Pats taped 02' rams walkthrough practice before superbowl

PHOENIX -- A new spying charge has nicked the New England Patriots.
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A member of the Patriots' video staff taped the St. Louis Rams' last walkthrough before they played in the 2002 Super Bowl, an unidentified source told the Boston Herald for a story Saturday.
New England beat the heavily favored Rams the next day 20-17 for their first NFL title. The unbeaten Patriots will try to win their fourth Super Bowl in seven seasons Sunday when they play the New York Giants.
Early this season, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell fined New England coach Bill Belichick $500,000 and docked the team $250,000 and a first-round draft pick after the Spygate scandal. The Patriots were accused of videotaping New York Jets defensive coaches as they signaled to players.
The Herald cited a source close to the Patriots in the 2001 season as saying the team held a walkthrough at the Superdome in New Orleans before the game on Feb. 3, 2002. After the Patriots took a team picture, a member of their video department stayed inside the stadium and taped the Rams' session.
It was not known whether the cameraman was told by the Patriots to film the practice or what he did with the tape, the Herald said. The Rams were two-touchdown favorites, but lost on Adam Vinatieri's last-second field goal.
Told of the newest allegation, NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said: "We have no knowledge of it."
Rams spokesman Rick Smith, reading a statement from team president John Shaw, said, "At this point, we have no comment."
An e-mail and telephone message sent by the Associated Press to Patriots spokesman Stacey James was not immediately returned. However, the Herald quoted him as saying: "The coaches have no knowledge of it."
New England did not have a walkthrough Saturday. The Giants held one at the Arizona Cardinals' practice facility.
A walkthrough is done without pads or helmets, giving teams a chance to practice their formations.
Goodell spent much of his state of the game address Friday talking about that episode. He said he did not think the Patriots used such tapes to win previous titles.
"There was no indication that it benefited them in any of the Super Bowl victories," he said.
Asked specifically whether the NFL's investigation of Spygate looked into any allegations involving the 2002 Super Bowl, he said: "I'm not aware of that."
Goodell also defended his decision to destroy notes and videotapes linked to the Spygate, saying "there was no purpose for them."
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who sent Goodell a letter asking for explanation, said Goodell's response "didn't make any sense at all."
AP NEWS
The Associated Press News Service

Copyright 2007-2008, The Associated Press, All Rights Reserved


:nopityA::nopityA:



So what?? Im sick of this, the media is just hungry for something to go against the mighty pats.

Pats win by 20+ sunday

Yeah this stuff is so stupid. What Belichick did is probably done by every team and such a minor transgression, however, he did keep doing it after the league told him to stop so I guess its fair game.....

The Pats have dealt with this BS all year so its nothing new to them, but NFL must be livid this is that big of a deal on their biggest stage, its really starting to make the league look bad...I'm a huge Pats fan/football fan so I'll still enjoy the game tomorrow, however, its easy for others for the game to lose its luster with all this constant BS.....

These spy stories go way back in the NFL.

NFL spy stories once had comedic touch

By Frank Luksa
Special to ESPN.com
(Archive)

Updated: September 13, 2007, 9:14 PM ET


NFL spy stories once had spice and suspense, besides all of the friction they created between the innocent accused and outraged accuser. Those were days when undercover agents were clever, stealthy and in some cases imaginary, which was all the better because they spooked the other side anyway.

This latest flap in which the New England Patriots spied on the New York Jets in their opener Sunday fell far shy of a classic case of NFL espionage. A guy caught videotaping defensive signals by Jets coaches mostly revealed a lack of imagination and stealth. Especially since Green Bay officials claimed he did the same thing to the Packers in November.

Even before he became coach of the Redskins, George Allen spiced up the rivalry with the Cowboys.
This is not the way it should be, because it never was in the distant past. People used to throw tantrums in concert with screams that they had been wronged by spying rivals who were immune from fair play and good manners.

This pretty much was how the Cowboys described boogeyman George Allen, although it wasn't all they said about him. Allen and the Cowboys historically are entwined by a Dallas-Washington rivalry, but in truth they fell out even before he coached the Redskins.

