Month: January 2020

Justin Herbert scored his third rushing touchdown of the Rose Bowl on a thrilling 30-yard run Wednesday night, and Oregon held off Wisconsin 28-27.

The NFL found no evidence connecting Bill Belichick and the Patriots’ coaching staff to the video recording of the Bengals’ sideline on Dec. 8.

As is often the case with sequels, Spygate II is a mere shell of the original.

According to a new report by Washington Post writer Mark Maske, the controversy involving a Patriots.com videographer and his unauthorized videotaping of the Cincinnati Bengals’ sideline doesn’t appear to implicate any Patriots coaches or anyone in Patriots football operations. The league’s investigation is nearly complete, too.

The report is hardly surprising. While published facts about the incident invited far-reaching speculation and conjecture about Bill Belichick, those same facts pointed to an unsensational explanation: an inadequately trained videographer erred and, after getting caught, he panicked.

The videographer’s blunder and dread were clear in an eight-minute video obtained by Fox’s Jay Glazer. The video showed an interaction between a Bengals security official who observed and confronted the videographer at the Dec. 8 game between the Bengals and Cleveland Browns at FirstEnergy Stadium. The official bluntly let the videographer know that the NFL Game Operations Manual forbids videographers from recording coaches’ signals from the press box. The videographer was in the wrong and admitted as much. He explained he was taping the Bengals sideline from the press box as part of a “behind the scenes” feature on a Patriots advanced scout for the web series, Do Your Job.

The videographer nonetheless pleaded that he had made an innocent, if careless, mistake. He insisted that he wasn’t aware of the applicable rule. The videographer then anxiously offered to delete the video—an offer which clearly “looked bad” but also reflected how many people in that situation would probably react. After all, he had done something that, if it got out, could lead to his firing and possibly ruin his name in the industry. Public disclosure of the incident would certainly embarrass the Patriots and get them in trouble with commissioner Roger Goodell.

The Patriots swiftly apologized and both suspended the videographer and fired the producer of the web series. The team explained that while the Do Your Job staff had obtained permission from the Browns, the same staff—who rely on independent contractors to shoot video—forgot to inform the Bengals. The Patriots stressed that the video, which appears to capture imagery already captured on the game broadcast, supplied no competitive advantage to Patriots coaches, particularly since those coaches neither requested the recording nor saw the video.

It’s fair to assume that if Patriots coaches intended to conduct a covert spying operation on the Bengals—who were 1-12 at the time—they wouldn’t have scripted a plan that resembled what occurred. Remember, the Patriots.com production staff asked for permission from the Browns to record the video in plain sight, in front of security and journalists. The videographer was also visibly credentialed as with Patriots.com. He wasn’t in disguise or incognito. This was hardly a secret recording.

The fact that the recorded video reportedly captured little of value was also more consistent with a careless mistake than a conspiratorial plot. If a team was going to take a big chance by spying on another team, why would it record what is already broadcast on TV?

The NFL is still inclined to punish the Patriots. Even if the franchise’s mistake lacked ill intent and supplied no competitive benefit, the mistake still happened and reflects carelessness. This is a league that often stresses integrity of the game and fair play. To that point, the NFL has adopted numerous rules that authorize the punishment of teams for attempting to gain unfair advantages. Article VIII, Section 8.13 of the league constitution empowers Goodell to punish teams for endangering competition—even accidental and inconsequential endangerments. Goodell can strip a team of draft choices, lower the order of those choices, and/or impose both fines and suspensions.

Goodell could justify a punishment by concluding that the Patriots had failed to fully internalize the consequences of Spygate. In 2007, a Patriots video assistant had positioned himself in a location within the Jets stadium where videotaping another team’s defensive coaches was not authorized. The recording was obviously intended to help the Patriots scout the Jets—it was not about developing content for a web series. The NFL stripped the Patriots of a first-round pick and imposed fines. Goodell could reason that of all NFL teams to use videographers for a web series, the Patriots should have been the most cautious in overseeing how that series is produced.

The most likely punishment for the Patriots is a fine. The NFL has previously reserved the stripping of draft picks for misconduct related to football operations—whether it be alleged interference with equipment, negotiating with players who are under contract to other teams, salary cap circumvention and side payments, non-disclosure of player injuries or exceeding limits on player physical contact during offseason workout programs. All of those transgressions concerned supplying a team with a competitive advantage over its rivals. Considering that the draft is about helping teams compete, a draft pick penalty made sense. With the Bengals video, in contrast, the misconduct concerns creating content for a web series run by non-football operations staff. It is more of a “business” mistake than a “football” mistake and thus a fine is arguably more appropriate.

