Matthew Rose asked, "A question came up this morning that I thought
should be asked of the Listserv.  A few months back, the NFL reviewed
tapes that the New England Patriots had made of an opposing team's
practice.  After they reviewed the tapes, they destroyed them saying
that there wasn't anything incriminating on the tapes so there was no
need to retain them."

 

Great question, Matthew. As an NFL fan and a Records Manager, this story
has intrigued me from the beginning. I would start with a point of
clarification: the records were not destroyed because they were not
incriminating; instead, according to NFL spokesman Greg Aiello, they did
not show evidence that the Patriots cheated in any of their Super Bowl
victories. Mr. Aiello stated that the material was destroyed to ensure
that they were not available to benefit any of the other 32 teams. As
Records Managers, we can see the fault in this logic immediately: if the
NFL believed they had the original and only copies of the information,
then obviously it would not be available for use by any of the 32 teams;
as such, there would be no reason to destroy the tapes and notes so
quickly. Clearly that justification holds no water, and the whole
situation reeks of scandal. My guess would be that the records were
extremely incriminating or that there was evidence that the Patriots did
not turn over all that existed, and that is why it was destroyed so
quickly and the Commissioner's Office refused to divulge what the tapes
contained.

 

For more information on how poorly the NFL handled the situation, Gregg
Easterbrook of ESPN has written several excellent articles which may be
of interest:

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/070925&sport
Cat=nfl

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/080202&sport
Cat=nfl

 

As you may have heard, Congress is now investigating the issue. Senator
Arlen Specter and Commissioner Goodell have a meeting scheduled today to
discuss why the NFL destroyed the tapes and to what extent that
investigated additional allegations of cheating (reports have surfaced
that the Patriots also taped pre-game practices of at least one Super
Bowl opponent). While I'm not intimately familiar with all the
machinations involved, Congress has a vested interest in the NFL
operations because of its exemption from US antitrust laws. I'm curious
to see what kind of records retention legislation if any arises from
this mess: something like any organization which maintains antitrust
exempt status must retain all operational records for Calendar Year + 5?

 


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