Allen was coaching the Los Angeles Rams in 1967 when the first dustup occurred. Cowboy exec Tex Schramm said a suspicious vehicle had been parked near the team's practice field. Alert and inquisitive, he alleged a license plate check traced the car rental to Johnny Sanders, head scout of the Rams.

Schramm drew himself up in righteous anger and filed an official complaint with NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle. Other than to chuckle privately, Rozelle never reacted to Schramm's plea for punitive action.

The incident didn't end there. Allen responded with a hilarious countercharge.

Allen claimed that the Rams discovered a man sitting in a eucalyptus tree with binoculars, spying on their practice. A futile chase of the culprit ensued. Allen said the man looked like Cowboys scout Frank (Bucko) Kilroy.

This was a comical comeback. Kilroy weighed in the vicinity of 300 pounds and did well to climb out of shoes much less up a tree. Allen not only had the better comeback, but the Rams went to Dallas and whipped the Cowboys 35-13.

Hence when Allen transferred to Washington, the Cowboys already thought him devious and all-round no good. In other words, they were paranoid of the thumb-licker and what he might do next that was illegal, immoral or both.

Washington Week in Dallas became a lockdown from every angle. For example, the top floors of a motel located behind the north end zone overlooked the Dallas practice field during the early 1970s. To prevent an Allen confederate from peeping, the Cowboys rented every room with a view and kept them vacant for a week in advance of Allen's coming to town.

As Eagles coach, Dick Vermeil closed practices and chained the gates at Veterans Stadium to prevent access by outsiders.

That still didn't stop the Cowboys from wondering how Allen would circumvent their security.

"Any helicopter that came over, the coaches would look up like, damn, that's George Allen up there with a notebook,'' recalled Cowboys running back Walt Garrison.

"He [Allen] was basically a crook … the Richard Nixon of football,'' said Cowboys defensive back Mel Renfro.

All coaches are spy-conscious. When he coached the Philadelphia Eagles, Dick Vermeil was terminally sensitive to being watched by aliens. He closed practice and chained the gates at Veterans Stadium to withstand access by outsiders. But that didn't prevent him from distrusting the overhead Goodyear blimp that was making a pregame rehearsal. He once was further agitated by an old man wearing a green Eagles warmup in the stands before a game against the Cowboys.

"How do I know Tom Landry hasn't sent someone here to spy on me?'' he told reporters. "Look at that guy up there in the stands. I don't know who the hell he is or how he got in here. But he's sitting up there in a green Eagles warmup. He could be a spy.''

Before there was a George Allen, there was Al Davis, reputed master of the dark art in Oakland. Every rival believed Davis was up to something sinister. Harland Svare, head coach of the San Diego Chargers, even felt his locker room at the Oakland Coliseum had been bugged. He wound up shouting at a light fixture on the ceiling.

San Diego coach Harold Svare once suspected Oakland's Al Davis (above) had bugged his locker room.
"Damn you, Al Davis! Damn you! I know you are up there,'' Svare swore.

Told later of the incident, Davis smiled.

"The thing wasn't in the light fixture,'' he purred. "I'll tell you that much.''

Schramm once forwarded a rare instance of spying by a fan. It involved playing football within the cramped dimensions of designed-for-baseball Wrigley Field in Chicago.

"It was the regular practice of vendors to walk in front of the head coach, selling hot dogs and coffee,'' Schramm remembered. "Fans were also so close that they were always leaning over to hear a coach's instructions to a player.

"Once, Hamp Pool, the Los Angeles Rams' coach, was talking to Norm Van Brocklin and a fan beside him was hanging on every word. When Pool finished giving Van Brocklin the play, the fan said, 'Hell, that won't work.'"

Frank Luksa is a freelance writer based in Plano, Texas. He was a longtime sports columnist for The Dallas Times Herald and Dallas Morning News.
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Spying in Pro Football
Here is an inside look at The Men From F.O.O.T.B.A.L.L. and how they obtain opponent information -- by a man who once played undercover agent ..


At a time when college professors, union leaders, and possibly even your local playground directors are working for the CIA, it is no longer shocking to find spying going on anywhere. (This writer was once taken aback when he, entered the building in which SPORT is published with an editor who said, "Say hello to the spy," then explained there was a CIA office on the third floor.)

