Spygate 2 Update: The Patriots Camera Filmed the Bengals Sideline for 8 Minutes

Source - The New England Patriots production crew reportedly filmed the Cincinnati Bengals sideline for about eight minutes on Sunday as part of an episode for the team’s “Do Your Job” series profiling an advanced scout.

A member of the crew was wearing Boston Bruins gear and filming directly in front of some Bengals staffers, The Athletic reported Tuesday.

According to the report, the “egregious nature” of the shoot was why it sparked fury from the Bengals executives.

New England has admitted that a production crew filmed the Bengals sideline but said the person filming didn’t know it was against NFL rules, according to a team statement. ...

Patriots coach Bill Belichick distanced himself from the controversy, telling WEEI radio that the video crew was completely separate from the football staff. 

“We have absolutely nothing to do with anything that they produce or direct or shoot,” he said. “I have never seen any of their tapes or anything else. This is something that we 100 percent have zero involvement with.” 

And here is all the proof anyone would need that SpyGate 2: Spy Harder was not a Bill Belichick production. 

The Orc armies of critics and haters who lap up every drop of cheating allegations thrown at him love to use his preparedness against him. They'll say he's got superhuman levels of thoroughness and attention to detail, so naturally he'll look for any edge he can get. No amount of information is insignificant, they argue. No stone is too small to be left unturned. 

Which is precisely why this report would prove his innocence. 

Given everything we know about the man, does this sound at all to you like Belchick had anything to do with such a clumsy, ham-handed, amateurish operation? Do you honestly believe he was involved in the planning stages of a caper in which a guy in a Bruins hoodie stood in front of a press box filled with Bengals executives and pointed a camera at their sideline and left it running for eight minutes? Bill Belichick? THE Bill Belichick? The one who knew enough not to call timeout with the Seahawks on the 1 because he'd studied enough to recognize Pete Carroll was in the throes of a panic attack and was lining up to call the very pass his team had practiced against? Does anyone really believe that in a world where perverts are creeping on bathrooms with cameras smaller than your iPhone charger that he'd put a guy with a 20 pound video camera mounted to a tripod in front of team personnel in a league where everyone is out to destroy him? For eight minutes, no less?

Especially after this? 

I'm less offended by the cheating allegation than I am the suggestion he is this bad at cheating. If he was going to spy on the Bengals sideline - I pause here to get the uncontrollable giggles out of my system - he'd do a much more expert job than just hiring some independent contractor to half ass it in front of a ton of witnesses. Belichick is the greatest, cleverest, and most elusive cheater in the history of cheating, not some rank amateur. If he was going to do this [chuckle], it would be an elaborately clever plot, with trickery and subterfuge and body doubles and technical wizardy up the wazoo and switcheroos all over the place. Better than anything Danny Ocean or Ethan Hunt could come up with on their best days. Guy in a Bruins sweatshirt leaving his camera on all day, my ass. That's not my coach's style of cheating. At all. It's beneath him.

You know who might pull off a lameass stunt like this though? Just about any other coach in the league. I've been going back and forth with some Twitter followers and here's a short list of the sorts of sloppy, hackneyed, bungling cheating other teams have been guilty of:

--Mike Tomlin trying to trip Jacoby Jones on a kick return

--The Jets strength coach successfully tripping Nolan Carroll on a punt

--Ben McAdoo using a walkie talkie during a game

--Ben Roethlisberger using his cell phone on the sideline

--Ray Farmer texting plays to the Browns sidelines

--The Panthers heating up footballs at the Vikings outdoor stadium in December

--The Ravens holding illegal padded practices for rookies and free agents

--Brad Johnson paying the ball boys to doctor up the Super Bowl XXXVII footballs

--Aaron Rodgers admitting he inflated footballs above the legal limit and hoped the refs didn't catch on

--The Steelers using game balls that were virtually flat

--The Colts and Falcons pumping crowd noise into their domes

--The Broncos winning back-to-back Super Bowls thanks to salary cap violations.

--Whatever this was:

Clumsy, obvious and easily caught, every last one of them. Call Bill Belichick a lying, spying cheater all you want. Just don't lump him in with these lesser lying, spying cheaters. He deserves better.