Posted by ESPN.com's John Clayton
Thirty-one teams left the owners meeting in Palm Beach, Fla., feeling a little better about the Patriots' Spygate issue after apologies from New England owner Robert Kraft and coach Bill Belichick on Tuesday.
Owners adopted NFL commissioner Roger Goodell's points of emphasis involving integrity. Teams will have to certify each year that they didn't cheat. A Certification of Compliance form will be created for every team to sign annually. Teams approved having the league monitor compliance by spot checks of locker rooms, press boxes, coaches' booths, coach-to-player communication systems and other in-stadium communication systems.
"We had a brief report on the whole Patriots situation," Goodell said. "Robert Kraft and Bill Belichick stood up and made comments which I think were appreciated by the members. It was sincere and it was very effective.''
Goodell and league chief counsel Jeff Pash keep saying they are making progress in trying to negotiate a deal with former Patriots videographer Matt Walsh, but no deal has been worked out with Walsh's attorney. Though this spring's meeting helped to heal some of the wounds from Spygate, the ordeal continues to nag at the league.
"I've said from the beginning of this incident that if there's new information that comes to the public or to me, I have the right to reopen this issue and I will," Goodell said. "But the reality is that we haven't gotten any new facts here for seven months.''
Wisely, the league tabled until May the motion to prohibit players from having their hair hang down below the nameplates on the backs of their jerseys. A dialogue will start with the NFL Players Association, seeking their input on whether long hair is a uniform violation.
Wisely, the competition committee tabled the idea of re-seeding the playoffs in order to give a wild-card team with a good record a playoff home game at the expense of a division winner with a worse record. Once the committee asked for a show of hands of teams in support, they saw too few to have a formal vote. This proposal is dead, dead, dead.
Unwisely, the owners did not go for the idea of increasing offseason roster sizes above 80. For years, owners lost money paying for NFL Europa as a developmental league that didn't develop enough players. NFL Europa is gone, but teams could have used an extra six players to get through the injuries of training camp and train players who could be developed on eight-man practice squads.
