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Goodell on Pats probe: Won't rush to conclusions
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said Wednesday that the league won't make any judgments until the completion of an investigation into the Patriots inappropriately filming the Bengals sideline during Sunday's game in Cleveland.
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Goodell on Pats probe: Won't rush to conclusions
Commissioner Roger Goodell said Wednesday at the league meetings that the NFL will not make any judgments until the completion of an investigation into the New England Patriots inappropriately filming the Cincinnati Bengals sideline during Sunday's game in Cleveland.
The club has acknowledged that a three-person crew producing a web series titled "Do Your Job'' didn't properly inform the Browns of the filming. The Patriots said they turned over all the footage to the league after being confronted. New England plays at the Bengals on Sunday.
"The sole purpose of the filming was to provide an illustration of an advance scout at work on the road," the Patriots said in a statement earlier this week. "There was no intention of using footage for any other purpose."
The Patriots also said the production crew, which included independent contractors who shot the video, is not part of New England's football operation.
"The football team, the football staff and the coaching staff had nothing to do with what happened," coach Bill Belichick told reporters Wednesday. "Nothing. So, we have no involvement in it."
Asked if the advance scout was aware of the rules barring filming from the press box, Belichick said, "He was doing his job. That's what he was doing, he was doing his job. Like we all tried to do.
"That's what the football team, the football staff and the coaching staff did last week was try to do their job for Kansas City, and then Cincinnati, and then Buffalo next week, and that's it."
In 2007, the Patriots were fined $250,000 and lost a first-round draft pick for violating NFL rules against using video to steal signals in a scandal dubbed "Spygate.'' Belichick was also fined $500,000.
Asked if New England's side of the latest story is believable, Goodell said, "One of the things I've learned is you don't draw conclusions until you have all the information. Once we have all the information, then we draw conclusions. We're not going to draw conclusions along the way.''
Goodell said the previous incident does affect the current situation, "but I think the key things are the new information that we have. I think the issue is what information do we have from this incident?''