ESPN: Spygate, Did it Really Matter?

[MattM]

A few thoughts on your points below in all caps:

 

Farve vs Bears, Fave states that he knew the Bears had stolen their audible signals DID HE ALLEGE THEY DID SO THROUGH ILLEGAL MEANS? THAT CAN BE DONE IN A NUMBER OF WAYS, SOME LEGAL, SOME NOT.... I stated this before. Also lets see where do I begin. Every coach covers their mouths with their play sheet so they won't be Lip Read (because people with camera's were zoomed in and teams would be able to get plays that way.) LINK, PLEASE TO THE CAMERA PART. ONE CAN ALSO READ LIPS, FOR EXAMPLE.

 

Teams are constantly coming up with new ways to hide plays and signals in an attempt to throw off the enemy team that somehow, magically (cheating) have their calls and signals or even their snap count on a certain play or formation. SAME POINT AS ABOVE--UNLIKE THE NE* CASE, WHERE THEY CLEARLY USED A METHOD THAT WAS AGAINST THE RULES AND HAD BEEN A POINT OF EMPHASIS IN SUCH RULES THEY YEAR THEY WERE CAUGHT, WHICH MAKES BELICHEAT'S DENIAL RE: HIS "LACK OF UNDERSTANDING OF THE RULE" PURE BS

 

Stolen and missing playbooks (ipads in this generation) ONCE AGAIN, FOLKS HAVE ACCUSED NE* OF THIS MORE THAN MOST TEAMS. I RECALL PLAYERS SAYING THAT AROUND SPYGATE THAT THEY WERE A TEAM THAT YOU MADE SURE YOU KEPT YOUR HANDS ON YOUR PLAYBOOK AT ALL TIMES WHEN VISITING

 

Signing players from opposing teams, just to ask them questions about the team they came from and ultimately cut them because the roster spot isn't there (yes this happens). NOT A VIOLATION OF THE RULES

 

The league also chose to destroy all records regarding the matter, because it was a league wide issue and would have tarnished the sport much like the PED scandal did for Baseball. I'D SAY THERE'S SOME TRUTH TO THIS, BUT ALSO (AND PROBABLY MORE IMPORTANTLY), KRAFT HELPED HIRE GOODELL (ON THE SEARCH COMMITTEE) AND IS A MAJOR OWNER IN THE LEAGUE. LIKE ANIMAL FARM, WHILE "ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS"

 

All the crap that happened between the Raiders and the Steelers? SUCH AS? AND I WAS ALIVE AND FAN IN THE '70'S AND DON'T IMMEDIATELY RECALL WHAT YOU'RE REFERENCING

 

Do I need to go on? YES, AS YOU DON'T SEEM TO HAVE MUCH ABOVE

 

And i'm no Pats fan. I'm simply pointing out that the majority of you guys are being overboard with your conclusion.

 

The first part of your statement is correct. It's just like a speeding ticket. Everyone speeds, you just happened to get caught doing it. Moving to the last part, others were doing it, several players have come out and said it was the norm, it was especially easy to find people commenting on it at the time.

 

 

 

Lets go one step deeper shall we? Bledsoe never gets injured. Brady never starts. The pats probably get to 1 more Superbowl, but Bledsoe is no Brady. He lives out his carrier and Brady loiters in backup limbo, maybe gets traded, who know's if he starts.

 

 

Back to other teams doing so. The Bronco's has a scandal surrounding it as well, or did we all forget about that? And it was after spygate. What was the teams defense? Oh we didn't ask the guy to do it and we didn't watch the tapes.......... YOU DO REMEMBER WHERE MCDANIELS CAME FROM DON'T YOU? THE FACT THAT HIS TEAM WAS DOING IT ONLY REINFORCES THE ARGUMENT THAT IT WAS AN IMPORTANT AND VALUABLE SOURCE OF INFORMATION. ALSO REMEMBER WHERE HE RETURNED ONCE HIS HC CAREER FLAMED OUT.

