Cheating accusation against Patriots will be investigated fully, says NFL chief Goodell

Spygate 2 is not going away any time soon for the New England Patriots.

The Patriots have tried to explain why they videotaped the Cincinnati Bengals sideline last Sunday in direct violation of NFL rules, but commissioner Roger Goodell said the league is undertaking a thorough investigation of the incident.

Owner Robert Kraft’s team is a six-time Super Bowl winner, but the Patriots have been cited for cheating on multiple occasions. As a result, they don’t have the benefit of the doubt and innocent explanations are not likely to carry much weight.

The explanation is that the team’s TV production department was doing a feature story on what advance scouts do on a weekly basis, and they were in Cleveland last Sunday watching the Bengals, the team’s upcoming opponent this Sunday.

The NFL rules prohibit taking video of opponents’ sideline behavior because it could give a team an undeserved edge on the field. While the 10-3 Patriots would appear to have a major advantage on the 1-12 Bengals and that cheating would not be necessary, the team’s history works against them.

The Patriots were cited for videotaping the New York Jets’ sideline in 2007 and using underinflated footballs in the AFC Championship game against the Indianapolis Colts in 2015.

Head coach Bill Belichick was fined $500,000, the team was fined $250,000, and the team lost a first-round draft pick following the 2007 incident. Quarterback Tom Brady was suspended four games and the team was fined $1 million as a result of using the deflated footballs in 2015.

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That history is a factor in the investigation of this incident, according to Goodell. “Of course it’s a factor,”Goodell said, per the New York Post. “But I think the key things are the new information that we have. That information we obviously already had. I think the issue is what information do we have from this incident.”

The league allows filming and videotaping of the press box during a game, but not the sideline action. If any team should know the rules, it’s the Patriots because they have been in trouble for that in the past.

A Cincinnati employee captured the videographer shooting the video with his own camera, and that evidence has been turned over to the league.

The Bengals’ management is understandably angry about the incident, according to a report in the Boston Globe.

Goodell is not likely to deliver quick justice as a result of the incident, but there is too much past history to give the Patriots an easy pass. The Bengals are likely to push for a harsh penalty, and the Patriots are not likely to get much support from the competitors.

This controversy is just starting and is not going away any time soon.