PHOENIX -- Spygate won't go away.
Roger Goodell defended his decision to destroy notes and videotapes linked to the New England Patriots' cheating scandal Friday, a day after Sen. Arlen Specter asked why the NFL commissioner trashed the evidence.
"The action that we took was decisive and it was unprecedented," Goodell said during his State of the NFL address, an annual news conference at the Super Bowl.
"I believe it was helpful in making sure our instructions were followed closely by not only the Patriots, but also by every other team. I think it was the appropriate thing to do. Our discipline sent a loud message ..."
Specter, R-Pa., said Goodell's explanation, "didn't make any sense at all."
"If they are under lock and key at the NFL headquarters, they aren't going to be available at all," he said in Philadelphia.
But Goodell said a copy of one of six tapes made either in 2006 or during the 2007 preseason had, indeed, made its way to the media before all the tapes were destroyed.
"They may have collected it within the rules, but we couldn't determine that. So we felt that it should be destroyed," he said.
Goodell fined coach Bill Belichick $500,000 and docked the team $250,000 and a first-round draft pick. It was the biggest fine ever for a coach and the first time in NFL history a first-round draft pick has figured in a penalty.
Specter also wondered just how much information the Patriots were collecting on those tapes.
"They talked about defensive signals and don't say if there was any taping or stealing of offensive signals," he said. "The fine was for the totality of the circumstances, not just the taping. Well, wait a minute, what else is involved here?"
Spygate has touched a nerve with nearly everyone who follows the NFL and easily was the most prominent topic during Goodell's address two days before the undefeated Patriots meet the New York Giants in the Super Bowl. He was asked about it a half-dozen times, from the first question until the last.
"The actual effectiveness of taping and taking of signals from opponents -- it is something done widely in many sports. I think it probably had limited, if any effect, on the outcome of games," he said. "That doesn't change my perspective on violating rules and the need to be punished."
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