Belichick and Pioli speak out

"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."

In the days leading up to this year's Super Bowl, Walsh's potential role in the taping became a hot topic. Yesterday, Pioli detailed the work Walsh did in the personnel department.

"He had come from video, so the first few months his job was to make highlight tapes of draft-eligible players, guys who were going to be free agents," he said. "It's like the entry-level position that we have all the scouting assistants in. It's essentially the same job that I did 15 years ago, which was making copies, picking people up at the airport, data entry, more of the highlight tapes of the players, the draft-eligible guys."

Pioli said reports that indicated Walsh was an "area scout" were incorrect.

Their relationship ended abruptly, according to Pioli.

"The job he was doing, there were two other guys doing it, so essentially the work he was doing wasn't up to the same level as the other people, in my opinion. However, I found out he was secretly tape recording our conversations and he was fired," he said.

Asked if he confronted Walsh for an explanation, Pioli said: "There was never a confrontation. He was just released."

Mike Reiss can be reached at mreiss@globe.com.