What Woody said did not, in fact, matter. If Woody had never said a word publicly and had never leaked anything to Mehta, things would have happened the same as they did. Why? Because they still would have gotten the info to Revis out-of-sight. They might have reached out to Revis's agent. Revis's agent might have (and I bet sure he did because he would have been an idiot otherwise) call them and asked and they answered. Point being that Revis would have had exactly the same info if Woody had been locked away from all microphones.
That does not mean Woody shouldn't be punished. He clearly broke a clear rule and should be punished. However, I reject the "this has to be punished worse than Cameragate because it's worse" claim. Two wrongs don't make a right -- NE being ridiculously overpunished in Cameragate shouldn't mean overpunishments should keep on happening. Punish the Jets worse than NE should have been punished, not worse than NE was punished. I'd rather have punishments return to sanity than to keep the stupidity going.
If there's a "most egregious case of tampering ever", that would be about whatever happened via backchannels, not Woody's stupid statement. So sure, punish them hard for that if there's evidence of actual illegal negotiations. (Though before calling for heads over that, ask yourself exactly how sure you are that NE has never negotiated illegally, and how sure you are there aren't any records of it. As the Herald's Jeff Howe notes "However, remember it only took the Patriots five hours to agree to their deal with Revis last year after he was cut by the Buccaneers.")
Also, since most owners are not as stupid as Woody, there may well have been plenty of just as or more egregious tampering going on that we've never heard about because it was all out of the public eye.
