Former New England Patriots videotape operator Matt Walsh leaves NFL headquarters in New York yesterday after his meeting with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

AP / Louis Lanzano

NEW YORK — NFL commissioner Roger Goodell had his long-anticipated meeting with former New England Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh yesterday, and once it was over, declared that further sanctions against the Patriots are unlikely.

After speaking with Walsh, now an assistant pro at a Hawaii golf course, for 3 hours and 15 minutes, Goodell held a news conference to share what the two had discussed.

Perhaps most important, Goodell said Walsh affirmed that he does not have, nor did he make, a tape of the St. Louis Rams’ final walkthrough before Super Bowl XXXVI, in 2002.

“The fundamental information that Matt provided was consistent with what we disciplined the Patriots for last fall; that essentially they were taping coaches’ signals, against NFL policy,” Goodell said. “We were also able to verify that there was no Rams walkthrough tape. No one asked [Walsh] to tape the walkthrough he’s not aware of anybody else who may have taped the walkthrough.”

Had such a tape come to light — a Feb. 2 report in the Boston Herald, citing an anonymous source, said that a member of the Pats’ video staff had recorded the event — New England would almost certainly face further punishment; had Walsh even admitted to making the recording, the issue now known as Spygate would have dragged on longer.

After months of questioning, Goodell was asked if he now considers the case closed.

“As I stand before you today, and having met with Matt Walsh and over 50 other people, I don’t know where else I would turn” for more information, he said.

When Walsh and his lawyer, Michael Levy, exited the NFL’s Park Avenue headquarters yesterday morning, reporters surrounded the pair, hoping Walsh would take a few questions. But as the 31-year-old Walsh, his temples graying, stood stoic in a black double-breasted suit, Levy issued a statement:

“Mr. Walsh is pleased to have been able to assist the National Football League in its investigation of the New England Patriots’ videotaping practices,” he said. “Senator Arlen Specter has waited quite a while to meet with Mr. Walsh, and we are heading immediately to Washington, D.C., for an appointment this afternoon with Senator Specter. Out of respect for Senator Specter, neither Mr. Walsh nor I will speak with the media prior to meeting with the senator.”

With that, Levy and another man ushered Walsh through the throng, which now included camera-wielding passersby, into a waiting car. A news conference with Specter, R-Pa., was postponed until today at noon.

Specter has helped keep the Spygate situation alive with comments critical of the league’s handling of the situation. Many have said, however, that his ties to Philadelphia-based Comcast, which is locked in a battle with the NFL over rights to the NFL Network, is driving him. Also, the Pats have had success in recent years over the league’s two Pennsylvania-based teams, the Eagles and the Steelers.

Though Goodell acknowledged that he had not spoken with New England owner Robert Kraft or any other members of the club after the meeting with Walsh, the team did have a lawyer in the room for the duration.

The Patriots issued a statement yesterday afternoon: “We want to address the allegation that the Patriots taped the Rams’ walkthrough prior to Super Bowl XXXVI. For the past three-and-a-half months, we have been defending ourselves against assumptions made based on an unsubstantiated report rather than on facts or evidence. Despite our adamant denials, the report ran on February 2, 2008, the day before Super Bowl XLII. That game was the second-most watched program in television history and it is unfortunate that today’s news will not also reach an audience of that size.

“We hope that with Matt Walsh’s disclosures, everyone will finally believe what we have been saying all along and emphatically stated on the day of the initial report: ‘The suggestion that the New England Patriots recorded the St. Louis Rams’ walkthrough on the day before Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002 is absolutely false. Any suggestion to the contrary is untrue.’ ”

According to Goodell, Walsh did offer two new pieces of information: in 2001, the Pats had a player on injured reserve take part in a practice, a league no-no; and he helped players sell Super Bowl tickets, a total of 8 to 12 tickets over two years, which is also in violation of league rules.

Walsh named names in both instances, which Goodell said the league will try to verify. The team will not have further fines imposed on it for the practice violation, though the players could be punished for the scalping of tickets.

Walsh became a person of interest for the league in early February, after articles in The New York Times and espn.com had Walsh on the record implying that he might have information of interest to share with the league. Those articles, coupled with the Herald story, in which Walsh was not named but many believed was the anonymous source, led the league to pursue an agreement that would get the former assistant into league offices.

During the first quarter of the Patriots’ regular-season opener last September against the New York Jets, NFL security officials, tipped off by a member of the Jets’ organization, removed a New England employee from the Meadowlands’ sidelines and confiscated a video camera and its contents.

The Patriots were found to be in violation of a league rule that states that “no video recording devices of any kind are permitted to be in use in the coaches’ booth, on the field, or in the locker room during the game” and that all video shooting locations for club coaching purposes “must be enclosed on all sides with a roof overhead.”

Goodell acted swiftly, handing out an unprecedented punishment: he fined New England head coach Bill Belichick $500,000, the maximum allowed under league rules, and the Patriots organization an additional $250,000, and he also docked the team a first-round pick in last month’s draft.

Belichick maintained that he misinterpreted the rule, and believed that as long as the video shot during one game wasn’t used in that same game, then it was permitted.

Goodell said yesterday that he didn’t buy Belichick’s reasoning in September and he continues not to believe it.

Belichick did admit, however, that the taping practice extended back to the 2000 season, his first as head coach in New England. Goodell’s punishment was for the entire seven-plus years of wrongdoing.

While waiting for Goodell to arrive for the news conference, media members were shown excerpts of seven of the eight tapes Walsh handed over to the league, covering six games from Sept. 24, 2000, to Sept. 29, 2002. All showed basically the same thing: the camera would focus on the opposing defensive coaches signaling to players, then pan quickly to the scoreboard or clock. One, from an October 2001 game in Miami, also showed offensive signals, though those are not nearly as intricate as defensive ones because quarterbacks have a receiver in their helmets in which a coach tells them which play to run.

Walsh was fired by the Patriots in January 2003 after it was discovered that he was recording conversations between himself and team vice president of player personnel Scott Pioli. Asked why Walsh kept the videotapes, Goodell said he gave varying answers: one was that he potentially would want to get into coaching, so he kept tapes of drills and practices, as well as the game tapes; another was that he wanted them for his résumé, to show a potential employer what he did when he was with the Patriots franchise.

smanza@projo.com