Matt Walsh comes clean on Spygate and the Bucs

I know you're sick of Spygate, but get a load of this.

Former Patriots videographer Matt Walsh (left) sat down this week for an in-depth interview with HBO's Real Sports that is set to air Friday evening at 8 p.m.

Among the revelations is a very detailed account of the Patriots' first usage of film containing an opponent's defensive signals. We previously learned that occurred against the Bucs in the 2000 season opener. Now, Walsh sheds some light on how it all unfolded and explains that it proved to be an unbelievable advantage, even though the Bucs won 21-16.

He said he learned the ins and outs from a Patriots quarterback whom he did not identify (Tom Brady perhaps?) who was called into coach Bill Belichick's office and informed by then-offensive coordinator Charlie Weis that the team was in possession of film containing the Bucs' signals. The signals were filmed during a preseason game against Tampa Bay a few weeks earlier. The coaches asked the quarterback to learn the signals and assist in relaying them to starter Drew Bledsoe. Suffice it to say the plan worked beautifully.

Read the excerpts below provided to us today by HBO. All of the quotes are from Walsh.

"I had spoken with one of our quarterbacks that said he was called into Coach Belichick's office shortly before the Tampa Bay game. In the office was Ernie Adams, Charlie Weis, and Coach Belichick. They closed the door, Charlie said to him, 'You know, we've got tape of the Buccaneers' coaches defensive signals. What we're going to do is have you learn this, then we’re going to have you next to Charlie on the sideline, when he's calling in the play to Drew over the coach-to-quarterback communication system. Drew's got the, the earpiece in the helmet, and you're going to tell Charlie the defense that's being called, and we're going to relay the information, or use that in calling the play into Drew.' The quarterback later told me that within two to three seconds of when Monte Kiffin sent a play call into  John Lynch, Drew Bledsoe had it in his helmet."

It was so successful, it seems the Patriots could no longer resist.

"After the first game when we played the Buccaneers in the first season, after the tapes would have already been utilized, I went up to one of our quarterbacks. . . I said, 'Was the footage that I shot of the opposing coaches' signals, you know, any use for you guys?  Did it help at all?  And one of the quarterbacks told me, he said, probably about 75 percent of the time Tampa Bay ran the defense that we thought they were going to run."

[AP Photo]

Comments

[J]

Punks! I am glad we still won, you stupid cheaters!!!!!!! Their legacy and dominance these last few years are completely tainted and I thought this before I heard this story. There is no place for this in professional sports and the entire Patriots staff from 2000 until now (and even those who have since worked elsewhere) should be fined kicked out of the league. Perhaps the owner should have to pay as well. While I am sick of hearing about this stuff, I wish the report came back that the commissioner would penalize them more. I propose (although unrealistically) that they give back their SB rings and trophies, and forfeit every game for the next five years. After that, they should be forced to release every player and then to start all over again like a brand new franchise. I think I would be satisfied after that.

[Quentin]

I wonder how that went down...

1st down: "It's Cover 2!"

2nd down: "It's...Cover 2!"

3rd down: "2 Deep Man...no wait, it's Cover 2!"

But seriously, bad as it is, wasn't it technically legal at the time?

[Justin M]

Well, now it is obvious how much Bledsoe stunk.

[Patrik Leskinen]

This whole makes me sick. They ought to show this to ESPN and all those other crooks trying to dampen any wrongdoing of the Patriots. It's clear that they have seditiously been gaining unfair advantages over the last few years, even the very Quarterback involved in it says himself that their underhanded tactics worked "75% of the time".

With that kind of success rate, I don't see how hard it can really be to win football games.

[Matt]

The penalty should be that the Patriots have to field a team with a Salary cap of $50m for 5 years.

That should be sufficient to send them back to the stone age.

[TonyE]

If any of you remember that we only ran the Cover 2 30% or less in the final 4 years of Coach Dungy era. We still run it about 25% of the time. Its how we disquise it that we became so successful. I believe that was the year we though our QB of the future was Shaun King and ran that fake spike for a TD. Derrick Brooks and John Lynch and even Monte once said that we can tell them what play we are running and they still wont be able to match the speed we had and our execution.

