Phoenix ? The New England Patriots have denied a report quoting a source who claims the team illegally taped the St. Louis Rams’ walk-through session the day before Super Bowl XXXVI six years ago.

The Boston Herald reported in Saturday’s editions that a source had knowledge of the illegal taping at the New Orleans Superdome the day before the game. The Patriots beat the heavily favored Rams in the first of three Super Bowl victories.

“The suggestion that the New England Patriots recorded the St. Louis Rams’ walk-through on the day before Super Bowl XXXVI is absolutely false,” Patriots spokesman Stacey James said. “Any suggestion to the contrary is untrue.”

Rams team president John Smith said through a spokesman, “At this point, we have no comment.”

The Patriots were caught taping the Jets’ defensive signals in a Week 1 game at Giants Stadium. After an investigation by the NFL, Patriots coach Bill Belichick was fined $500,000, the team was fined $250,000, and the Patriots’ 2008 first-round pick was taken away. The Patriots have a first-round pick from the 49ers that was acquired in a 2007 trade.

According to the report, an unnamed source claimed that a Patriots employee secretly videotaped the Rams’ walk-through, in which they go through their plays at a reduced speed. Following the Patriots’ walk-through, the employee remained behind to tape the Rams’ session. The cameraman was not asked to identify himself or produce a press pass and rode the media shuttle back to the Patriots’ hotel after the walk-through was over, according to the Herald.

The Giants have taken extra precautions to protect their practices from being taped, according to team officials. This is done as a matter of course, but the team is extra sensitive to the issue in light of the Patriots’ involvement in Spygate.

“They’ve been extra vigilant,” one team official said of the club’s security staff.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell spent much of his annual Super Bowl briefing Friday addressing issues related to Spygate. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) has pressed Goodell to directly address Congress about his decision to destroy Patriots tapes that showed previous spying. Goodell destroyed seven tapes, including one from the Jets-Patriots game last September.

“There was no indication that it benefited them in any of the Super Bowl victories,” Goodell said. Asked Friday whether the league had investigated any allegations involving the Patriots’ 2002 Super Bowl win over St. Louis, he said, “I’m not aware of that.”

On Saturday, NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said the league had previously heard about the possibility of the taping of the walk-through, but found no evidence to support it.