Spygate to Deflategate: Inside what split the NFL and Patriots apart

ESPN ^ | 9/8/15 | Don Van Natta Jr. and Seth Wickersham

[skinndogNN]

When you win Super Bowls through cheating you don’t get any respect.

Brady, Belicheck, and the Patriots will go down in history as cheaters. They will not be viewed well.

They are in the same book as Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire.

Cheaters.

[simon says what]

Ok, it’s headquartered in New England, and owned by ABC/Disney. ESPN is playing favorable with the NFL and being their propaganda mouth piece to denigrate the Patriots reputation. There is no journalistic integrity at ESPN. This is about business relationships and the Patriots are gaining too much of the NFL pie.

The Patriots didn’t do anything that other teams weren’t doing in Spygate. They were wrong and made an example of for the rest of the league.

Deflategate was a 100% made up controversy. The balls naturally deflated from weather conditions. The NFL refused to correct highly inaccurate information leaked to to ESPN from their OWN offices and forbid the Patriots from responding.

The simple facts are: The Patriots have the greatest quarteback of all time, the greatest coach of all time, and the hardest working team in professional football.

This new article is nothing but a continuation of the attempt to beat the organization into submission off the field because most teams can’t do it on the field.

[simon says what]

Hahahahaha... The Pats aren’t cheaters anymore than Global Warming is real. You’re delusional and believing the mainstream media propaganda. Wake up.

[Psalm 73]

When a team's a loser and constantly whines about the winner - that makes them a whinny loser.

Don't be a whinny loser.

[FewsOrange]

“The balls naturally deflated from weather conditions.”

That’s why Jim McNally called himself the Deflator.

[big'ol_freeper]

“..the Jealousy and Envy Crowd what I meant was that there are gonna be people that oppose Brady just ‘cause he got the girl, oppose Brady ‘cause he’s tall and good-looking and a star quarterback and wanted him punished on that basis... a lot of alignment against Brady was simply based on jealousy and envy and a lot of people hoping Brady got the four games just ‘cause it’s justice. “Nobody should be this lucky to be that good-looking, that tall, that good an athlete, with that good-looking kids get the beautiful girl. Nobody should have that kind of luck!” Those people are all over the place. You’ll find them all over the place, and those are the people that will be upset here.” ~Rush Limbaugh

[minnesota_bound]

After reading this I am beginning to suspect that some of the players are using steroids too...

[simon says what]

Yes a text taken out of context 15 months EARLIER than the game is your evidence... nice. I’ll go with the Ideal Gas Law which accounts fully for the pressure changes during the first half.

[N. Theknow]

There have been numerous tales of espionage in the National Football League, but the latest attempts by teams to steal another's plays may be the most ingenious, yet strange, of them all: it involves reading lips. Lip reading is a tactic some coaches and scouts are increasingly employing to capture another team's signals, and in turn, anticipate what play is coming, some N.F.L. coaches said. To prevent lip reading, more coaches and assistants -- when sending in plays to the quarterback or the defense using the radio system that pipes plays into the players' helmet -- are shielding their mouths when giving the call. ''Stealing signals is an old art form in the N.F.L.,'' Lovie Smith, the St. Louis Rams' defensive coordinator, said recently. ''But this newest thing is pretty unusual and more teams are trying it.'' Giants Coach Jim Fassel said: ''There have been rumors that has been happening. But if someone can pull it off, more power to them, because it seems extremely hard to do.'' ''It may be happening,'' Fassel added, ''but I don't buy it is happening a lot. It's too difficult.'' But if lip-reading thievery is rare, then why are so many who call plays from the sideline shielding their mouths when sending in the plays?

[BlueMondaySkipper]

The simple facts are: The Patriots have the greatest quarteback of all time, the greatest coach of all time, and the hardest working team in professional football.

You forgot the part about being admitted cheaters...

[simon says what]

As well as EVERY OTHER football team. This website lists and scores NFL team cheating. The Patriots are actually one of the better teams when it comes to following the rules. Does your team cheat? YESSSSSSSSSSS

http://yourteamcheats.com/

[FlipWilson]

Quote: “The simple facts are: The Patriots have the greatest quarteback of all time, the greatest coach of all time, and the hardest working team in professional football.
This new article is nothing but a continuation of the attempt to beat the organization into submission off the field because most teams can’t do it on the field.”

This new article contains inconvenient facts that are hard to hear if you are a Patriots fan, I get that. But whether you like it or not the Patriots did something wrong (with regard to spygate) and admitted it. Is Robert Kraft a liar, is the coach? No. At the time they admitted wrongdoing, did not take it to a Federal Court saying “no fair, everyone else is doing it.” What is missing from the record, however, is the proof that everyone else is or was doing it. Where was that confession from the rest of the owners? Why were they so upset that the Patriots did what they did?

Piece of the pie? And I was under the impression that the NFL had revenue sharing. Because, if the NFL had revenue sharing and the Patriots were increasing interest in the game, that would mean all the owners would benefit.

