Getty The Patriots admitted breaking NFL rules -- but Bill Belichick denied cheating.
The New England Patriots have violated NFL policy — again.
Facing the third major scandal during their dynasty run, the Patriots have admitted to violating NFL policy when it relates to a video crew illegally filming the playing field during the Cincinnati Bengals‘ Week 14 game versus the Cleveland Browns on Sunday.
Long story short, the Patriots sent a video crew to the Bengals-Browns game to film a vignette for a “Do Your Job” series that the Patriots run on their website — New England received permission to put their crew in the press box — and then started filming the video action on the field, which is prohibited under NFL policy.
The Patriots have now released a statement admitting that they broke NFL rules — but denied that they were cheating to gain an advantage. New England plays Cincinnati in Week 15.
“While we sought and were granted credentialed access from the Cleveland Browns for the video crew, our failure to inform the Bengals and the League was an unintended oversight,” the team said. “In addition to filming the scout, the production crew — without specific knowledge of League rules — inappropriately filmed the field from the press box.”
New England continued to claim that it was an innocent mistake and that it was the fault of the video crew.
“The sole purpose of the filming was to provide an illustration of an advance scout at work on the road,” the team said. “There was no intention of using the footage for any other purpose. We understand and acknowledge that our video crew, which included independent contractors who shot the video, unknowingly violated a league policy by filming the field and sideline from the press box.”
Not The First Time the Pats Have Been Involved in Controversy
While this probably wouldn’t be as big of a deal if this were any other NFL team, this is going to be a very big deal because this is the Patriots we’re talking about here. They were a part of the biggest controversy in recent NFL history with Spygate back in 2007 and more recently, Deflategate, in 2014.
Head coach Bill Belichick was fined $500,000 — the largest fine ever for an NFL coach in league history and the Patriots were hit with a $250,000 fine and docked their first-round pick for the 2008 NFL Draft. Strangely enough, all of the evidence and videotapes from Spygate were destroyed — which didn’t exactly make New England look any less guilty.
Bill Belichick Denies Any Cheating
Speaking of Belichick, he spoke on the matter very defiantly and defended himself — and the organization — against any possibility of any wrongdoing.
“Yeah I heard about this. You know, evidently this is our production people on the TV show that were there. We have nothing to do with anything they produce,” Belichick said. “I’ve never even seen their tapes. This is something we had 100 percent nothing to do with.”
The Patriots are currently in the midst of a two-game losing streak and face the real possibility of not even having a first-round bye.
The fact that they’ll have to worry about this off-the-field matter as they look to get back on the right track against the Bengals doesn’t exactly help matters, but this isn’t anything new for the Patriots.
They’re used to facing adversity and knowing Belichick and Tom Brady, they shouldn’t be affected in the slightest once they play in Cincinnati on Sunday.