NFL’s image key to spring meetings

Spygate has the league owners setting up new guidelines for the season.

NEW YORK (AP) — Seven months after Spygate, integrity is still a fundamental issue for NFL owners.

When owners, team officials and coaches gather for the annual spring meetings in Palm Beach, Fla. Monday, the league’s image will be a key component of several issues discussed.

“We are determined that our game is clean and competitively fair,” Ray Anderson, the league’s senior vice president for football operations, said during a conference call on Wednesday. “We want integrity from top to bottom.”

Much of the agenda stems from Spygate, the episode in which a New England Patriots’ employee made tapes of the New York Jets’ defensive signals during the opening regular season game. Patriots coach Bill Belichick was fined $500,000 for that; the team was fined $250,000 and lost its first-round draft pick.

There also will be continued discussion of labor issues. Several owners have indicated recently the league is ready to opt out next November from the agreement that was extended in March 2006.

That, however, is for the future. Integrity is now.

Three weeks ago, in a letter to the competition committee, commissioner Roger Goodell proposed strengthening enforcement procedures for next season.

While no action was taken by the committee, it agreed in principle to Goodell’s proposal, which included a “whistleblower” provision that would protect anyone reporting illegal activity.

Anderson noted improved technology will allow the league to more easily monitor and detect cheating. He also wants the standard of proof to be the same used in civil cases — preponderance of the evidence — rather than “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” needed in criminal cases.

Spygate fallout also is evident in a proposed rule change that would allow defensive players to receive signals from the sidelines through a radio in their helmets. On offense, quarterbacks already receive radio signals from the sidelines.

A similar proposal was rejected last year, getting 20 votes, two short of the 24 needed for enactment.

Atlanta Falcons president Rich McKay, co-chairman of the competition committee, said the impetus from Spygate could help get the addition two votes.

A third change with ethical ramifications would institute a five-to-seven day period before the start of free agency during which agents could contact teams about prospective free agents. No signings or contact with players would be allowed, but it would avoid what most league officials concede is widespread illegal negotiation before free agency starts. Earlier this week, San Francisco forfeited its fifth-round draft choice this year for “tampering” with Chicago linebacker Lance Briggs.

McKay and Anderson, a former agent, both conceded tampering occurs.