ESPN report: Saints GM eavesdropped on opponents (UPDATED with Saints Follow-Up)

((ht: espn.com/outsidethelines))

Mickey Loomis

Hmmmm...this could be interesting. It could be a bombshell or it could be an embarrassment to someone depending on whom you believe.

Monday afternoon, ESPN revealed a report on its "Long-Form" investigative show "Outside the Lines" that said New Orleans Saints GM Mickey Loomis had audio from opposing teams communications piped into his box at the Superdome from 2002-2004.

No, really. They said it.

Check out their story RIGHT HERE

You can also watch it:



For their part,the Saints have responded and called the report a bunch of Baloney. However, someone considers the charges serious because they apparently have been sent to the U.S Attorney's office.

We are guessing that those charges have something to do with wiretapping, but we aren't lawyers, so we could be wrong.

U.S Attorney Jim Lefflen told NOLA.com that he was made aware of the issue on Friday, but declined to say who informed him about it. (And he could but didn't say it might have been a 4-letter acronym)

The Saints also told the paper that they asked ESPN to provide them the information or some of background on what and why they were reporting the story.

They didn't get any.

Read the NOLA.com story RIGHT HERE

This story is going to get ugly for someone really fast, but we don't know exactly whom that will be. Either Loomis and the Saints or ESPN isn't being truthful here. The ESPN story mentions a previous incarnation of a listening device put in place for former GM Randy Mueller to listen to his own teams conversations.

That seems to be the impetus for this story.

Without knowing who brought the information forward, it may never be proven. We respect the heck out of John Barr and his reporting skills, but this story doesn't connect the dots very well. It is very heavy on Federal eavesdropping and very little on how or why it was done.

We also might add the Saints weren't exactly world beaters during that time period and the report doesn't imply it is still being done.

Stay tuned here, like we said, this could get interesting. If true, Loomis is done, if not, ESPN is putting an awful lot on the line.

TUESDAY UPDATE: WWL-TV's Chick Foret was interviewed on the subject...
Barr tried to track him down for the piece...


Former Saints Exec Jim Miller was interviewed about it as well...