However, in professional football, in this age of advanced scouting systems, exchanges of game films, computerized records of other team's frequencies, and files detailing the habits of every opposing player (including what toothpaste, shaving cream and deodorant be uses, even if he doesn't do TV commercials) spying might seem a little silly. Yet it goes on, very much so, as the annual cries of "spy" in both pro football leagues charge.

Who are the pro football spies? Well, as one who has performed various spy functions, I can tell you that they come in all shapes and sizes. A team's equipment manager may also be a spy . . . That personable, smiling, obsequious public relations man may be expected to bring back information, about an opponent. . . Or a pro football spy can come in the form of an ex-teammate, ex-coach, a taxi squadder, a scout, a writer or a photographer.

Newly acquired players often become spies inadvertently. Before a big game, a player placed on waivers by one team is. often picked up by the opposition for the sole purpose of "picking his brains." Bamboo shoots do not have to be driven under his fingernails to get him to reveal inside information about his former team's current attitude, philosophy, personnel, injuries and individual weaknesses. Such a player is particularly useful in tipping off new team members about special plays such as a fake field goal, double-reverse pass, a tricky punt or kickoff return. unusual screens or draws, or other so-called "gadget plays."

In addition to interrogating former players, other football espionage techniques include:

Watching practices. . . (Usually requires binoculars, sometimes a love of tree climbing.)

Stealing notebooks. . . (One AFL coach, whose autobiography will no doubt be called "The Collector," has allegedly collected a notebook from every other team in the. league.)

Bugging. . . Particularly scouting phones, locker rooms, training rooms and meeting rooms. (Most effective, though plantee had best not be caught with his insurance lapsed.)

Filming practices. . . Requires a super spy plus special equipment.

Spy-messenger . . . On game days this spy is usually disguised as a writer or photographer who snoops on one team and relays information to his employer. (Need a guy who looks like a writer or photographer; that is, disheveled.)

Concealing injuries and taxi squad players about to be activated. . . . For obvious reasons. (Have to bar writers from practices, or make the injured players limp like they're healing.)

As a former traveler in the NFL and AFL, I was interrogated many times. Each new camp I visited would want to know all about my previous team. (Sometimes my stays had been of such short duration I couldn't tell them.)

In 1964 I ended up on the taxi squad of the Oakland Raiders. By then Raider coach and general manager Al Davis, after several years of collecting, had perhaps the greatest group of castoffs ever assembled. Thus Davis got a chance to sort through the brains of a player from almost every team in both leagues, something he does subtly but efficiently.

The clinical term for a person with an acute spy fixation is scopophobia. Understandably, Al Davis had scopophobia in 1964. The Raiders were practicing at "Bushrod Elementary School, which had no fences and therefore had to be wide open to the public. Any of countless practice watchers could have been spies. When Davis suspected spies were watching he often put in plays involving 12 men to confuse the spies. I spent many afternoons standing out on the wing as Davis's 12th man, running funny patterns and huddling only when the mood struck me.

Before one big game that year, Davis suspected that Kansas City had stationed a spy. in a near-by apartment building to view, or perhaps even film, his practice. Davis ordered his equipment manager, Dick Romanski, to scan the area with binoculars. Midway through practice Romanski spotted another man with binoculars looking down on the practice from the apartment building. Davis sent several "heavies" up to interrogate the spy. But when they arrived, .the woman who owned the apartment building refused to let them in. We spent the rest of the afternoon running bizarre plays from bizarre formations. If the binocular owner was in fact a spy, he had to have filed a bizarre report.

Scopophobia becomes so pronounced with some coaches that they would rather not practice at all than take the chance that someone is watching. They fret over passing helicopters and, in the case of lakefront practice fields, boats.

By Lee Grosscup, SPORT, August 1967

Sports of The Times; Was or Wasn't There A Spy Up on High?

NY Times.
Dave Anderson, Pulished October 12th. 1998.


YOU can call it espionage, or you can call it surveillance. But in pro football, a spy by any other name would smell as sour.

