Fansided

NFL, Roger Goodell urged Mike Martz to help cover up Spygate

By Mike Dyce

Feb 2, 2015; Phoenix, AZ, USA; NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell during the Super Bowl XLIX-Winning Head Coach and MVP Press Conference at Media Center-Press Conference Room B. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports
Feb 2, 2015; Phoenix, AZ, USA; NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell during the Super Bowl XLIX-Winning Head Coach and MVP Press Conference at Media Center-Press Conference Room B. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports /
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According to an ESPN report, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell pressured Mike Martz into.

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ESPN released a damning report about the New England Patriots extensive cheating during the Spygate era and new accusations directed towards the NFL and commissioner Roger Goodell. In particular, the report suggests that Roger Goodell tried to cover up as much of the information discovered during the Spygate investigation, including information that was previously unknown like the theft of playbooks.

Also included in the report is an interesting anecdote about Mike Martz, the former St. Louis Rams coach. Apparently Goodell approached Matz and asked him to help end the Spygate scandal when U.S. senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania called for a wider investigation.

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“He told me, ‘The league doesn’t need this. We’re asking you to come out with a couple lines exonerating us and saying we did our due diligence,'” Martz told ESPN.

This conversation occurred during 2007, well after the Patriots would’ve recorded the Rams during their Super Bowl

Goodell also apparently asked Martz to release a statement stating his satisfaction with the NFL’s investigation. Martz complied, agreeing with Goodell who was adamant that a congressional investigation could seriously damage the league.

The only issue is that the NFL didn’t release Martz’s statement as he wrote it, they changed it.

“It shocked me,” Martz said. “It appears embellished quite a bit — some lines I know I didn’t write. Who changed it? I don’t know.”

So Goodell’s inability to manage the situation and his desire to likely protect his friend and Patriots owner Robert Kraft, led him to pressure an NFL coach into helping him cover up a bigger problem in the league. Then he took it a step further to alter the cover up statement.

Makes you wonder what it will take to end Goodell’s tenure as commissioner.

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