 

IN FACT, ONE OTHER NUGGET--GO BACK AND WATCH THE HBO "INSIDE THE LINES" ON MATT WALSH FROM A FEW YEARS AGO. IN THAT BROADCAST, AN UNNAMED "OFFENSIVE SUPERSTAR" (THE SHOW'S WORDS) FROM THOSE EARLY 2000'S PATS* TEAMS STATED TO THE PRODUCERS THAT "OF COURSE THE TAPING WAS EFFECTIVE--WE KNEW WHAT THE DEFENSE WAS GOING TO DO ABOUT 80% OF THE TIME. IT WAS A BIG ADVANTAGE". I PARAPHRASE, BUT THAT'S ABOUT WHAT HE SAID. YOU CAN PROBABLY FIND IT ON HBO GO. PERSONALLY, I SUSPECT THAT IT WAS ANTOWAIN SMITH, BUT THEY DON'T ID THE PLAYER ON THE SHOW.

 

 

 

moving on to some more interesting facts:

 

Prior to Goodell taking over as commissioner of the NFL in August of 2006 there was NO rule in place regarding videotaping. LINK?

 

The rules about taping have been added and edited since the event. But then, what about all the footage that teams watch as game film. Are you tell me, that teams don't have someone watching coaches for patterns or signals. Or that players aren't telling assistants to take note after a play when they come off the field. How many times do you hear a player say something like, "oh o saw him do this and it was the same as in a tape I watched, so I knew what to do" But hey, that's not cheating. Or, "I saw him call and audible in the first game of the year, and when we checked it out over all the games, we found a pattern and knew exactly where he was going to throw"....... Eagles after they raped Romo and the Boys. AGAIN, NOT AGAINST THE RULES

 

 

This means video taping was essentially like PEDs. Is it cheating? Sure it is. Was it illegal before rules stated they were? NOPE. How many times have players been caught using new and strange methods to give themselves the edge. Look at the Tour de France. Blood doping has been out of control until recently. Hell it's technically good for you. But until you put it in the rule book, after 1 person gets caught, everyone and their mother is doing it. I mean look at the Dear Antler Spray crap with Ray Lewis.

 

While we're on the same note of cheating and PEDs, what about the all the players that take them, and either never get caught out get out on a technicality. Guess the Seahawk's are tarnished forever. Need to put an * or ~ next to their superbowl win, because not every player was clean. TO ANSWER YOU AND NO SAINT ON THE SEAHAWKS, CARROLL WAS A RULE BREAKER AT USC AND MAY BE IN THE PROS. PERSONALLY, I THINK ALL OF HIS COLLEGE STUFF IS INDEED TAINTED, BUT WE'LL SEE ABOUT THE PROS AS TIME GOES ON. REMEMBER THAT HE,TOO, IS A BELICHEAT* GUY. BIRDS OF FEATHER (ALSO A BIT OF A TOPIC IN THE O'BRIEN BOOK CITED ABOVE.)

 

Ending my little rant here, with this:

 

1)The patriots cheated. No denying it. They were not the only ones doing it, they were simply the first ones to get caught. Other teams use other methods to get an upper hand on teams and stealing plays and signals are still common place but simply much better hidden.

 

2) The Pats dynasty is built on a string of lucky events.

 

3) The Pats loses to the Giants in both games can be narrowed down to single plays in each game. The first being a miracle and the second being possibly the worst throw of Brady's career

 

4) Cheating will be a major part of sports from here until the end of time. It's just the way it is.

 

Sure, frame it so anyone that disagrees is probably a morally bankrupt cheater themselves.

 

As I said, I think it depends where you draw the lines. Are the pats the only team operating outside the letter of the law? No. Are they pushing further than the rest? Maybe.

 

Would you call lying on an injury report cheating? Or coaching players on how to break a rule without getting caught? I'd venture 32 teams do those.

