NFL Investigation Has Found No Evidence Linking Bill Belichick Or The Coaching Staff To Patriots Videotaping Controversy

NFL fans and league executives hoping to see the NFL crack down hard on the Patriots over the filming incident in Cincinnati last month, will be disappointed to find out the NFL has been unable to find anything linking Bill Belichick to the scandal. As expected, there is nothing to see. It is hard to believe the Patriots were going to have some elaborate scheme to film the lowly Bengals of all teams. Certainly the film crew hired by the Patriots made a mistake, but this should have been a non issue. The Patriots immediately released a statement admitting the video production crew illegally shot the Bengals sideline and field to document what an advance scout sees, but said it had nothing to do with football operations. Had it been Baltimore, Kansas City or Buffalo it may have had more legs.

According to the Washington Post, “The NFL has found no evidence to this point linking Coach Bill Belichick or others on the New England Patriots’ football staff to the video shot by a crew on behalf of the team showing footage of the Cincinnati Bengals’ sideline during a game last month in Cleveland, according to people familiar with the matter.”

The league’s investigation of the latest video incident involving the Patriots is winding down and could be completed as soon as this week, according to those people. They said it remains likely at this point, barring the last-minute uncovering of more damaging evidence, that the NFL will impose penalties consistent with those handed out in recent years in other cases of game-day infractions.

The Patriots are likely to receive a fine and a loss of a late round draft pick over the incident regardless, but Patriots haters will never be able to connect the dots to Belichick or the coaching staff. Of course we shouldn’t expect ESPN, or others to clear their name until the middle of the night many years from now.

ESPN waited three years to apologize for a retracted false accusation by John Tomase back in 2002, claiming the Patriots filmed the Rams walkthrough prior to Super Bowl 36. This apology aired at approximately 12:20am during the 12am edition of SportsCenter on Thursday, August 20th, 2015.