[Quentin]

Yeah, I've actually written to that effect a couple of times. I know we don't play the Tampa-2 or even zone in general nearly as much as reputation suggests, I just couldn't resist the cheap joke.

[DR]

Who could Matt Walsh be talking about? A QB working with him, who could that be? A rookie named Tom Brady, and what quick success he had coming off the bench.
I hope Specter goes all out in exposing this crappy investigation. It is quite obvious the conflict of interest Goodell has. I mean, a scandal that questions the legitimacy of a 3 time champion, that really doesn't help Goodell's quest in taking away games from NFL fans and making them pay for it on a BS cable network. The tapes really don't help a team like Bellichick said, he's absolutely right. Thats why he did it for 8 years. Sure, he only misinterpreted rules. Thats an acceptable excuse... for an 8 year old.

[shane]

DR i believe you are 100% spot on about that anonymous quarterback being a rookie named Tom Brady and it was such an amazing feat that he came off the bench and was so dominate for the last um... 8 years i do believe and now that this thing blew up is Tom Brady really the great QB that everyone believes that he is? was he really a diamond in the rough pick or was he just a product of a cheater who has no accountability for his actions? Now that i've said that can the whole world move past this whole spygate thing?believe me the pats will get their just desserts soon.

[Stephen Blackehart]

Did you guys watch NFL Total Access last night? Marshall Faulk was on there talking about the walk through before their Super Bowl against the Pats.

According to Faulk, there were a lot of people milling around the periphery of the field getting ready for the game...mostly league people and folks getting the halftime shows ready, but still plenty of people for them not to notice Walsh standing there taking notes.

He went on to say that, because it was a year with only a week between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl, Mike Martz had to install the whole plan in that practice, yelling out the blitz pick-ups and 3rd down plays, etc, all through it. Faulk says it would be completely believeable for the Pats to have gotten enough info to give them an unfair advantage in the game.

If you ask me, though much of this was not technically illegal at the time, this still amounts to a worse scandal than the Black Sox of 1919. Its a major black eye on the NFL. I had a lot of respect for Goddell (sp?) before this as a no-nonsense commisioner. In my book, he's completely blown that rep by apparently burying this story. Even if it turns out to be nothing later, for him to fail to exhaust every means to find out the truth is the same as complicity. Shame on him for that! Shame on the Pats, shame on the commisioner and shame on the league. Furthermore, shame on us if we let them bury the truth.

[bledsoefan]

I think the Patriots answered all those allegations by winning 18 straight games --give it up will you all?

[Patrik Leskinen]

bledsoefan, how does that answer anything, that merely adds more fuel to the fire. 18-0 really doesn't look that great when you know every time what play the opposition are going to execute.

[SpartanDan]

Exactly Patrik. bledsoefan appears to be a simple minded Patriots fan clinging desperately to their 18-1 season as if it were legitimate and actually stood for something. The Pats wouldn't have cheated if it wasn't giving them an advantage; and since they cheated for an advantage, the record will always be tainted in the eyes of most fans (those that are NOT simple minded Patriots fans).

[SickofPats]

With all this said and done, the NFL will still do nothing significant about it because of the ratings and its effect on money. They should come down on this as hard as they do on players using performance enahncing drugs. Suspend the Pats for 2 years, ban the cheaters from the game.

[TonyE]

bledsofan is upset because it was the Bucs Warren Sapp who knocked him out.

[Skylar]

I believe the Pats got theirs when they lost the Superbowl. To achieve such a record and lose the only game that counted really had to settle hard for them. You couldn't have scripted it any better. That said, I believe Belichick owes the NFL about 8 games in suspension. Cheaters are supposed to get suspended, just like substance abuse, etc. He should sit just like someone cheating with steroids, plain and simple.

[Skylar]

Btw, the Bucs won that game, probably because it was just cover 2 the entire game. It comes down to superior play at that point!

[TonyE]

I also heard a rumor of a man who works directly for Belichek with a photographic memory. I guess the Pats needed all the help they could get. We won our Superbowl legitimately, even though we knew exactly what the Raiders were gonna run. Gruden did do something right in that aspect. Bucs 1 Superbowl - Legit, Pats 3 Superbowls - questionable!!!!