 

Bounty gate? By my count tracing player comments - I believe I got up to 23 franchises with a player admission, or coached by Gregg (including us)

 

Do you think for a decade all these players, coaches, and front office employees came to the pats and saw these ideas in action for the first time and silently went on their lives after the pats without bringing them to other teams? Think the pats guys came up with them all on their own or saw it in other locker rooms before?

 

Think mangini was possibly out of the league because no one wanted to hire a guy that couldn't keep their secrets when he left?

 

Pumping in extra noise during home games?

 

The Seahawks have quite a few drug suspensions, players coached to push the boundaries and a coach that's shown he will break rules to win..... I don't like them either, but if pete Carroll is still a contender annually in 2023 ill say he's had a heck of a run.

 

No personal offense meant, but I stand by my statement above about "everyone cheats" as an excuse saying more about the person saying it than the reality of the situation. That's been my personal experience in academics, sports, politics, etc. Viewer experience may vary. Everyone needs to be the hero of their own story, and so it's sometimes amazing what people can tell themselves to justify their actions.

[The Wiz]

 

 

Without the tuck, the pats aren't around the top of the pile for the next decade?

Sounds like Dave dameshek needs to do an N "if" L segment on the tuck rule.

[Doc]

Another thing is that if "everyone was [truly] doing it," the NFL could have come out and said so and thus diffused the situation entirely. Because if every team was breaking the NFL's own rule, no one was really being hurt by it and it would have then just needed a "clarification" or whatever going forward. Hurriedly destroying the (obviously incriminating) tapes and hitting them with the maximum penalty says they were acting alone.

[TheFunPolice]

they cheated not to beat Aikman and the 90's Cowboys, or Montana or Young's 49ers teams.....

 

The Patriots* had to resort to cheating to beat Jake Delhomme's Panthers by a field goal!

 

lol

 

Now that is a dynasty worthy of all this "greatest team of all time" crap from ESPN!

[reddogblitz]

A few thoughts on your points below in all caps:

 

You make some very good points here. Some I wanted to make but you beat me to it. This whole thing with the Patriots just smells really bad and can't logically be explained away by "everyone deoes it." Like one other poster said, prove it. The only thing I've ever seen is an interview with Jimmie Johnson where he says that. He's slimier than Bill Bellyache. I wouldn't believe anything he says.

 

This one from your responses I loved:

 

Signing players from opposing teams, just to ask them questions about the team they came from and ultimately cut them because the roster spot isn't there (yes this happens). NOT A VIOLATION OF THE RULES

 

Since when it picking up players on waivers :"cheating'"? LOL

 

Here's what HOF Marshall Faulk has to say about it:

 

“I understand Bill is a great coach,” Faulk said. “But No. 13 [Kurt Warner] will tell you. Mike Martz will tell you. We had some plays in the red zone that we hadn’t ran. . . . And a couple of plays on third down that we walked through also . . . And they created a check for it. It’s just little things like that. It’s either the best coaching in the world when you come up with situations that you had never seen before. Or you’d seen it and knew what to do.”

 

http://profootballta...f-a-super-bowl/

 

Here's what Petyon thinks about playing in Foxboro:

 

According to Sports Illustrated's Peter King, the Indianapolis Colts quarterback thinks there may be listening devices placed in the visitor's locker room at Gillette Stadum:

I've always heard, reliably, that the Colts never trusted that they were totally alone in the Colts' locker room in Foxboro, and that when Manning had something of strategic significance to say to offensive coordinator Tom Moore, they both stepped outside into the concourse outside the locker room. So if you're outside the locker room Sunday, don't be surprised to see Manning and his first-year coordinator, Christensen, huddling for a few minutes.

 

http://sports.yahoo....?urn=nfl-287763

 

There's also the frequency that other teams QB helmet radios cut off an important parts of game. Several QBs and teams have accused the Patsies of this. Coincidence?

 

As one other poster noted that Flutie said he listened in on his helmet radio one time and heard them talking to Brady AFTER the speaker in Brady's ear was supposed to have been cut off?

