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NFL statement on Daboll

During his interview with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell on Tuesday, former Patriots employee Matt Walsh confirmed that he did not tape the St. Louis Rams' walkthrough before Super Bowl XXXVI, but mentioned that he did talk to then-New England assistant Brian Daboll about what he saw during the walkthrough.

On Wednesday, the NFL interviewed Daboll, now the Jets' quarterbacks coach, again. He was first interviewed earlier this year, after the Feb. 2 Boston Herald story which said the walkthrough was taped by a member of the Pats' staff.

Today, the league released this statement:

"Our security department re-interviewed Brian Daboll on Wednesday and he has no recollection of a conversation with Matt Walsh about the Rams’ walk-through practice. Even if such a conversation occurred, it would not be a violation of NFL rules. Matt Walsh was authorized to be in the stadium to perform his job duties along with other members of the Patriots’ video department, members of the Rams’ video department, and other people preparing for the Super Bowl. Mr. Walsh told the commissioner that he was wearing Patriots’ attire at the time and did not conduct himself in a clandestine manner. He said that he saw Rams employees while he was there and also was on the sidelines. He stated clearly to the commissioner that nobody from the Patriots requested or directed him to observe or report on the Rams’ walk-through."

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 8:12 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

Pats' single-game tickets on sale tomorrow

From the release sent by the team:

Patriots fans who wish to purchase tickets to individual games in 2008 will have the opportunity on Friday, May 16, 2008 at 9:00 a.m. The New England Patriots annually cap their season ticket sales, leaving a limited number in reserve for fans throughout New England who wish to attend just a couple of games each season. Those tickets will be released for sale through Ticketmaster. Visa, a proud sponsor of the National Football League and the New England Patriots, will be the only form of payment accepted.

All ticket orders will be processed through Ticketmaster. Tickets will NOT be sold at the Gillette Stadium Ticket Office. Ticket orders can be completed online at www.ticketmaster.com or by phone. Ticketmaster phone numbers vary by area code, please check your local listings. In the greater Boston area, please call 617-931-2222. Once again, all phone and online orders must be made exclusively with a Visa credit or debit card.

If recent years are any indication, fans can expect all regular season games to sell out within minutes. If that occurs again this year, 2008 will be the 15th consecutive season that the Patriots have announced a complete sellout prior to the start of the regular season. The Patriots streak of consecutive sellouts is currently 149 games and began in 1994, the year that Robert Kraft purchased the franchise. The streak includes all preseason, regular season and postseason games since Sept. 4, 1994. If the Patriots sell out every game again this season, the streak will extend to 159 consecutive games by the end of the 2008 regular season.

The Patriots season ticket waiting list remains in excess of 50,000 fans.

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 4:19 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

The Onion weighs in on Spygate

See what they have to say here.

Posted by Mike McDermott  at 3:10 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

Matt Walsh describes his duties in depth in N.Y. Times interview

The New York Times has posted the entire transcript of an interview Wednesday in which Matt Walsh discussed his Patriots career with reporter Greg Bishop. It was Walsh's first interview with the news media, the Times says. The text casts much more light on how Walsh describes his duties with Patriots than most news stories could, including just what he was doing in the days before the Super Bowl against the Rams. The question that no one has definitively answered: How much did all this help the Patriots?

Click here for the transcript.

Posted by Mike McDermott  at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Comments 1

Herald stands by reporter John Tomase

A day after its front-page apology to the Patriots made national news, the Boston Herald today is running an editor's note defending John Tomase, the reporter whose story about the Rams Super Bowl walkthrough eventually led to the apology, and reported that Tomase himself will write about the controversy tomorrow.

"We thought our story was solid. It wasn't. And we owned up to it," said the letter, signed by editor and chief Kevin Convey.

"Nevertheless, I continue to stand behind the work of the Herald sports department and John Tomase, a talented journalist who has dealt with this difficult matter professionally while continuing to do his job under intense pressure."

Click here to see Convey's full statement.

Posted by Mike McDermott  at 8:49 AM | Permalink | Comments 0