Bill Belichick's closest confidant “taking things to the grave” over Spygate

In the pantheon of American sports, few stories are as compelling and deeply layered as the dynasty of the New England Patriots. The tale of triumphs and titles began with a deep-seated love for football, a relentless pursuit of perfection, and a monastic devotion to detail and an unparalleled ability to adapt.

Seemingly overnight, the Patriots transformed from a team of underdogs into an empire that redefined the contours of the NFL. They dominated with an iron will and an amorphous playbook that seemingly rewrote itself with each passing season.

Triumph and titles did not come without trials and tribulations. Each championship was a chapter written through adversity, a rollercoaster of breathtaking highs and heart-wrenching lows, from the "Tuck Rule" game that ignited their first Super Bowl run to the infamous "Spygate" scandal.

Timeworn and ruptured relationships caused the dynasty to come to an anticlimactic and abrupt end, but football's greatest juggernaut remains shrouded in mystery. The genetic makeup of the dynasty can be traced back to the practice fields of Philips Academy, a prep school in Andover, where two young minds coiled around each other like twin strands of DNA. Drawn together by their love of the game, Bill Belichick and Ernie Adams shared a bond forged in the crucible of football's byzantine intricacies.

Belichick would later say his one year at Andover "was probably the single most important year in my development."

Belichick always had Adams with him, dating back to his time as defensive coordinator for the New York Giants. Together, the duo became the architects of the New England Patriots dynasty. Belichick became the head coach and Adams became the shadowy sage, whose role was as pivotal as it was enigmatic.

Bill Belichick's closest confidant speaks on Spygate for the first time

Director Matthew Hamacheck joined Kay Adams on the Up & Adams Show to discuss "The Dynasty: New England Patriots," an upcoming Apple TV+ docuseries that included interviews with more than 25 players, coaches and executives.

Hamacheck, who conducted an unprecedented interview with Ernie Adams, shared one quote from Adams when the topic of Spygate came up.

“There’s certain things I’ll be taking to the grave with me,” Ernie Adams told Hamachek regarding the Spygate scandal.

The Spygate scandal was largely blown out of proportion. NFL rules do not prohibit videotaping opponents' offensive and defensive signals during a game. However, the league prohibits filming from specific areas around the stadium.

In 2006, the NFL prohibited teams from videotaping from the sidelines, coaches' booth, or other locations accessible to team staff members during the game. According to the 2007 NFL Game Operations Manual, legal game videotaping locations "must be enclosed on all sides with a roof overhead."

During the 2006 NFL season, a New York Jets cameraman was removed from the Patriots stadium for filming signals. A year later, the Jets flagged the Patriots for the same activity.

With a brighter spotlight on New England, the accusation took on a life of its own. The Patriots were fined a total of $750,000 and docked a first-round pick in the 2007 NFL Draft. Paranoia began to creep in — the St. Louis Rams, Carolina Panthers and Philadelphia Eagles revised their Super Bowl losses as stolen victories. The Boston Herald even ran a front-page apology for incorrectly reporting that the Patriots had filmed the Rams' Super Bowl practices, but the story was perpetuated regardless.

“A guy is giving signals in front of 80,000 people, OK?” Belichick said about Spygate in 2015. “So we filmed them taking signals in front of 80,000 people, like there were a lot of other teams doing at that time, too. Forget about that. If we were wrong, we’ve been disciplined for that. The [Patriots’ cameraman] is in front of 80,000 people — 80,000 people saw it, everybody on the sideline saw it, everybody sees our guys in front of 80,000 people. I mean, there he is. It was wrong, we were disciplined for it, that’s it. ... We always [follow the rules], we always have."

While Hamachek's teaser is enticing, expect Ernie Adams' full quote to closely reflect Belichick's words.

The $10,000 Question: Who is Ernie Adams?

Who is Ernie Adams, and what exactly did he do? That's what Art Modell, the late former owner of the Cleveland Browns, wanted to know when Belichick was his head coach.

"I'll pay anyone here $10,000 if they can tell me what Ernie Adams does," Modell once famously said. "I know he does something, and I know he works for me, and I know I pay him, but I’d love to know what it is.’’

No one was able to collect those ten thousand dollars. Hall of Fame head coach Bill Parcells, who worked with Adams for six seasons, was asked about Adams as well, but couldn't even recall who he was.

So what did he do?

Adams, whose official title was "football research director," watched film, observed trends, dissected opponents, and developed strategies. Any memorable moment from the Patriots dynasty likely has Adams' fingerprints all over it: The game plan to beat The Greatest Show on Turf in Super Bowl XXXVI; the intentional safety in Denver; the eligible linemen that unfurled John Harbaugh; Malcolm Butler's interception in Super Bowl XLIX.

“Ernie was ... deciding what plays to run [on scout team],” Belichick said in December. “If you had like, call it 100 plays a week, 35 a day, round numbers. A team like Kansas City, you could run 400 plays easily. Some of the same plays out of different formations, different personnel groups, different motion, but it’s a different adjustment too. So what does the other side need to see based on maybe what we’ve been hurt with? What they like to do? Maybe they’ve done something else the last couple weeks and now this would be a good time to run a reverse off a sweep that they’ve been successful with that everybody’s gearing up to stop. Or a boot or something like that. So it’s that decision-making of what plays to run against the other side of the ball. What blitzes to run. You prepare for everything, but you only get so many plays to practice. Which ones do you want to test your unit with at a practice tempo? Those are key decisions to make. So Ernie would be more on that side of it: How they would block it. How they would run the play. How they’d formation it. What’d be the hardest thing on us? We’d usually try to make it a little harder in practice so if it comes up in the game we’re not too surprised by, ‘Well, that’s a hard adjustment.’ Well, they’re probably going to try to make it hard. They’re not going to make it easy for us.’”