ESPN’s TMQ on what it all may mean. Not good.
The weasel wording of Belichick’s Nixonian statement shows the New England coach full of contempt for the NFL fans, and the NFL enterprise, that made him a wealthy celebrity. Belichick declared that his super-elaborate cheating system was only a “mistake” caused by his “interpretation” of the league’s rule. Wait, “interpretation”? The NFL rule bans teams from filming each other’s sidelines. There’s no room for interpretation, it’s a ban! Here’s the NFL policy, from a memo sent to all head coaches and general managers Sept. 6, 2006: “Videotaping of any type, including but not limited to taping of an opponent’s offensive or defensive signals, is prohibited on the sidelines, in the coaches’ booth, in the locker room or at any other locations accessible to club staff members during the game.” Prohibited. There’s nothing there to “interpret.” Videotaping opponent’s signals even after getting this warning isn’t a “mistake,” it’s cheating. Belichick’s cheating was not some casual spur-of-the-moment blunder but rather an elaborate staffed system that took a lot of work to put into place and that Belichick worked hard to hide. And you don’t hide something unless you are ashamed of it.
Michael Vick tried to deny and stonewall, but at the last owned up and admitted what he did. That’s dignity. Belichick is now using weasel words to deny responsibility for his own choices. What kind of example does that set for the young? “Make good choices,” football coaches constantly preach to the young. Now, caught, Belichick wants a special exemption to responsibility for his own choices. Belichick also is trying to close the matter by saying he won’t talk about it anymore. So he cheated and now unilaterally declares the matter closed because he doesn’t want to face the consequences of his own choices. But this is not over and not going away. Before the cheating scandal, Belichick had a reputation for being heartless but a really good coach. Now, he seems little more than a creepy con artist, and it’s the refusal to act like a man and take full responsibility that’s really offensive. Goodell’s draft-choice penalty against the Patriots – either a first or a second and a third – is the highest draft penalty ever imposed in the NFL. The severity of this sanction shows how seriously Goodell takes the violation. If more disclosures are coming, there might be a lot more punishment of the Patriots. And unless Belichick comes clean and stops lying about his cheating, this event should disqualify him from consideration for the Pro Football Hall of Fame – it is, after all, not the Hall of Cheaters.
Are we still talking about this?
“Super-elaborate”? He videotaped the sidelines, and then after the game he’d try to decipher the defensive signals, which were likely changed up by the next time they played, anyhow. If you can sum it up in one sentence, it’s not “super-elaborate.”
He broke the rules, yes, because one can’t use video to spy on the opponent, but the rules don’t discuss things like binoculars, which Denver’s Mike Shanahan has admitted to using for the same purpose.
Easterbrook has some hellish kinda bug up his butt about this, which you can tell by the way he has decided that all Patriots victories in perpetuity throughout the universe will now deserve an asterisk because maybe a videotape from 2005 is why they beat the hell out the Chargers.
He got caught breaking rules. Nobody can prove that his rule-breaking led to a competitive advantage (or else how do you explain the regular season losses, or the failure to make the Super Bowl last year or in 2005). He has been punished by the league and paid his penalty. He’s not a good guy, but to say that this is worthy of banning him from the Hall of Fame is over-the-top.
By the by, I’m a Bears fan. I have no dog in this fight. Although I do think that it’s stupid to continue needling the Patriots as a team by saying that they can’t win without cheating. “We didn’t get any respect” is the mantra they used to dismantle the Rams in their first Brady Bowl.
You are mistaken.
Kaufman nails it with his first sentence:
A non-controversy. Unless the evidence turns up any of the opposing coaches playsheets.
The difference, of course, is that you can’t go back to your binoculars in 3 weeks and review what you saw. You can with videotape.
And the hypothetical in King Kauffman’s article (Videotaping from Row 12 instead of the sidelines) is false, because as anyone who’s been to a pro sporting event in the last 10 years can tell you, videotaping in the stands is EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN. Just try it and get your a** thrown out by security.
Right…three weeks after the game has been played, and by the time you play that team again their signals have likely been switched up.
If anything, the binoculars offer an immediate advantage that video doesn’t give you, unless it’s also been stated that the person taping the signals was also immediately relaying the signals–that he’d interpreted accurately, on the fly–to the offensive coordinator.
Ugh! I was going my merry way, hating Belichick and the Patriots until this came along. Now I’m faced with a moral dilemma: if I continue hating the Patriots I’m now on the same side as Gregg Easterbrook….uh, actually come to think of it, it’s no dilemma at all: GO PATS!!!!!!
The Poor Man is about as unbiased talking about the Patriots as I am talking about the Skins.
I’m a Steelers fan, so by right, I should hate the Patriots and be cheering on the job done by the media here attacking ole’ Bill here. However, three points.
1. Um, how dumb are the Jets that the Patriots figured out their signals within a half?
2. If this had really been going on for years, wouldn’t have some ex-Pat who hates Bill like Bledsoe or Milloy blown the whistle?
3. Do you really want to face a Patriots team with this much talent _with_ a chip on their shoulder?
What, that moron Easterbrook didn’t have 5 more pages about this?
What a windbag.