You can argue strongly, emotionally, whatever, but it will not change the narrative that was in place long before overreactiongate. The narrative that was admitted to by the Patriots, namely, they spied in a manner that broke the rules.

The Steelers do not have a similar charge against them, neither do the Niners, neither do the Cowboys, all with some OK QB’s having played for them at one time or another. Lombardi, that slouch who probably could not even hold Bellichek’s water bottle, you know, the guy who the trophy is named after, didn’t have those charges levelled against him either.

[simon says what]

EVERY TEAM has cheated. Other teams video taped signals. It is legal to video tape team signals. The Patriots failure was choosing the location they chose to do it from, it was a non-authorized spot.

Regardless, they owned up to it, accepted punishment, and moved on. Now, we have the issue being dug back up nearly a decade later. Why???????

Because the NFL lost in court on deflategate, that is why. You have to be blind to not see that ESPN is playing close with the NFL for business reasons and carrying the water in this hit piece.

EVERY TEAM has been busted cheating. This is about dragging the Patriots organization down to earth. It’s about personal vendettas from some NFL executives, and it is about jealous team owners that can’t get the same success with their organizations.

http://yourteamcheats.com/

[FlipWilson]

Quote: “Regardless, they owned up to it, accepted punishment, and moved on. Now, we have the issue being dug back up nearly a decade later.”

Which is what I said above. The NFL is trying to stuff the genie back in the bottle from having mis-handled spygate in the first place.

So you are saying, in effect, “everybody was cheating, the Patriots just were the first to be really really really good at it!!!” Don’t you see, by taking it to the next level, and obviously most owners in the NFL thought it was WAY beyond the next level, the Patriots made an “in your face” play that went too far.

As for the website you link to. Come on, really, you are going to fault ESPN but willingly accept a website. So, believe what I post on the internet, not what they post on the internet. Ok, I’ll get right on that.

Out of curiosity I clicked on the Giants link. Some of the cheating was listed as a player controversy courtesy of LT. If anything, that hurt the Giants more than it helped. One was an incident from 1956 (wow, that is relevant to today!!!) about stealing radio signals from the Browns coach to their QB. Pretty serious charge, especially since QB’s didn’t have radio’s (at least authorized) in their helmets until 1994. Wow, the Browns had a time machine, who knew!?!

Here was one for a “spygate” that the Giant’s may have committed in 2001 according to well, someone who worked on that website:

SUMMARY: In early 2001, a column from the Toronto Globe and Mail included an item alleging that the Giants were under suspicion from the NFL for eavesdropping on conversations between the offensive staffs and quarterbacks of the Eagles and Vikings during their 2001 playoff victories. NO LEAGUE OFFICIAL OR TEAM SOURCE WAS CITED AND NO RULE VIOLATION INVOKE. The original article is no longer available, but is referenced here as well as in other places online.

Wow, with such a specifically vague website like that, taking a poop can be made into cheating. But you know what it won’t do? It won’t change the fact that the Patriots got caught and were punished.

It also won’t change the fact that punishment for spygate had been rendered. Trying to re-punish the Patriots by punishing Tom Brady for something the Patriots did years ago was foolish and wrong.

[BlueMondaySkipper]

I noticed a couple of things about the website you linked.

1) Almost all of the Patriots cheating listed came under the current regime
2) Many have no "scores" which then prevents them from counting against the Patriots.
3) It appears that the site has been created by Patriots supporters when are basically trying the "everyone does it" excuse, while fudging the rankings to make the Pats look better.

No sale, but you get an "A" for effort. The Patriots are admitted cheaters, as an organization. Liars too it appears.

[discostu]

Not really. The story is really about why Goodell took deflategate personally. Yeah it digs up a lot of data that’s not too flattering to the Pats, but that’s the price for bending every rule, there’s lots of unflattering data available.

[FlipWilson]

A slight revision to my earlier post. Turns out the Browns did have a radio helmet. Turns out, they were cheating. Can one cheat on a cheater? Regardless, here are the facts surrounding the radio helmet.

http://www.profootballhof.com/history/release.aspx?release_id=2080

[bgill]

All the teams engaged in these practices... to a degree. The Pats were just better at it...

There it is. If you don't, you go in blind and come out the loser.

[FlipWilson]

Quote: “There it is. If you don’t, you go in blind and come out the loser.”

Like baseball and steroids. Yep, everyone did it and you know who lost? Baseball lost. The second the integrity of a game comes into question, you start to lose your customers.

[IamConservative]

Have to wonder if this isn’t the next salvo in the owners war to remove Goodell. ESPN and SI published LONG articles today that essentially contained the same information. Hands full of other “articles about the articles” have sprung up and twitter is on fire. I’m sure all the sporting news outlets will carry this wall to wall during drive time today. That is no accident. This is a coordinated avalanche of crap aimed at someone’s head.