Posted on 09/13/2007 5:45:28 PM PDT by misterrob
Bill Belichick was hit with a $500,000 fine Thursday night -- the maximum allowable by NFL by-laws -- for violating the league's policy on videotaping the Jets defensive signs Sunday. In addition, Roger Goodell notified the Patriots that they would forfeit a 2008 first-round draft choice if they reach the playoffs, or second- and third-round picks if they do not qualify for the playoffs. The club was also fined $250,000.
I’m not saying the Colts aren’t a great team—they clearly are. But I think the Patriots simply were not prepared to be ahead by as much as they were and their game plan reflected that. It did not appear to me that the Patriots made the appropriate adjustments as the game progressed.
I don’t think this is uncommon in the NFL; lots of times I see NFL teams make stupid decisions when they are ahead with the ball, but you tend to expect more from elite teams.
Andre Johnson (never played a down for the Skins)
Patrick Ramsey (Great clipboard skills)
Heath Schuler (Most overrated college QB ever and now he is a dem congressman. Can it get worse?)
Lavar Arrington (How much do you got to pay a guy to play a couple of downs?!)
Desmond Howard (The high point in his carrier was posing for the Heisman. Unfortunately that was before he played for the Skins. We got him on the downside of his career)
McNabb got his ass kicked that game. Vrabel, Seymour, Wilfork and Warren just kept hitting him. At the end he was rather broken down.
Please - many teams do the same thing - but they do so from the press box using binoculars, or from the stands behind the benches. Any “information” received is not immediately actionable, and the players still have to execute. I’m glad they got caught and they deserve to pay a serious penalty - but please don’t pretend that this sort of thing hasn’t been going on throughout the league for a long time.
Small penalty for Belichick and the Pats. Goodell must have thought this out. Make an example without really killing anyone. They have SF’s 1st round pick anyway.
Most of the other coaches are silent. Reason? Belichick probably has film of them filming his staff. He won’t throw them under the bus. They are most likely all doing this, and the Pats will take the fall.
You have no clue about what you are talking about.
They had no one to cover Dallas Clarke that game and he’s too damned good to try and cover him with stiffs. I saw him beat Eric Alexander like a crack hoe all night. 6 catches for 137 yards? One for 52 yards late in the game. That’s not about making adjustments, that’s about the Colts making plays and the Pats not having anything that could cover.
Caldwell drops a pass in the 4th Q. that would have been a TD and instead they are having to kick a FG. There’s your 4 point difference.
To quote Wilbon from PTI (becasue I think he would be right in this case if he said it: “Everything has to be looked at in relation to race.”
If the Pats didn’t get hammered, all of the player suspension (all against black, I think) would be flouted by REv Jesse, Rev Al, Rev Sista, etc, etc, etc, as being racist actions by the NFL Commish.
I always thought Ramsey got a raw deal here. Basically got the snot knocked out of him for a year and then as soon as he gets hurt in the next year St. Joe benches him.
Of course, Brunell was pretty good that year.
All right, I'll give you an example. The Patriots were ahead 34-31 with less than three minutes to go in the contest. Twice on its final possession, it comes out with an empty backfield! First on second down, then it's third down, and the Patriots again come out with an empty backfield. What?! I'm from Indy and a Colts fan, so I was delighted to see what was a colossally stupid play call. If New England runs the ball, it stands a decent chance of getting the first down, which would have essentially sealed the game; even if you don't make the first down, the clock runs! At this point in the game, the Colts were playing the clock, not New England! But New England came out with an empty backfield. Incomplete pass, stopped clock, Colts win.
But this was purely lack of focus on the end game. New England's avoidance of mental mistakes is what typically separates it from the other teams in the league, but when push met shove in the RCA Dome, it proved itself to be just as susceptible to those types of mistakes as any other team in the league.
A lot of folks feel that way about Patrick, but you know a lot of other QB’s got the snot kicked out of them their first couple of years and it only made them tougher ala Montana and Bradshaw.
Good point...but Montana and Bradshaw were given a chance to keep the job, and I don’t think Ramsey was.
I hope that the fans and coaches this year “allow” Campbell to have a couple of inevitable 3-4 INT games this year because it’s part of developing as a QB.
The Pats running game wasn’t getting it done in the second half. I didn’t like the call at the time but the Colts were keyed to stop the run and had been doing what I thought was a good job of shutting down the running game. This is certainly a page out of the Belichik school of thinking. Make the other team beat you from where they are weakest and for the Pats it meant throwing the ball. The Cory Dillon of 2004 seals the game. The Dillon of 2006 is not up to the job. Maroney wasn’t the man for the job either. The Pats coaching staff must have been of the same thought.
Or punch drunk and out of the league.
Having a good left tackle, a blocking TE and a FB who can chip block are so important.
Forfeiture was never going to happen and everybody thinking it would is just being silly. The NFL has never changed the past, not once. Not when admitting their own officials screwed up, not when finding out players or coaches did bad things, not even when they started tracking a stat they hadn’t tracked before (ask Deacon Jones who actually owns the sack record). There was simply no way they were going to start doing that now, that’s a path that once you start on you can’t leave, so the past is set in stone no matter what we learn about it in the future.
And the Sox woulda beat the Yanks in 1978 if not for Bucky Dent...
Doesn't matter. The Colts at that point were playing the clock, not the Patriots. This is the type of thinking that got Belichik in trouble and it's exactly what I'm talking about. The Patriots didn't understand that they should have been playing to run the clock to 00:00, not trying to outsmart the Colts with some pass play, when the pass play can result in the worst possible scenario for your team!
But if you run the ball, even if you don't get the first down, you run the clock. Absent a turnover, the absolute best thing that can happen to the Colts is an incomplete pass. Why would you possibly take that kind of risk when you are ahead and the endgame is in clear sight? Run the ball, win the game!
This is certainly a page out of the Belichik school of thinking. Make the other team beat you from where they are weakest and for the Pats it meant throwing the ball.
Well, if so, Belichik's school of thinking could have very well cost the Patriots the game.
I usually am don’t like dynasties, except I like the Pats. I guess I did not think taping signals was that big a deal since so much prep work goes into learning the other teams playbook.
Mike Martz is a very overrated coach. People gave him too much credit. Martz is also stubborn and for some damn reason refused to run the ball when Vermeil left.
Belichick did the crime, now he has to do the time. But the punishment seems excessive. The recording offered no game-time advantage, and most teams change-up their signals before their next rematch. Besides, the defensive formation is based on the offensive formation. So this info offered very marginal benefit to the Pats.
But if the commissioner wants to put out an image as iron-fisted commissioner, that's his prerogative.
Looking forward to Sunday night's game. I wouldn't want to face a PO'd Pats team.
The bad news for the rest of the league is that the Pats are going to be in the playoffs as long as Brady and Belichick are around, which will probably be another 5-10 years.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.