Posted on 05/14/2008 10:20:25 AM PDT by Jersey Republican Biker Chick
WASHINGTON (AP)—Sen. Arlen Specter wants an independent investigation of the Patriots’ taping of opposing coaches’ signals similar to the Mitchell Report on performance enhancing drugs in baseball.
Specter again criticized the league’s handling of the investigation and threatened the possibility of revoking the NFL’s antitrust exemption during a news conference Wednesday. The senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee met with former New England video assistant Matt Walsh a day earlier.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell indicated he considered the investigation over after meeting with Walsh on Tuesday.
“Everybody pooh-poohs it,” Specter said. “It’s ridiculous to make that kind of contention.”
Specter, from Pennsylvania, cited the fact a Patriots attorney sat in on Walsh’s meeting with Goodell as proof the investigation has not been impartial.
He repeated his disapproval of Goodell’s decision to destroy the notes and tapes confiscated during the initial investigation last fall.
“That sequence is incomprehensible,” Specter said. “It’s an insult to the intelligence of the people who follow it.”
If the NFL condones cheating, Specter said, it encourages others to cheat.
“They owe the public a lot more candor and a lot more credibility,” he said.
I guess you don't read very well, either.
"Cheating" at football is sneaking an extra player onto the field, moving the ball an extra foot or two forward of the line of scrimmage, etc., etc. What the Patriots did does not, in any way, rise to this level, and again---again---did not effect, in any way, the game as played on the field. You cling to the words "cheat" and "cheated" as though they were life preservers; conflate if you want, but all the Patriots did was break a procedural rule that had absolutely no bearing at all on the game of football.
In other words, you're a moonbat.
The only one foaming at the mouth around here is you, in all your moonbatty glory. The Pats broke a procedural NFL rule and paid for it. Yet to read you, you would think they had spies in every NFL locker room, stole every other team's playbook Animal House-style, brought baseball bats out on the field with them to club the other team into submission, and bribed the officials to score them 12 points for every touchdown instead of 6.
You're suffering from BDS---Belichick Derangement Syndrome. Did he get your sister pregnant or something? Did he hit your mother in the face with a Boston Creme pie? My God, man, you're beyond the pale.
Yeah, I know, I know.... and it's just about sex, can we move on?!
From Peter King of SI...
Now onto your questions.
• STOP CALLING THE PATRIOTS "CHEATERS.'' From Mark Jantzen, of Boston: "The Patriots clearly violated a league rule and were punished for it. But the continued use of the term 'cheat' is something I simply don't get. Does that mean an offensive lineman who is flagged for holding cheated?''
There's more.
• STOP CALLING THE PATRIOTS "CHEATERS'' II. From Rich, of Memphis: "Why do you continue the fraud of labeling the illegal taping by the Patriots as 'cheating' when you or the rest of the media never use that term to refer to salary-cap violations, early contact of free agents or other rule infractions? Seems like a term that is both hyperbolic and unnecessary, used in a rather lazy manner to provoke. I thought that perhaps someone of your experience would see through the charade."
I got a dozen or so similar emails, and they stun me. The Patriots violated a clearly written statute in the NFL policy manual, apparently consistently (if not weekly) over a seven-year period. And after the policy was re-emphasized in a crystal-clear, well-publicized memo from the league to all teams in September 2006, the Patriots continued to videotape opposing teams' coaching signals. They were caught. If that isn't cheating, what is? Bill Belichick was given the harshest sanction ever given to a coach in the history of the NFL. What exactly should I call it?
Now, as for all the other "everybody does it'' rules violations: When teams get caught cheating and are sanctioned by the league for said violations, we in the media will report that. I have no problem with calling teams found guilty of competitive offenses cheaters. Yes, an offensive lineman who gets called for holding cheated, in the literal sense of the word. He got caught and penalized 15 yards. Yes, we in the media have called other league infractions "cheating.'' When the 49ers were docked a draft choice for illegal contact with Chicago linebacker Lance Briggs, columnist Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote a column headlined: "If you're going to cheat, do it right.
Do other teams cheat? Yes. But it's like pass-interference in the NFL. It's only cheating if you're caught, or if you're flagged. Maybe you think that's fair, and maybe you think it isn't. But that's the way the world works.