 

Usually good coach's assistants go to other teams an are successful, you know, the coaching tree. Landry had Ditka and Reeves, Bill Walsh had a bunch. How come non of Bills have been any good anywhere else?

 

And the biggest smoking gun of is the evidence destroyed by Roger Goodell. What possible reason could there be for this than it was serious incriminating evidence that would have given the NFL a huge black eye? Protect the shield at all costs.

 

Many who say it was no big deal seem to talk as if the only thing illegal they were doing and now since they have had their hand slapped they stopped. I believe and I can't prove it. But there is much evidence and common sense that says they Patriots systematically cheat on many fronts and have since 2000 and continue to to this very day.

 

In regards to Marshall Faulk, can anyone think of any other NFL HOF player or any player come out say that a SB winner has cheated? Ever?

Edited August 11, 2014 by reddogblitz

[Nuncha]

Written by a Pats fan so of course it didn't matter...........

[Bill Brasky]

This is all talk of the true loser. Rather than accept that you simply weren't good enough, rationalize it another way.

 

 

[l< j]

This is all talk of the true loser. Rather than accept that you simply weren't good enough, rationalize it another way.

 

That the Bills weren't good enough doesn't mean that the P*ts weren't cheaters. I accept that the Bills have sucked for a long time. I also know that Belichick got caught cheating. Not mutually exclusive. And I also believe firmly that rules matter, and that cheating matters, regardless of the outcome of a game. I don't need to know the final score or project a revised win-loss record to assign an asterisk to the P*ts. I also don't need to compensate for my crappy team's crappy performance over that time. The Bills have been crappy cuz they were crappy, not because the P*ts cheated. But the P*ts cheated.

 

kj

[reddogblitz]

This is all talk of the true loser. Rather than accept that you simply weren't good enough, rationalize it another way.

 

So what's Marshall Faulk's beef? He WON a Super Bowl and also was on a lot of good teams.

[Doc]

This is all talk of the true loser. Rather than accept that you simply weren't good enough, rationalize it another way.

Barry Bonds said something similar once.

[ExiledInIllinois]

Wow... BFLO must have been really bad @ cheating the past decade and a half.

 

 

Unless... They made a concerted effort NOT to cheat and that had an effect on the culture of the team. Wouldn't that be great if that came out. I'd take 0-16 seasons every year and still be the first in line to shell out my cash to the team!

[BillsBytheBay]

[/b]

 

BB is going to be a first ballot HOF coach. He is recognized as being the driving force for one of the most successful franchises in the modern era of the league.

 

The Bills have been out of the playoffs for fourteen consecutive years, and still counting . Over the last decade they have barely had one or two winning records. Fans from a historically losing franchise shouldn't waste their energies criticizing a franchise that is one of the most successful franchises in the history of the league compared to a Bills franchise that has been one of the worst performing franchises over the past generation.

 

Winners win and losers make excuses. Every year this topic is reprised. This exhibition of jeolousy and excuse making is not only pathetic, it is embarrassing.

this opinion justifies the cheating.

Who cares, as long as it's in the record books.

 

If you didn't read the entire thread, references to winning teams during that time are also made. Talented teams lost their place in history for not cheating.

 

[RK_BillsFan]

I just saw that my one post seems to have no quoted correctly, an i apologize for that. I was extremely confused because I try my best to not use ALL CAPs.

 

To go over a few things here:

 

"No personal offense meant, but I stand by my statement above about "everyone cheats" as an excuse saying more about the person saying it than the reality of the situation. That's been my personal experience in academics, sports, politics, etc. Viewer experience may vary. Everyone needs to be the hero of their own story, and so it's sometimes amazing what people can tell themselves to justify their actions."

 

RK - Would you rather that I state a large majority of people cheat, and that in professional sports people are more willing to cheat? I would bet a lot of money that every single member of TBD has lost to a cheater that they knew cheated, but nothing happened to said cheater. This is life, not a fairy tale. You can only hope to raise your kids better than those that condone and teach cheating to the next generation.

