The worst part about the whole Spygate controversy is NFL Commissioner's Roger Goodell's attempt to cover up and sweep it all under the carpet. I can't imagine any other sport in which 7 years of blatant cheating by one team would go without a more serious penalty.
Here's what we know: Bill Belichick cheated in order to get an advantage on teams that would be played 2 times in the same year. Videos were made of the opposing teams signals on both offense and defense. These videos were then used for the next time the Patriots played the same team that year. This enabled the Patriots to correctly predict the plays of the opposing teams in some games. The full extent of which we don't know yet. Roger Goodell has made no attempt to determine this crucial fact. But some anecdotal evidence from one unnamed quarterback suggested it could have been as high as 70% of the plays from the opposing team.
Did this cheating help the Patriots win 3 Super Bowls: Undoubtedly. The taping goes back to 2000 and continued until 2007. The Pats won Super Bowls in 2002, 2004, and 2005. The only Super Bowl the Pats lost in this decade was this past year -- when the Patriots no longer were videotaping because they had finally been caught by the New York Jets.
Why doesn't Roger Gooddell do anything: It's against the self-interest of the NFL to expose the extensiveness of the New England Patriots cheating. Tom Brady and New England are marquee names for the NFL, and the whole Spygate saga threatens to unravel the entire mirage of the Golden Boy.
Why aren't more NFL teams complaining: Ditto the last comment. It's against their self-interest. The Patriots bring in money for the NFL. To tarnish their image would potentially hurt revenues.
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4 comments:
Jeez. Jimmy Johnson says he did the same as an NFL coach. Care to put that in some kinda "united cheaters" frame of reference...just to keep us all we clueless people up to speed?
How about Denver and S.F. in the '90's? They won SB's while losing draft picks and cash for deliberately circumventing the cap? Then again, I suppose that's the one acceptable kind of cheating. Bottom line, as you know and I know; this thing is all about Belichick.
Here's what we know... videotaping signals during that game for use in future games is 100% legal from the Constitution and By-Laws. Thus no cheating ever occurred.
How do you explain SB XXXVIII and SB XXXIX then? The Patriots didn't play either Carolina or Philadelphia in the regular season. So if they didn't have any videotape to "cheat" with, how in the world did the Pats win?
The Carolina Panthers CHEATED in Super Bowl XXXVIII, but no one gives a hoot since the Patriots won. Where's the outrage here?
"According to an investigative report posted on the Charlotte Observer's Web site on Sunday, a number of Carolina Panthers used a vast quantity and tremendous variety of performance-enhancing drugs during the team's 2004 Super Bowl season.
Several of [the players] were using disturbing, particularly alarmingly high amounts with high dosages for long durations -- some in combinations," said Dr. Gary Wadler, who prepared a report for the U.S. Attorney's Office that was used to prosecute Shortt. "This wasn't just a passing flirtation with these prohibited substances. When I see [prescriptions] 'renewed five times,' I say, 'What are you trying to accomplish?' "
Players' names were blacked out on Wadler's report, but the Observer reported that six Panthers -- and three of the five starting offensive linemen from the Super Bowl team -- were taking performance enhancers.
The Observer reported that two players were given prescriptions for a combined five substances banned by the NFL -- a week before the Panthers left Charlotte for the Super Bowl in Houston. Three of the substances -- injectable testosterone cypionate, the banned supplement androstenedione and the hormone DHEA -- had not been reported before."
The above information was found at:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2563563
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