Hilarious:

NEW YORK — After meeting with former Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh for more than three hours, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said no new information had come to light as a result and indicated that the Spygate scandal had run its course.

Goodell also said he was told by Walsh that the Patriots did not have a videotape of a walkthrough practice of the St. Louis Rams prior to the 2002 Super Bowl.

Also, the tapes were not used in-game, something regular visitors to planet Earth had already come to suspect. However, there was the bombshell announcement that the Patriots had been taping the opponents’ cheerleaders. Teh oh noes! Evil Bill Belicheat is stealing our dance moves!

This shocking announcement does lend some credibility to the mysterious NEInsider, who either had access to the Patriots tape library or is a very good guesser:

We were wrong and made a mistake. We as an organization failed and it will never happen again. Every NFL memo is now processed, analyzed, passed thru legal, and presented to both Bill, Scott., and all the coaches with the potential legal ramifications so EVERYONE knows what not to do.

That said here are the simple facts I know about Spygate and WalkthruGate:

1. We taped defensive signals and offensive formation signals and we still have video of other teams taping us. They are of little value since no team uses the same signals even from game to game, quarter to quarter, and sometimes from series to series. We do it to FORCE the opposition to stay on thier toes and change signals hoping they mix up signals and have a bad play that results in a big play for us. There are no offensive signals only formation signals which are useless and they were taped at the same time as offensive signals and WERE possibly even on the Spygate tape. Any claims are baseless on this. [...]

3. We did not want the tapes destroyed. We preferred they be released since they basically proved we did nothing since some of the tapes destroyed were processed tapes that prove there was little value to us other than aggravating the other team . Several showed coaches waving to our videographer, several other with obscene gestures, coaches laughing at us, and some hot cheerleader video for the enjoyment of those given the boring job of proecessing video that had zero intrinsic value.

I doubt it was purely a mindfuck, or else you wouldn’t bother editing the tapes and keeping them for years (although this does jibe with Jimmy Johnson’s take, who might possibly know more than you or I.) You could probably study them to figure out if an opponent’s coaching staff was able to read your playcalling and adjust, or if they were just flailing. Also, this guy could be a full-of-shit-fanboy like the rest of us. As he spends all the rest of his time having a five-alarm orgasm over the Pats’ draft class, you’d better hope so.