Spygate Continues: Jets Reportedly Did Some Videotaping Of Their Own

A report has surfaced that the New York Jets were caught videotaping New England Patriots signals a year ago when the teams played in Foxboro. It is still yet to be determined whether this happened during New York's regular season win against the Pats or during it's playoff loss to New England.

According to a published report, an employee of the Jets was asked to stop videotaping from the mezzanine level at Gillette Stadium. Unlike the Patriots, the Jets are saying that no rule was actually broken in the process.

"All filming at last year's Patriots game was done with pre-approval from the Patriots and in accordance with NFL rules," Bruce Speight, the Jets' senior director of media relations, told Newsday.

The equipment was removed from the stadium, but was never confiscated by the league. It just makes one wonder how many teams are doing this in order to gain a competitive advantage. The Patriots and Bill Belichick were fined a total of $750,000 for videotaping the Jets' sidelines in Week 1. Now, there might be an investigation into this matter, even though I don't think there will be any punishment for the Jets. I don't understand how videotaping another team from the mezzanine level of a stadium was approved by the league or the opposition, which makes me suspicious of Speight's comments, but that's all we have right now.

It's strange how this is coming out right before the Jets and Pats game this Sunday. It's almost as if the Patriots knew about this right after Week 1, and didn't want to tell on Eric Mangini and the Jets until right before their second matchup. Could this motivate the Jets, just like spygate seems to have motivated the Patriots in their pursuit of perfection? I highly doubt it and I don't think the Patriots need to have any more of a psychological advantage. The team is 13-0 and the Jets are 3-10. The Patriots might put up 70 this week and another win will be tacked on to their undefeated record. But this spygate controversy will be brought up in future discussions regarding these two teams, and it's a shame.

Shawn Marosek