New York – Roger Goodell’s hard line on discipline, aimed so far at players, came down this time on a coach and a team.
New England coach Bill Belichick was fined the NFL maximum of $500,000 Thursday and the Patriots were ordered to pay $250,000 for videotaping an opponent’s defensive signals.
The commissioner also ordered the team to give up next year’s first-round draft choice if it reaches the playoffs or its second- and third-round picks if it doesn’t.
“This episode represents a calculated and deliberate attempt to avoid longstanding rules designed to encourage fair play and promote honest competition on the playing field,” Goodell said in a letter to the Patriots.
The videotaping came to light after a camera was confiscated from Patriots video assistant Matt Estrella while he was on the New York Jets’ sideline during New England’s 38-14 win Sunday at Giants Stadium. The NFL said the camera was seized before the end of the first quarter and had no impact on the game.
Goodell said he considered suspending Belichick but didn’t “largely because I believe that the discipline I am imposing of a maximum fine and forfeiture of a first- round draft choice, or multiple draft choices, is in fact more significant and long- lasting, and therefore more effective, than a suspension.”
If the Patriots lose their first-rounder next season they still will have a first- round pick, obtained from the San Francisco 49ers in the deal that brought receiver Randy Moss from the Oakland Raiders.
NFL rules state “no video recording devices of any kind are permitted to be in use in the coaches’ booth, on the field, or in the locker room during the game.”
They also say all video for coaching purposes must be shot from locations “enclosed on all sides with a roof overhead.”
NFL coaches long have suspected opponents of spying. In the early 1970s, the late George Allen, coach of the Washington Redskins, routinely would send a security man into the woods surrounding the team’s practice facility because he suspected there were spies from other teams there.
