It might be too little, too late for Eric Mangini.
Mangini, a former Patriots assistant coach, reported his old team for videotaping opponents’ signals at the beginning of the 2007 season, kicking off the “Spygate” scandal, which resulted in heavy fines and New England losing a first-round draft pick.
Mangini, who was the head coach of the New York Jets at the time, wishes things had gone differently, especially given his past relationship with Patriots head coach Bill Belichick.
“Spygate is a big regret,” Mangini told the New York Post. “It wasn’t supposed to go down the way it went down.”
“There was no great value in what they were doing,” he added. “It wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t worth it to me personally. It wasn’t worth it to the relationship.”
Mangini said he wanted the Patriots to stop what they were doing but never wanted NFL officials to know. He was mentored by Belichick, and that relationship obviously soured after the Spygate punishment was handed down.
“I cared about him,” Mangini said of Belichick, according to the New York Post. “I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t want to hurt the Patriots. They were a huge part of my life, too, and the Kraft family. The Krafts were always great to me. It wasn’t like I was thinking ‘I really want to get these guys.’ My thought was ‘I don’t want to put my team at a competitive disadvantage, no matter how small.’ ”
Mangini hasn’t coached in the NFL since serving as the San Francisco 49ers’ defensive coordinator last season.
Thumbnail photo via William Perlman/USA TODAY Sports Images