Michael McCann is SI’s Legal Analyst. He is also an attorney and Director of the Sports and Entertainment Law Institute at the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law.

Oregon outlasted Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl Wednesday in senior quarterback Justin Herbert’s last game.

Both Justin Herbert and Mario Cristobal uttered a similar sentiment after Oregon ran out the clock in its 28-27 Rose Bowl win over Wisconsin on Wednesday. Amid a rush of teammates and coaches, Herbert and Cristobal noted the Ducks’ rise from 4–8 in 2016 to 12–2 in 2019 following their victory in Pasadena. Herbert experienced the program’s full rise back to the top of the Pac-12, going 2–5 in seven starts as a freshman in 2016. Now with his third head coach in four seasons, Herbert ends his college career with the second-most passing touchdowns in program history.

Herbert wasn’t perfect in Oregon’s first Rose Bowl victory since 2014. He finished Wednesday night with 138 passing yards on 20 attempts, limited downfield against a stout Badgers’ defense. But the Eugene native made critical plays late to seal Oregon’s victory. Herbert burst through Wisconsin’s defense for a 30-yard touchdown with 7:41 to play, giving Oregon a 28-27 lead it would never relinquish. Herbert also completed a pair of passes for first downs to run out the clock in the final two minutes. Armed with the NCAA’s No. 7 scoring defense, Herbert played complimentary football, completing key third-down passes while grinding out critical yards on the ground.

Oregon’s win on Wednesday (and its Pac-12 Championship victory over Utah) should serve as some validation for Herbert after eschewing the 2019 NFL Draft for a senior season with the Ducks. Herbert could have been the second quarterback off the board last year behind Heisman winner Kyler Murray, potentially jockeying for consideration in the top-10 with Daniel Jones and Dwayne Haskins. Skipping out on top-10 money is never an easy choice, regardless of affinity for a program.

It remains a question whether Herbert made a smart economic decision. Joe Burrow is all-but-assured to go No.1 to Cincinnati, while Tua Tagovailoa could leapfrog Herbert if he leaves Tuscaloosa. Herbert may settle closer to the 20th pick than No. 10, though QB-needy teams could jump at the chance to nab a quarterback who threw 61 touchdowns and 13 interceptions in four seasons.

Unless Herbert leads his future NFL team to the playoffs as a rookie, his season will likely be done by New Year’s Day in 2021. However, the Ducks could still return to Pasadena a year from now. Oregon sported the nation’s No. 7 recruiting class in 2019, led by five-star defensive end Kayvon Thibodeaux. The electric edge rusher tallied nine sacks and 14 tackles for loss as a freshman, and he wreaked havoc on Wisconsin’s offensive line in spurts on Wednesday. Oregon should be an impressive defensive unit next season, keeping the program in the conference title chase even without Herbert. Mario Cristobal has stabilized the program after a shaky two-year stretch. The future is bright for both Herbert and his former program. 

Stern played an integral role in helping establish a league that drastically progressed over the years due to his leadership while commissioner.

There is a generation—if you are reading this, perhaps you’re a part of one of them—that sees sports commissioners as little more than stewards. Mete out a few fines, hand down a handful of suspensions, deal with a steady stream of criticism of officiating, all while watching network executives club each other to fork over multi-billion dollar contracts.

David Stern, the former NBA commissioner who passed away on Wednesday, wasn’t that. Before the NBA was a powerful global presence, before the price of television contracts soared and player salaries became the envy of the four major sports, it, well, wasn’t. The NBA that Stern took over in 1984 was floundering, financially strapped, a distant competitor to the NFL and Major League Baseball. In the 1980-81 season, 16 of the NBA’s 23 teams lost money. Teams averaged around 10,000 fans; Cleveland, then the NBA’s worst run team, sold just 28% of its seats.

A year earlier, CBS elected to show Game 6 of the Finals on tape delay.

Contraction, if you can believe it, was being strongly considered.

The NBA didn’t need a steward—it needed a savior.

It got one in Stern, a mustached Manhattan lawyer, a progressive thinker who had worked for the NBA in various capacities since the late 1960s. It was Stern, then an executive vice-president, who worked to establish a salary cap in 1983, a move widely credited with saving seven teams from extinction. It was Stern who pushed the NBA into Europe, South America and the Far East, opening offices in 15 cities outside the U.S., signing television agreements with more than 200 countries, exposing the NBA to billions and creating the type of international influx that enriches the league today. It was Stern, a visionary in the television space, who invested heavily in NBA Entertainment, who promoted players over matchups, who targeted coveted younger demographics with teen-friendly programs like Inside Stuff.

“It was rare to see a leader with such great vision,” says Raptors president Masai Ujiri, “who then also executed it.”

