate 2. And Peter, you had a great quote, the Paul Tagliabue comment, "All's well that ends."
The problem is, it can't end until it begins, and it feels like this Spygate 2 investigation really hasn't gotten moving yet, at least going into this week. And there's some conflicting reports out there as to what the NFL ultimately will do. Do you think the league is more likely to come down heavy on the Patriots, or do you think that the Patriots are going to get the equivalent of a billionaire slap on the wrist, which would be a fine of $250,000 or so?
PETER KING: Well, I think they're going to get a fine, but I think they also have to get something as far as draft choices, Mike. And Mark Maske of "The Washington Post" wrote the other day that it's probably going to be either a diminished draft choice, higher in the draft, or maybe taking a draft choice lower in the draft, one of those two things.
And look, it could be-- it could be that they will find some tentacles, some connection between Bill Belichick, Ernie Adams on the football side, and this 18-year employee of the Kraft Sports Group who basically went whimpering through the Jay Glazer-found tape and said, oh, I'll erase it, I'll erase it. So-- but I think there's got to be some sort of connection.
I was told one thing by somebody who was involved peripherally in this, just in terms of the discussions from the league's standpoint. And-- and that person said, look, the biggest issue here is, could there be a connection to the football side of the team? And if there is a connection, why has there been nothing-- week after week, year after year since-- you know, since the Patriots had the big Spygate thing happen over a decade ago?
And so that is why, in my opinion, I think the Patriots are going to get, relatively speaking, a wrist slap in this. And I don't think that they're going to get one taken away, and I don't think they'll get a suspension of the head coach.
MIKE FLORIO: See, I-- I think that the most important question to be resolved in any investigation on this issue is whether and to what extent there were connections between the football operations and the yahoos who were videotaping the sideline activities of the Bengals. And what the NFL has to do is send a forensic expert in there who knows all the digital manipulations and gets free license with no resistance from the Patriots to look at text messages, emails, phone records, anything that would show direct or indirect connection.
And if there is no direct or indirect connection, then I don't think they should have anything other than a fine. If you do have a connection and you show that there was knowledge that there is any type of coordination, if you explore the rabbit hole and it's some sort of a cover for cheating, then you destroy them. Peter, I don't see a middle ground here.
And the issue that I took with Mark Maske's report, comparing it to past incidents like the Falcons' crowd noise, like Ray Farmer, the former Browns GM, using the text messages to the sideline, the Ben McAdoo walkie-talkie-- all of those things were done deliberately and knowingly in violation of the rules. This was an accident. And if you don't have a connection to football operations, it needs to be treated like an accident. But if you do, then you hammer and destroy them because it's just the latest example of a pattern.
So for me, there's no middle ground. It's either nothing or close to nothing, or it's something really, really big. And the only way to determine it is to do that investigation as far as the digital evidence will take you regarding whether there was a connection between football ops and the guys who were in the stadium.
PETER KING: I'm going to just say one other thing that one other club executive told me a few days ago. And that is, listen, the reason that I don't care about this is because if you're videotaping a sideline today versus 2002 or '03 or '04, the reason that it's different today is that the middle linebacker or whoever on the team has a-- has a speaker in his helmet. And he's got a connection to a coach calling the play in from the sideline. And so if you're watching the sideline now, what really are you going to learn? In most cases, not very much.
MIKE FLORIO: And that was put in place as a result of the original Spygate scandal. It used to just be the quarterback had the radio. They put the radio in for a defensive player as a direct reaction to what the Patriots did in 2007.
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