As Wingo later told me, "We all, not only Mark and Cris but myself included, had a real visceral reaction to seeing those tapes for the first time, and their opinions were driven by their emotions. Before seeing the tapes, they weren't sure what benefit they might have, but when they saw the way it matched up -- with down and distance on the scoreboard, the coaches' signals and the formation all matched up -- they both were thinking, 'Holy Cow!'"
Fueled by that emotion, Schlereth imagined how such tapes might affect the outcome if film was shot, edited and utilized "during the course of a game" -- a practice Patriots coach Bill Belichick had consistently denied since last September, and for which there was no evidence. Never mind. The mere possibility that tapes could have been shot and used during a given game, with likely "amazing" effect on game outcome, got Schlereth and then Carter so riled up that pretty soon they had convinced themselves of the virtual certainty of their speculation.