There was a relentlessness to Stern, an unflinching belief that the NBA could emerge as the most popular sport, both domestically and abroad. He was a compassionate figure when he needed to be, hugging Magic Johnson on live TV, in 1992, after Johnson announced he had HIV to a world that feared everything to do with the disease. He was a disciplinarian when he had to be, like in 2004, when a brawl in Detroit spilled into the stands, creating the kind of violent visuals Stern badly wanted to have rooted out of the league. Stern issued some of the harshest penalties in NBA history after that, including benching Ron Artest for the remainder of the season—which amounted to an 86-game hit.

He clashed with players over the league’s salary structure, over bench wardrobe, always fiercely believing what he was doing was in the league’s best interest. And he was willing to listen. Billy King, the former Sixers GM, recalls the uproar caused by Allen Iverson’s foray into rap music in 2000. His debut single, “40 Bars,” was sharply criticized by women’s groups and the LGBT community. Stern himself issued a strongly worded statement against it.

That fall, Stern asked to meet with Iverson. Iverson, says King, didn’t want to go. “David had told him after they last met that if he had to call him to his office again, he was going to kick Allen out of the league,” King told SI.com. Iverson relented, and the two met. Iverson explained his thinking with the lyrics. He told Stern how he wanted to help his friends crack the music industry. Iverson issued a public apology. Stern decided that was enough.

“David didn’t care about the backlash,” King said. “He was going to do what he thought was right. He was going to protect the players. He was going to protect the game.”

Players, Stern long ago reasoned, were what was going to drive the NBA to unimaginable heights. Fans didn’t care about the laundry, they tuned in, bought tickets, gobbled up merchandise for the players that wore them. Stern brought the slam dunk and three-point contests to All-Star weekend to showcase the league’s younger stars. The Olympics’ decision to allow NBA players to compete in 1992 offered Stern an opportunity to showcase the league to the world, and he seized on it. He likened the NBA’s business model to Disney’s, with arenas being theme parks.

“They have characters,” Stern told SI in 1991. “Mickey Mouse, Goofy. Our characters are named Magic and Michael [Jordan]. Disney sells apparel; we sell apparel. They make home videos; we make home videos.”

Said Jordan, “Without David Stern, the NBA would not be what it is today … his vision and leadership provided me with the global stage that allowed me to succeed. David had a deep love for the game of basketball and demanded excellence from those around him – and I admired him for that. I wouldn’t be where I am without him.”

There were failures, of course—no 30-year tenure would be without them. Stern presided over the worst referee scandal in league history and he must own how Donald Sterling was allowed to stick around as long as he did. He led the league into two game-killing lockouts and surrendered when the Sonics sought to relocate from Seattle. And there are L.A. fans still seething that Chris Paul never wore a Lakers uniform.

The successes, though, vastly overshadow the failures. What the NBA is today is what David Stern made it. What it can be is because of the path Stern set for it. With bottomless passion and unrelenting drive, Stern pushed the NBA to once unimaginable heights. It’s a legacy few commissioners, if any, could hope to match. 

Alabama QB Tua Tagovailoa tweeted Wednesday that he will be announcing his NFL Draft decision on Monday.

Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa tweeted on Wednesday he will announce on Jan. 6 his decision to either declare for the NFL Draft or stay with the Crimson Tide.

“I’ll be making my decision on the 6th,” Tagovailoa tweeted. “God bless and Roll Tide.”

Tagovailoa threw for 2,840 yards and 33 touchdowns in 2019 while tossing just three interceptions. The junior played nine games for Alabama this season before suffering a season-ending hip dislocation against Mississippi State on Nov. 16. 

Alabama went 10–1 with Tagovailoa in 2019. The Crimson Tide’s lone loss with its starting quarterback this season came at LSU on Nov. 11. Tagovailoa completed 21 of 40 passes with four touchdowns in Alabama’s 46-41 loss.

Tagovailoa replaced Jalen Hurts in Alabama’s win over Georgia in the 2018 College Football Playoff National Championship. He is 22–2 as a starter with the Crimson Tide.

Alabama defeated Michigan in the Citrus Bowl on Wednesday with Mac Jones starting at quarterback.

Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa will announce Monday whether he is declaring his eligibility for the NFL draft.

David Stern, the NBA commissioner who oversaw the sport’s biggest stage for three decades, has died, the league announced in a statement on Wednesday. He was 77.

Jason Garrett will meet for a third time with Cowboys ownership on Thursday, a source said, as discussions about the coach’s future extend late into the week.

Veteran guard Darren Collison is considering a return in February, after retiring last season to focus on his faith. He’d prefer to sign with a Los Angeles team, sources say.