The inference of your letter is that we in the media are picking on the Patriots, which is something I've heard a lot; believe me, I've been attacked quite a bit about it. I don't see it that way, but I understand from Patriots supporters that they want this whole episode to be over. In my opinion, it was never going to be over until Matt Walsh came clean with what he knew, or at least what he alleged. And who knows? It may not be over now. I've never believed Belichick's explanation that he "misinterpreted" a rule that the rest of the league seemed to know.
"You're suffering from BDS---Belichick Derangement Syndrome. Did he get your sister pregnant or something? Did he hit your mother in the face with a Boston Creme pie? My God, man, you're beyond the pale. "
Your a__ is showing. Calm down.
Which was absolutely nothing . . . and he completely retracted his "allegation" that he "supposedly" never even brought to Tomase's attention in the first place.
Tell me again how the Patriots' big cheating scandal affected the game on the field? You've ducked this question every time I've posed it to you because the answer doesn't serve your purpose---it didn't affect the games in any way.
But you don't care about any of this anyway, so what's the bother?
If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Brilliant. Simply brilliant. The team and coach is caught, fined and penalized the heaviest in league history for something that has absolutely no effect on the game in any way.
You posed the question once before and I ignored it because you were attempting to deflect something you can not bring yourself to do.
A team gains advantage by getting a more accurate reading of the other teams signals in conjunction with the actual play ran. They get a more accurate reading of tendencies, line-ups, snap counts and the ensuing plays in quicker fashion. This becomes an advantage because the other team is actually following the rules of the game and NOT incorporating this cheating ploy.
Now, oh brilliant one. Why would the greatest mind in all of professional sports waste all that time and effort to employ this "misinterpretation" of the rules" if it had absolutely no effect on the games?
LOL!
Does Scottish law have a precedent here?
(How ya doin’!?!?!?)
I wish Goodell would flip Spector the finger and dare the Congress to pull the NFL’s antitrust exemption. We will be hunting spotted owls in the country before the politicians would be willing to tell the fans of the NFL that they were breaking up or closing down the league!
I have to say that I’m really torn on this...
I’m outraged that congress thinks that they should have anything to do with professional football, or sports in general.
On the other hand, the more time they spend on this nonsense, the less damage they can really do to the country.
Mark
The game. As played. On the field. As in the actual game of football. Is your reading comprehension really that poor? Even Matt Walsh himself said the Patriots, in no way whatsoever, used the tapes he made to effect the game played on the field.
Only Belichick can say, for sure, exactly why he wanted those tapes, but based on what everyone pretty much considers common knowledge about Belichick, I think it's reasonable to conclude that he wanted those tapes because he is extremely competitive, and is quite willing to do anything he can in order to gain a competitive advantage over the teams he faces each Sunday. I'm sure he'd tape the other team arriving in the parking lot if he thought it would help him win on Sunday. I think it's reasonable to assume that Belichick has complete dossiers of information on every team in the NFL, as does every single coach in the NFL, and he---along with every other coach in the NFL--is continually updating and improving those dossiers in order to give his team---and their team---every possible advantage.
And guess what, "Einstein," all this off-field information gathering means absolutely nothing if the players do not execute on the field. Therein lies the difference between "cheating" and what you conflate to "cheating": cheating on the field has a material effect on the game of football. Rule breaking on the order of what the Patriots did does not. You can't seem to wrap your empty head around the fact that had the Patriots simply moved the camera to the stands, and done exactly the same thing they did otherwise, what they did would not have even been against the rules. The entire essence of "spygate" is nothing more than camera location.
Were the Patriots arrogant to continue taping from the sidelines when they knew it was wrong to do so? Sure. So what? They were penalized for their arrogance, and they took their medicine.
Only those with an axe to grind, i.e., you, and those who are absolutely insane, i.e., Arlen Specter, think this is anything other than what I've just described.
How you been?
Is your loyalty really that blind? There's a wealth of information available for you to get up to speed on the subject if you had the gonads to accept the truth.
When you hold up Arlen Specter and Matt Walsh as bastions of "the truth," that's when you should realize that your argument is in serious trouble.
Hangin’ in there - just cruising along.
Yourself?
Your feeble arguments are right out of the Bill Clinton playbook. If you have any dignity at all, you should be downright embarassed.
same old same old...you know how that goes.
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