The issue does bring to light the question of whether you'd rather have 3 tarnished trophies or none and I don't know what the answer to that one is.
Oh gimmie a break. I can't stand the Patriots but that spygate stuff is alot of nothing. Should have they done it? No, but that influenced the results? C'mon.
Yeah, it actually does quite a bit more than invite speculation from opposing fans assuming the worst. The intentional destruction of evidence raises the inference that the evidence was unfavorable to the party responsible for destroying it. Doesn't depend on which team you root for.
And the NFL destroyed the evidence, not the Pats. That suggests strongly that the NFL felt that one or more of the championships in question relied on the spying and they did not want that fact to hit the light of day.
The thing is Belly DID NOT get suspended while Peyton got a year. Think there was not some favoritism played by Goody between the New Orleans & Kraft? :sad:
Well, let your imagination run wild I say. But at the least it suggests that the NFL felt some competitive outcomes were affected.
No, the bounty penalties are about the nfl trying to avoid lawsuits and higher insurance premiums. As usual it's about the almighty dollar.
Yes but I am sure that cheating that Belly did is against the same NFL constitution that the bounty program did. Somewhere goody gave kraft a break he chose not to give to Benson since both instances were outside the rules of the NFL as well as being bad for the NFL :sad:
Good post. I agree with you that the destroying of the evidence was an interesting decision and invites speculation. It also doesn't help that the Pats haven't a Super Bowl after so it just fuels everything.
There is an asterisk on the Pats SB victories but if Pats received heavy penalties that asterisk would be a huge red X screaming for attention. No matter how badly Pats should have been penalized, it’s impossible NFL could enforce it without bringing even more doubt into the integrity of those SB victories. Loss of integrity concerning the SB victories would be devastating with regards to popularity and finances. The SB is bigger than the NFL itself. Plenty of people that don't even watch football tune in for the Super Bowl. No way the NFL can risk losing this popularity by “doing the right thing” and penalizing the Pats appropriately (assuming they should have been penalized harder). Also, don't underestimate the power betting has on the NFL's popularity. The injury reports are there to prevent "insiders" from having gambling advantages. Casting doubts on the integrity of the game by harshly penalizing Pats would impact NFL betting greatly. === Pats organization & fans get pissed whenever they hear that their SB victories have an asterisk because it's true. If the evidence was not enough to prove the Pats had a competitive advantage, it’s obvious the NFL would have shared it with the public to prove it was just nonsense. Instead the evidence was destroyed & minimal comments were made later from the league & Pats. === tldr: - Pats SB have asterisks to nearly everyone outside of the Pats organization. - Pats can't get penalized for cheating because that asterisk will draw even more attention. - Evidence against Pats destroyed by the one group that would be hurt the most if these accusations were true. - Penalizing Pats heavy hurts the game's popularity/income. Penalizing the Saints heavily does neither.
I was thinking more on the lines of will they eliminate the kickoff or will they change the way DB's are allowed to defend receivers in an effort to slow down the passing game to go along with the things they have put in place about hitting players above the shoulders or players who are defenseless.
No, the Pats were not cheating in the years they won the SB! Having someone on the sidelne with a camera was NOT against the rules. In 2006, the league sent a memo out to ALL teams not to film from the sidelines during games any more. Belichik blew it off. He was guilty of being an arrogant dick, but we all knew that anyway. One other point. There has not been one person who can prove the Pats were using this stuff on game day. Walsh, who was the catalyst for trying to bring the Pats down even said during his testimony that he passed in the tape after each game. It is a fact that the majority of the teams in the league employed at least on person to try to decipher and steal the other team's signals during a game. The idea that they were "secretly" taping is another joke. They had a guy in a Patriots jersey with a camcorder in his hand plainly on the sidelines. After footage from the actual tape was aired on Fox NFL Sunday on September 16, former Dallas Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson claimed, "This is exactly how I was told to do it 18 years ago by a Kansas City Chiefs scout. I tried it, but I didn't think it helped us." Johnson also said, "Bill Belichick was wrong because he videotaped signals after a memo was sent out to all of the teams saying not to do it. But what irritates me is hearing some reactions from players and coaches. These players don't know what their coaches are doing. And some of the coaches have selective amnesia because I know for a fact there were various teams doing this. That's why the memo was sent to everybody. That doesn't make [Belichick] right, but a lot of teams are doing this."[26] Jim Johnson makes the point. This point is backed by other well respected coaches like Bill Parcells and Mike Ditka. The ones who criticized are the walking vagina Shula, who was worried his undefeated season was gonna be topped and holier than thou Tony Dungy, who everyone knew had the best sign stealer in the league on his sidelines, Howard mudd! Belichick also addressed his interpretation of Article 9 of the NFL Constitution and Bylaws, which the Patriots were penalized for violating. Belichick believed the taping was legal as long as the tape wasn't used during the same game, saying "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
The video tapes that were destroyed were all from the 2006 season and 2007 preseason*. Please explain how any of those tapes could have contained evidence proving a competitive advantage in any of the Super Bowls which now supposedly have asterisks. The only other tapes that were considered relevent to Spygate were the ones that Walsh brought forward after reaching an indemnity agreement. These tapes were not destroyed; they were actually shown to the media**, and confirmed to be consistent with what the Patriots had already admitted to doing (i.e. they did NOT include any footage of the Rams' walkthrough, and Walsh's discussions with Goodell & Specter did not indicate that the Patriots had used any of the footage during halftime of games, or at any time DURING a game, which they had denied doing). Everything that the Patriots did that might of had any impact on their Super Bowl victories is well know and was owned up to from the beginning. Any belief that there are secret aspects to spygate that helped the Patriots win Super Bowls, and for which they were not punished, has no basis in reality. If you want to discuss the significance of the infractions to which they DID own up to, then that is a completely different argument, but in either case your current argument has no merit. Also, if Goodell was so interested in sweeping everything under the rug, why wasn't spygate handled more like the most recent Broncos' taping scandal, which resulted in $50,000 fines, involved repeat offenders, and has since been forgotten about by most NFL fans? Instead he made an example out of Belichick by handing down the maximum fine allowed under league rules, and additionally taking away a first round draft pick and $250,000 from the team. *Source: http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3225539 ** Source: http://www.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/reiss_pieces/2008/05/signals_being_s.html
What about that story you mention that they filmed the Rams' walkthtough prior to the SB? Is there any actual validity to that (I'm really asking... I don't know and don't give that much of a shit to look it up)? Was pretty prevalent at the time, but can't remember if it was ever confirmed. Kurt Warner and Marshall Faulk have said in the past that they thought some shit was up. You mention that no tapes of it surfaced - but where did everyone get the idea that they did it?
That was originally posted by the Boston Herald. It was denied by Walsh, then retracted by the Herald. The Herald eventually apologized to the Patriots and fans for publishing the article without confirming their source first.
I don't believe that's correct the by laws were in effect before the memo went out. I suspect at Patriot games there are lots of guys with camera's and camcorders with Patriot Jerseys on some who might be on the sidelines who aren't employeed by the Pats. Not sure what your point is here. Doesn't do justice to your original argument which attempted to show some facts which may or may not be true. In the NFL's operations manual, it states that "no video recording devices of any kind are permitted to be in use in the coaches' booth, on the field, or in the locker room during the game." Furthermore, all video shooting locations for coaching purposes "must be enclosed on all sides with a roof overhead." Interesting interpretation by BB. I'm guessing he's not as good a lawyer as he is at coaching football.