Charlie Weis has certainly proven what a worthless piece of garbage he is...keep writing those big pay checks Notre Lame.

[andrew farhadi]

MOTHER FUCKERS! thats all i got to say.

[nick]

What a bunch of cheaters. God, I hate Boston.

[Stephen_Holder]

Tony E, the guy you're referring to is Ernie Adams, who is referenced in Walsh's comments. He was the guy Walsh was supposed to deliver the tapes to, which I find very interesting. Adams has long been a very mysterious character whose job description has never been defined to anyone. There are a lot of very shady things about that organization that make me uncomfortable.

And, on another note, Andrew, dang man... Don't know who you are but you can't use that kind of language around here, man. Chill out.

[pOPPY]

I, myself. will wait until it is all over before I decide. As for the article, talk,/whatever, one HAS TO consider the source before deciding. It sounds very fishy to me when 'this guy' doesn't name the QB, just insinuates. I also think the league should be shaking in their boots, if one believes that the Pats WERE/ARE THE ONLY team involved. Myself, I am a die hard Seahawks fan.

[TonyE]

He supposedly answers only to Billichek. Even the Kraft family cant touch him. This may be a rumor or not but its kinda of obvious since his coaching the Browns to a .450 record during his tenure there. Then all of a sudden he becomes this "great" coach?

[TonyE]

pOPPY, There may be 1 other team that has done this. NFL Live on ESPN couldnt confirm this at the present time. The Pats had 4 QB's on their roster during 2000, Brady being one of them. then all of a sudden they have 3 QB listed one of which was a rookie. So one would conclude that Belichick knew in his mind that he had something up his sleeve and thought he he could get away with it. Thats only speculation though.

[Rg77]

Such garbage. It's amazing how quickly so many people are willing to take the word of a third-string video guy who was fired for not just being bad at his job, but for secretly TAPING his boss. Convenient how everyone ignores how last season N.E. was the first team to ever win 18 games in a single season while under more scrutiny than any team has ever been under, knocking off a bunch of division winners and playoff teams in the process. It'll be fun watching what excuses people come up with next season when the Pats continue to be one of the best two or three teams in the league while the Sucs continue to be Just Another Mediocre Team.

[bledsoefan]

remember--after the jets came the taping stopped and they had to tun over all their tapes--and they still won 18 in a row--

[Joshua]

I'm going to have to side with Rg77 and bledsoefan here SpartanDan and Patrik. They were under a lot of scrutiny after the Jets game and I seriously doubt they would even consider taping again last season. Yeah they lost to a better team-the Giants-but they also proved that they were a pretty good team themselves even without those tapes. Those Super Bowls may not be legit, but I feel pretty confident about those 18 wins and the rest of the wins next year. GO BUCS!!

[Larry]

Hmmm after taping for 7 years or more maybe they had enough signals on hand to know what tendencies coaches use for plays. Good old Ernie Adams must be doing something for the salary.
Nope I agree with Matt's earlier comment - Goodell should have imposed a $50m cap for 5 years but then taken those "cheat rings" away from players who took advantage of the cheating. Since he elected to sweep it under that massive NFL rug - the owners should fire the jerk.

[SickofPats]

Exactly Larry, they certainly wrote down what they took from seven years of taping. They certainly felt no remorse in using it before, the only difference was they got caught and turned over the tapes, not all the associated information they gleaned from the tapes. The anything to win mentality did not just disappear. They are cheaters. Cheating should be punished. Consistent patterns of cheating should be punished harshly. But I am not holding my breath.

[Mons Man]

Stealing signs isn't cheating. So using a camera to do so isn't a big deal. Technical violation. This is a mountain out of a molehill.

[john]

My god you people are stupid. Walsh said this crap and then turned around and said it was never used in a game. Good God, you people will just buy anything to have an excuse for things. Im not even a pats fan, people have been stealing signals forever, its for scouting crap, if it was used that greatly a team could just change the signals and screw a team up trying to steal them. Think people.