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Another thing is that if "everyone was [truly] doing it," the NFL could have come out and said so and thus diffused the situation entirely. Because if every team was breaking the NFL's own rule, no one was really being hurt by it and it would have then just needed a "clarification" or whatever going forward. Hurriedly destroying the (obviously incriminating) tapes and hitting them with the maximum penalty says they were acting alone. "

 

RK - Yep, lets tell the whole world that every team is ignoring league rules and is cheating. Lets tell little kids that it's ok to cheat until you get caught. Let's tell the whole world that every game prior has been won by those who cheated the best. Then, since everyone is doing it..... we can't actually penalize them anything outside of money. What are you going to do.... have no draft? Fine multi-billionaires a value that they consider chump change?

 

------------------------------------

"Since when it picking up players on waivers :"cheating'"? LOL"

 

RK - Oh but stealing a play book is cheating? This is different how?

 

------------------------------------------------------

 

To go back to the original question at hand. Once again I will state that the spygate scandal had 0,zero, NO influence on the Pats. It actually made no difference even during the season it happen. The Pats should have 5 titles. You could maybe convince me that they would have lost the second superbowl against the Gaints. In no way should they have lost the first though. That game was won on the most unlikely play in the entirety of NFL history, between Eli somehow getting away, the play not being whistled dead, and a third string WR making the catch of his life The Pats should have gone 19-0 that season. As a matter of fact if you will remember, the Pats after the spygate thing exploded after week1 of that season played hard no mercy football for then entire season. They ran up the score on teams, and kept Brady in well after games were put away just to prove that the whole scandal about cheating was not the reason they were a good team.

 

If spygate had mattered, the Pats would have suddenly stopped being a perennial playoff team. It never happened. Why? Because although they cheated, it made no difference to them. It simply made them more prepared.

 

I'm a Bills fan, have been since I was born. I got to grow up watching Kelly, Bruce, Thurman, and Andre light it up on Sundays. I remember when I saw us lose to the Patriots for the first time in like forever, and being like, who the heck are the Patriots. Some of you here are just on the hate wagon towards a team that has pummeled us for years and are using something that had no impact on the end result. The Bills have been woefully terrible for over a decade, and in that time, the Patriots have been for the most part, solid gold. I despise the Patriot way because you are supposed to be a nameless cog in the machine as well as emotionless, and to me that's not sports. But i'll be dammed if I don't agree that it hasn't worked.

 

As for the Patriots, and their dynasty. Everything they have they lucked into. Bledsoe getting hurt and the Tuck Rule (which, technically was called correctly, the fact that the rule was a stupid rule that was not commonly called is besides the point.) This followed by the fact that Brady is actually a brilliant, talented and driven QB (still a whinny, classless douche). What more could you ask for? I mean ****, Jimmy Johnson was probably the next closest coach in terms of lucking into greatness. He gets to come to a team that was able to gain an absurd amount of picks for Herschel Walker and parley them into rings.

 

Finally i'm going to leave off with this:

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/cheat/news/story?id=2957893

 

Everyone is looking for an edge. They will tiptoe the boundaries of what is legal and not, and in some cases just strait up cheat. They will do so until caught, or until it's illegal. That is the truth about professional sports, stop living in whatever make believe land you dream about where everyone is good and honest. It'll save you heart ache.

[BillsBytheBay]

I agree that everyone is willing to tip toe the rules, I'm not ready to accept that everyone cheats.

 

In my eyes their is a difference between people who are hyper competitive, and people who want to win at all costs. I don't believe competitive people are inclined to cheat. Victory to them is a test of mettle. Victory at all costs is self explanatory.

I believe their are more competitive people than win at all cost people, but winning at all costs can also put the eye of scrutiny on you.

Edited August 11, 2014 by JaxBills

[ExiledInIllinois]

When does the end ever justify the means? I guess in today's society it does AND gets handsomely rewarded.