As the Giants lost, 34-20, to the Atlanta Falcons last night, a share of the story line had been the Giants' suspicion during the week that Dan Reeves, the former Giants coach who now tutors the Falcons, had a spy peering at the Giants' outdoor practice field from high in the nearby Sheraton Meadowlands Hotel.

But the way the Giants' offense stalled and sputtered last night, you had to wonder why an opponent would bother to sneak a peek at the team's practice.

All the Falcons needed to do was adjust at halftime to whatever the Giants were or were not doing. On offense, the Giants generated a weak 266 yards of total offense, but quarterback Kent Graham, in relief of Danny Kanell, produced 105 passing yards in the last eight and a half minutes, compared with Kanell's 100 yards up to then.

''We're just not capable of playing up to the way I think we're capable of playing,'' Coach Jim Fassel said. ''Offensively, up front, we're just not executing at all.''

According to a Giants official, Joe DeCamillis, a Falcons assistant coach who had been on Reeves's staff with the Giants, was suspected of being involved in a spy plot.

DeCamillis, who is also Reeves's son-in-law, denied any involvement, saying: ''I ain't doing anything like that. Coach Reeves would be angry if he knew someone did that.'' But as the Giants' coach for four seasons, Reeves realized that the hotel and an adjacent high-rise office building afforded a clear view of practice.

''Dan wanted to put up a wall to block that view of the practice field,'' recalled a former Giants official.

Whatever Reeves did or did not do last week, the Giants had a security official with high-powered binoculars surveying the windows of the hotel and the office building. Fassel also took the team inside the team's practice bubble to go through the new plays designed for the game against the Falcons.

The lore of spying, or the suspicion of being spied upon, is probably as old as the National Football League itself. Whenever a helicopter hovered anywhere near the Jets' practice in the week before a game with the Oakland Raiders three decades ago, Coach Weeb Ewbank would glare at it.

''Al Davis has somebody up there watching us,'' Ewbank would growl, referring to the Raiders' managing general genius. ''Don't do anything until that 'copter leaves.''

Then and now, Davis enjoyed a sinister reputation. Harland Svare, the San Diego Chargers' coach who had been a linebacker with the Giants, once sat in the visiting locker room at the Oakland Coliseum and shouted at a light fixture.

''I know you're up there, Al Davis,'' Svare yelled. ''I know you're up there.''
Told later of Svare's accusation, Davis did not hesitate to perpetuate his sinister reputation.

''The thing wasn't in the light fixture,'' Davis said. ''I'll tell you that much.''
To thwart the possibility of spying, each N.F.L. team now has a security guard, if not several guards, at its practice complex. As the Los Angeles Rams' coach three decades ago, George Allen was the first coach to take that precaution, hiring Ed Boynton, a retired Long Beach, Calif., police officer.

Known as ''Double O,'' Boynton accompanied Allen to the Redskins. He once chased someone from the chemical lab of the high school near the Redskins' training camp in Carlisle, Pa.

At least a decade before Double O arrived, Paul Brown, the Hall of Fame coach of the Cleveland Browns, was his own security officer. Whenever the Browns practiced in cavernous Cleveland Stadium, if a stranger suddenly appeared, Brown would stop practice and have the stranger ushered out.

Ewbank, a Cleveland assistant under Brown, took that distrust to Baltimore as the Colts' coach, even a distrust of Brown himself.
In 1959, when the defending champion Colts were about to play the Browns, Ewbank sent his equipment manager, Fred Schubach, across the street from the open end of Baltimore's old Memorial Stadium to check for suspicious strangers in the Ednor Garden houses.

''We're all Colt fans here,'' one resident told Schubach, ''but if Coach Ewbank feels that strongly about it, come in and look around.''

No suspicious strangers were found, but the Colts lost, 38-31, one of their three defeats that season in repeating as N.F.L. champions.

Most coaches, not just Jim Fassel, still think a suspicious stranger might be out there somewhere watching practice. And it is easier for a spy now. For years, some N.F.L. teams didn't wear numbers on their practice jerseys in order to thwart the possibility of spies. But when each team began filming practices, numbers were necessary.

Spies or no spies.


NY Times..


