December 18, 2011; St. Louis, MO, USA; St. Louis Rams player and Hall of Fame running back Marshall Faulk speaks to the crowd as he is honored with a hall of fame ring and his name is added to the wall of fame during half time of a game against the Cincinnati Bengals at the Edward Jones Dome. Cincinnati defeated St. Louis Rams 20-13. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports

The last time the Super Bowl was in New Orleans was 11 years ago at Super Bowl XXXVI and it had the St. Louis Rams taking on the New England Patriots. The Patriots eventually went on to win their first of 3 Super Bowls behind some kid named Tom Brady and a leg belonging to Adam Vinatieri, who put a game winning field goal through the uprights.

But later in time we found out that the New England Patriots and head coach Bill Belichick videotaped opposing teams practices and walk throughs. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell punished the Patriots for that incident, involving the New York Jets, and has maintained that there is no evidence they did this before the Super Bowl.

Marshall Faulk thinks they cheated and stole a ring from him and his Rams teammates.

“All of my memories about playing the game is all good feelings,” Faulk said in an interview with Tom Curran. “I only remember the Super Bowl I won in Atlanta (after the 1999 season). I couldn’t even conjure up the feelings of what I felt after the game (against the Patriots). I’m sure I was heartbroken and maybe a little upset but when you talk Super Bowl, all of my feelings go directly to winning.”

It was brought up that he has an “anti-Patriots” reuptation in his role on NFL Network as an analyst, some call it bitterness.

“They misunderstand,” Faulk corrected. “Am I over the loss? Yeah, I’m over the loss. But I’ll never be over being cheated out of the Super Bowl. That’s a different story. I can understand losing a Super Bowl, that’s fine . . . But how things happened and what took place. Obviously, the commissioner gets to handle things how he wants to handle them but if they wanted us to shut up about what happened, show us the tapes. Don’t burn ‘em.”

Goodell destroyed the tapes after reviewing them and passing down sanctions on the Patriots organization.

“Obviously, the commissioner gets to handle things how he wants to handle them but if they wanted us to shut up about what happened, show us the tapes. Don’t burn ‘em,” Faulk said.

Seems fair enough, and certainly if it were true he wouldn’t want to deal with an NCAA like situation where you vacate bowl wins. If the Rams were cheated what would Goodell do? Revoke a Super Bowl win? What a mess that’d be, I’d burn the tapes punish them for regular season games they taped and maintain that they didn’t do it before that Super Bowl as well.

Faulk though says the proof is in pudding or the game tape.

“I know, in that game, in the red zone, the plays we ran, most of them we hadn’t ran most of those plays that year,” Faulk noted. “And a couple of plays on third down that we walked through also . . .  Any time that I was offset, I was always stationary. And we had creating motioning in the backfield at the same depth on the other side of the field. And they created a check for it. It’s just little things like that. It’s either the best coaching in the world when you come up with situations that you had never seen before. Or you’d seen it and knew what to do.”

Jan 14, 2012; San Francisco, CA, USA; New Orleans Saints general manager Mickey Loomis watches warm ups before the 2011 NFC divisional playoff game against the San Francisco 49ers at Candlestick Park. The 49ers defeated the Saints 36-32. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-US PRESSWIRE

New Orleans Saints General Manager has hit back at accusations he eavesdropped on opposition coaches in a communication sent this evening to NFL insider Jay Glazer:

“This report on ESPN is absolutely false. I have a monitor in front of me in my booth that provides the league issued stats for the game. I have a small tv with the network broadcast and I have an earpiece to listen to the WWL-AM radio (flagship broadcaster) game broadcast.

To think I am sitting in there listening and actually and or doing something with the offensive and defensive play calls of the opposing teams makes this story and the unnamed sources that provided the false information that much more less credible…it just didn’t happen.”

A predictable first response to say the least and one which will not end the firestorm that has begun over these allegations. Expect a lot more on this in the coming days and weeks.

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ESPN’s John Barr is reporting that New Orleans Saints General Manager Mickey Loomis had access to an electronic device that could listen in on opposing coaches. In the report, it is stated that this information was passed onto the US Attorney’s office for East Louisiana on Friday.

The device was alleged to have been originally installed in 2000 when Loomis’ predecessor Randy Mueller had the job. According to the report, Mueller only had the ability to use the device to monitor the game-day communications of the Saints coaching staff, not the opposing coaches. When Loomis took the job in 2002, he had it re-wired to listen only to the opposition and that he couldn’t use it to listen to Saints staff even if he wanted to.

In response, Loomis has emphatically denied the allegation as being “1000 percent false”. The embattled General manager, who already faces suspension from the “Bountygate” scandal, could face not only punishment from the NFL but also potentially a federal charge as the use of electronic devices for spying purposes is illegal under the ECPA – Electronic Communications Privacy Act – federal statute. Whether he can or not entirely depends on where his offences fall in terms of the statute of limitations.

The report states that the bug was deactivated in 2005 which falls outside the five year statute of limitations. However, if evidence were uncovered that Loomis or others made efforts to cover up the violation after 2007 then a prosecution could be brought. There is also the possibility for civil suits to be brought by those parties who were spied upon with these not being subject to the same limitation. For these civil suits, they could be brought at any time within two years of parties being first informed that they had been spied upon.

At this time, the NFL has declined to comment and when asked NFL spokesperson Greg Aiello said he had no knowledge of the allegations. Once all the facts are out and the allegations are proven true, there is a pretty clear precedent for punishment. When the Patriots were punished for “Spygate” there was a total of $750,000 worth of fines handed out and the Patriots lost a first round draft pick. That was for one proven incident however. If multiple incidents of the device’s use can be proven, the punishment could be far more severe.

No matter what, this report is yet another black mark on a severely damaged franchise. This is another sad day for football.

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