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Patriots coach Bill Belichick has broken his silence about the illegal taping of defensive signals that cost him a first-round pick, $500,000 in fines and a ton of criticism.

In an exclusive interview with Mike Reiss of the Boston Globe, Belichick apologized for all the controversy the situation has caused, and flatly denied ever taping the Rams' walkthrough the day before Super Bowl XXXVI.

Patriots player personnel chief Scott Pioli added that Walsh, who has hinted he has tapes of the Rams' walkthrough but has so far refused to turn over any evidence or speak to the NFL about the matter, was fired in part because he secretly taped conversations between he and Pioli.

Among the highlights from Belichick:

On taping walkthroughs: "In my entire coaching career, I've never seen another team's practice film prior to playing that team. I have never authorized, or heard of, or even seen in any way, shape, or form any other team's walkthrough. We don't even film our own. We don't even want to see ourselves do anything, that's the pace that it's at. Regardless, I've never been a part of that."

On why his interpretation of the taping rules got him into trouble in the first place:

"My interpretation was that you can't utilize anything to assist you during that game. What our camera guys do is clearly not allowed to be used during the game and has never been used during that game that it was shot."

On the level of importance he placed on taping defensive signals:

"On the tape of the signaling that we talk about, that film usually wasn't even completed until Thursday or Friday of the following week. It was that low of a priority. In other words, the video guys had so much other stuff to do on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday getting ready for the other game, that a lot of times that film wasn't even processed until later in the week."

On all the commotion caused by the Spygate incident:

"I respect the integrity of the game and always have and always will. I regret that any of this, or to whatever extent it has in any way brought that into question or discussion or debate. The decision was made by the commissioner, the practice was immediately stopped, and we're not doing it. Just going back over the whole taping incident, if I contacted the league and asked them about the practice, I'm sure they would have told me - as they have done - that it is not permissible. Then I could have avoided all of this."

On why he waited until now to open up about the issue:

"I wasn't comfortable talking about it earlier in the year because my No. 1 job is to win football games. The more distractions there are, I think the harder it is to prepare. I thought the more conversation about this would just take away from what my primary job and our primary job is, which is to win football games. I felt like now, the season has been over for a couple weeks, there are certainly a lot of questions out there about it, I thought this would be the timely point to address it as opposed to during the season, at any point. Of course, it came up a number of times."