“Spygate: The Prequel,” it was not.
Eric Mangini and the Jets took great pains yesterday to quell a potential videotaping controversy of their own, and the NFL backed them up by giving the league’s stamp of approval to the Jets’ version of events.
Mangini also acknowledged his feud with former mentor Bill Belichick by saying the Jets wouldn’t bother asking the Patriots coach’s permission to use extra cameras at Gillette Stadium on Sunday.
“I didn’t think (permission) would be granted,” Mangini said.
Mangini’s revelation came after he confirmed that a Jets employee with a video camera was removed by the Patriots from the lighthouse end zone in Foxborough during a playoff loss last January.
But Mangini insisted the Jets did nothing improper and certainly nothing as brazen as filming the Patriots’ defensive signals, which is what got Belichick and New England in so much hot water with the league for doing at Giants Stadium in a 38-14 victory over the Jets in September.
Belichick and New England were fined a total of $750,000 and docked a 2008 first-round pick by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, touching off a controversy that has been reignited this week by the first meeting between the two teams since the incident.
Mangini said the January incident resulted from the practice of “double end zone” filming, in which teams shoot scouting tape from areas atop both end zones. Clubs normally shoot that tape from the 50-yard line and just one end zone, but NFL rules allow both end zones as long as the home team gives permission.
The Jets have regularly shot tape from both end zones at home and on the road since Mangini’s arrival last season. They also give permission to do likewise to any visiting team at Giants Stadium, Mangini said.
“We do it every (game), regardless of playoff (or) preseason, just like we do it every day in practice,” Mangini said. “It’s not really that big a deal. (Permission) is a pretty common courtesy.”
NFL spokesman Greg Aiello agreed with Mangini, telling The Post that shooting from both end zones is common and within league rules.
“There are no restrictions on shooting from both upper end zone positions as long as the opportunity is provided to both teams,” Aiello said in an e-mail. “No permission is needed from the league office.”
But it apparently became a big deal to the Patriots during their 37-16 playoff victory over the Jets in January. According to Mangini, the Patriots gave the Jets permission to film from both end zones, as they had done during the team’s regular-season meeting at Gillette Stadium two months earlier (a 17-14 Jets win), then abruptly changed their minds without explanation during the game.
Mangini said he didn’t learn about that incident until a day or two after the game and decided to let it rest.
“It was one of those things where the game was over, and they have the ability to make those decisions in their stadium,” he said. “You respect the decisions that they make. Should they change their mind, they have every right to.”
What separated “Spygate” from the normal practice of shooting from both end zones is that, according to Mangini, the Patriots never sought permission.
“I don’t know what (Belichick) does in other games, (but) he didn’t make the request in our game,” Mangini said.
As usual, Belichick refused comment yesterday on all things video-related.
“There’s a lot of things that have happened in the past or been talked about in the past,” he said, “(but) really, all of the past is in the past.”