No Spygate Smoking Gun for Patriots

Quick Hits from the Roger Goodell / Matt Walsh Meeting:

Commissioner Roger Goodell finally met with former Patriots employee Matt Walsh today, a meeting that lasted 3 hours, 15 minutes. From the meeting, Goodell gave a 28-minute press conference explaining the outcome of the meeting.

Prior to the Press Conference, the media was shown video of offensive and defensive signals shot by the Patriots, as well as footage of the San Diego Charger cheerleaders. The video footage was from the tapes that Matt Walsh handed over to the NFL. The league showed the tapes to the media most likely to make up for destroying the tapes handed over by the Patriots back in September.

Here are the major highlights from the press conference:

There was no new information regarding the Patriots videotaping practices: “Today, we were able to confirm that all of the details of his [Matt Walsh’s] activities while he was a Patriots employee. The fundamental information that Matt provided was consistent with what we disciplined the Patriots for last fall and that essentially they were taping coaches’ signals against NFL policy.”

There was no video tape showing the St. Louis Rams Super Bowl walkthrough (aka the Smoking Gun!): “We were also able to verify that there was no Rams walkthrough tape. No one asked him to tape the walkthrough. He is not aware of anybody else who may have taped the walkthrough. He had not seen such a tape. He does not know of anybody who says there is a tape.”

Two new allegations came out during the meetings: The first was the inappropriate practicing of an injured reserve player. The second was the potential scalping of Super Bowl tickets by players. Both allegations will be verified and dealt with by the NFL.

Further sanctions against the Patriots will not be handed out: "I don't anticipate it. As I said, I think the fundamental information provided today is consistent with what we knew last September, and that the discipline I took was unprecedented at that time, and I feel it was appropriate."

Delay of Game called on Specter: Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter also met with former Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh for three hours today in his office, but will delay his press conference till tomorrow (Wednesday, May 14th) at noon.

stay tuned…