The Patriots have said that the team’s video crew that violated league policy by filming the Bengals sideline during a December game against the Browns had no connection to their football operations staff and, per a report, a league investigation into the matter hasn’t turned up any evidence to the contrary.
Mark Maske of the Washington Post reports that the investigation is winding down and that there has been nothing to show that the football operations staff had any link to the video. If that remains the case, the Patriots are likely to face a similar penalty to ones imposed on other teams for gameday infractions in recent years.
Those penalties have included fines, dropping a draft pick to a later position and stripping a draft pick. The last penalty was given to the Falcons for playing fake crowd noise during home games.
Maske reports that the investigation could wrap up as soon as this week, but there’s no word on when a final ruling would come from the league office.