The biggest remaining question with the New England Patriots’ videotaping scandal surrounds the team’s scout.
New England has admitted to inadvertently breaking NFL rules by filming the Cincinnati Bengals’ sideline during a game in Week 14. The mistake came while a production crew was filming a video feature on an advance scout, who travels to the Patriots’ upcoming opponent to view the sideline and take notes (which is legal). But in the process, the film crew took footage of that sideline (which is not legal) because they didn’t know the NFL rules. That left the question: What was the scout doing while the crew captured illegal footage? Surely, he knew they shouldn’t be filming, and could have intervened.
“He was doing his job,” Belichick said Wednesday. “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.”
But we’ve got a more specific answer. Here’s what The Athletic shared on how the events occurred without the scout’s knowledge:
“Because the scout was the subject of those candid shots, he was going about his business and attempting to block them out of his sightline to try to deflect the attention of having a production crew following him around in a work environment.
“From there, the crew maneuvered about the press box and shot more B-roll of the scout, including some shots over his shoulder. Then the videographer relocated to the front row to an unoccupied section of the press box, with the producer stationed behind the camera.
“From the scout’s location in the third row, he eventually noticed the crew had moved locations but couldn’t decipher what the crew had been shooting due to the angle between them. The scout was handling his own game-day job responsibilities.”