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Take back the trophies and the superbowl rings. Pats are Frauds

5 star bomb said:

Take back the trophies and the superbowl rings. Pats are Frauds

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Yawn.

5 star bomb said:

Take back the trophies and the superbowl rings. Pats are Frauds

Click to expand...

It's going to be a long day and week for all the Patriots haters out
there.

Actually a long decade.

ROFL.

All that Arlen Spector, Rep. Pa. and a big Eagles fan has done is re-motivate The Patriots even more to show the football world how good they are..When the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee picks the eve of The Super Bowl to pull this "why did you destroy the tapes BS" it plays right into the Pat's hands..They love to settle scores and now have another one just in time for the biggest game in franchise history..


wil..:toast:

if i remember correctly from my youth Weeb Eubank was convinced the raiders were watching the jets every move, i believe he confronted someone from the raiders and they came to blows. someone with a better memory may help me out on this.

Teazeman -- From one of the articles above..

The lore of spying, or the suspicion of being spied upon, is probably as old as the National Football League itself. Whenever a helicopter hovered anywhere near the Jets' practice in the week before a game with the Oakland Raiders three decades ago, Coach Weeb Ewbank would glare at it.

''Al Davis has somebody up there watching us,'' Ewbank would growl, referring to the Raiders' managing general genius. ''Don't do anything until that 'copter leaves.''


It was Ewbank's Jets that lost to Davis' Raiders in the infamous "Heidi Game". The Jets still were able to move on to Super Bowl III and defeat The Colts as 19 point underdogs in January of 1969.





wil..

i'm growing weary of the "spying" talk, becoming an excuse to blast the Pats. It begins to resemble the old if you can't beat them talk as much shit about them as you can, field a team that takes it to them and beat them on the field not the press.

Makes me proud that an institution like the Senate can set aside time to deal with such pertinent issues... Can't wait for them to investigate who stole the cookie from the cookie jar.

Patriots are a great team and a destiny, it's just to bad they felt they had to cheat to win.

This stuff is not made up out of jealously, we have never heard this about other great teams, maybe the cowboys of the 90s were not the outlaws we thought they were, just set-up by jealous police.

Still a great team, but it does take the luster off alittle. Reason why Belichick gets so upset is because he knows it is true and wants to tell people it is true, just that in his mind he believes it was great coaching.

Stay silent bill, we all saw what happen to col. jessup in a few good men.

wilheim said:

The lore of spying, or the suspicion of being spied upon, is probably as old as the National Football League itself. Whenever a helicopter hovered anywhere near the Jets' practice in the week before a game with the Oakland Raiders three decades ago, Coach Weeb Ewbank would glare at it.

''Al Davis has somebody up there watching us,'' Ewbank would growl, referring to the Raiders' managing general genius. ''Don't do anything until that 'copter leaves.''


It was Ewbank's Jets that lost to Davis' Raiders in the infamous "Heidi Game". The Jets still were able to move on to Super Bowl III and defeat The Colts as 19 point underdogs in January of 1969.





wil..

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I heard Andreas Popodopolis spied on Flavius Justinius in his warmups in the first Olympics too. No one had to return their medal.

Check out this link and read some of the responses.This is the guy who broke the latest spygate/Rams.But read some of the responses in the blog.You think I'm a passionate Pats fan.These people want blood.

http://www.bostonherald.com/blogs/sports/patriots/index.php/2008/02/02/the-patriots-respond/

spygate is only becoming this big because it gives everyone a reason who hates the pats to say this season dont count etc etc. i can see it now. taping has been going on since day one and in some sort of way will always go on. its the case of a no name joe raping someone and kobe bryant raping someone, who is the media going to run with? give me a break, the pats will pound the giants, win the super bowl, go 19-0 and no one will ever do that again. this pats team is the best team we have ever had the pleasure of watching and this coming from an unbiased denver broncos fan. deal with it, this is special.

if these cheaters want to be considered one of the best teams ever, they need to start winning superbowls by more than 3 fucking pts

red007 said:

if these cheaters want to be considered one of the best teams ever, they need to start winning superbowls by more than 3 fucking pts

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your wish will be granted tomorrow 5 times over.