Walsh to meet with Goodell, Specter: Former Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh will meet separately with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and Sen. Arlen Specter today to discuss New England’s videotaping of opposing coaches’ playcalling signals in violation of league rules.
Walsh is scheduled to meet with Goodell at the NFL offices in New York at 7:30 a.m. EDT. Afterward, he will travel to Washington to meet with Specter. Specter, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has been critical of the NFL’s handling of the investigation.
Goodell and Specter each plan to hold a news conference after meeting with Walsh, who worked for the Patriots from 1997 to 2003.
Patriots coach Bill Belichick was fined $500,000, while the team was fined $250,000 and forced to forfeit its 2008 first-round draft choice. The Spygate investigation began after the NFL confiscated tapes from a New England employee who recorded the New York Jets’ defensive signals from the sideline during the 2007 opener.
Last week, Walsh sent the NFL eight videotapes that showed the Patriots recording playcalling signals. The tapes included signals by coaches of five opponents in six games from 2000-02.
The league said the tapes were consistent with what it already knew.
Bears make Gould highest paid kicker: Robbie Gould became the highest paid kicker, agreeing to a five-year, $15.5 million contract extension with the Chicago Bears that includes a $4.25 million signing bonus on Monday. The deal runs through 2013.
Gould has made 84 of 99 field-goal attempts and 99 of 100 PATs with the Bears. He hit 31 of 36 field-goal attempts last season and made the Pro Bowl after the 2006 season, when he scored 143 points.
His new deal trumps the five-year, $14.2 million contract Josh Brown signed with St. Louis on March 1.
Gould was an undrafted free agent out of Penn State in 2005. He first signed with New England, then spent time with Baltimore before going to the Bears in October of that year.
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