From Spygate to Deflategate - Good article

As much as the Patriots tried to keep the circle of those who knew about the taping small, sometimes the team would add recently cut players from upcoming opponents and pay them only to help decipher signals, former Patriots staffers say. In 2005, for instance, they signed a defensive player from a team they were going to play in the upcoming season. Before that game, the player was led to a room where Adams was waiting. They closed the door, and Adams played a compilation tape that matched the signals to the plays from the player's former team, and asked how many were accurate. "He had about 50 percent of them right," the player says now.

In fact, many former New England coaches and employees insist that the taping of signals wasn't even the most effective cheating method the Patriots deployed in that era. Several of them acknowledge that during pregame warm-ups, a low-level Patriots employee would sneak into the visiting locker room and steal the play sheet, listing the first 20 or so scripted calls for the opposing team's offense. (The practice became so notorious that some coaches put out fake play sheets for the Patriots to swipe.) Numerous former employees say the Patriots would have someone rummage through the visiting team hotel for playbooks or scouting reports. Walsh later told investigators that he was once instructed to remove the labels and erase tapes of a Patriots practice because the team had illegally used a player on injured reserve. At Gillette Stadium, the scrambling and jamming of the opponents' coach-to-quarterback radio line -- "small s---" that many teams do, according to a former Pats assistant coach -- occurred so often that one team asked a league official to sit in the coaches' box during the game and wait for it to happen. Sure enough, on a key third down, the headset went out.

Looking back on it, several former Patriots coaches insist that spying helped them most against less sophisticated teams -- the Dolphins and Bills chief among them -- whose coaches didn't bother changing their signals.

Turns out, Patriots owner Robert Kraft and U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman, who vacated Brady's suspension and might wind up with a bridge or something named after him in Boston, happened to be at the same party in the Hamptons over the weekend.

Of course they were. The two reportedly "mingled," but the Patriots say it was only for a few minutes.

JMP wrote:Here's what I find most interesting in this story: other teams knew (or at least had strong suspicions) that the Pats were cheating...so what did they do about it?  Did they inform the league (it sounds like some did)?  If not, why not?

DolFan 316 wrote:It's that outdated, antiquated macho "code of silence" thing. As ludicrous as it is to believe, some teams genuinely thought they'd be "pussies" if they "snitched" on the Pats. I will be SO glad when this society finally moves past that absurd way of thinking, you have no idea.

DolFan 316 wrote:The Pats are going 19-0 this season. It's inevitable. That's what all of this has been building up to.

When Deflategate broke wide open, Indianapolis-based former NFL head linesman Mark Baltz wasn’t particularly surprised. More specifically, he wasn’t surprised that lockerroom attendant Jim McNally, who this week got his job back with the Patriots along with equipment assistant John Jastremski, was in the middle of the months-long investigation.

“He always asked for the footballs way, way before he was supposed to get them,’’ said Baltz, who was an NFL official from 1989-2013. Baltz spoke to WTHR.com last week, before the pair was reinstated. “If he could get them 10 or 15 minutes before he was supposed to get them, instead of the usual two minutes before the game – and there were some crews that let him do that – he would do it. I wouldn’t let him take them early, and I think he eventually figured that out because he stopped asking after a while. I probably did 10 to 15 games up there (in Foxboro, Mass.) and those first few times, he’d always ask. I always thought it was very suspicious. He certainly acted in a suspicious manner.’’

“For an officials’ locker room attendant, I always thought he was an unusual dude,’’ Baltz said. “Most locker room guys, they sit there and if you need something, they got it for you. When you left the locker room, you’d lock the door and they’d stay right there. The other 31 teams, that’s what they would do. That was his job.

“But McNally, he was running all around like a chicken with his head cut off. Asking for the balls early. What I specifically reported him for several years ago, and I thought this was really unusual, he’d run out on the field with the footballs before the game and the next thing you know, he’s playing pitch-and-catch with (Tom) Brady. Then, next thing, he’s on the sidelines right next to (Bill) Belichick, like he’s a (bleeping) assistant coach or something."

“He (McNally) was always worried about the footalls,’’ Baltz said. “Always. It was very odd. I reported him to the league, but never got any reaction from them. I don’t think they thought it was a big deal at the time. But (McNally) did things that 31 other locker room attendants don’t do.

“I think McNally did his homework and knew which crews he was dealing with and which crews he could get over on. `Are the footballs ready yet? Are the footballs ready.’ I’d tell him, `Yeah, they’re ready, but when we got out on the field, you can have them.’ Obviously, there were a lot of times when he’s gotten them early and had the time to let some air out of the ball, or whatever he was doing with them.

“All I know is, when he got them (the footballs), he would run. He would take off. Whether he was going somewhere and letting air out, I’m definitely suspicious, but I don’t know for sure.’’

Obviously, there were a lot of times when he’s gotten them early and had the time to let some air out of the ball, or whatever he was doing with them.