LoL!!
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.
Why would I need booze? I’m not making bogus excuses for the biggest, most heavily penalized (though not nearly enough) fraud in NFL history.
What a positively Clintonian interpretation.
What’s to stop Belichik from stationing a guy in the box with a set of binoculars?
How does this strike at the integrity of the game?! That’s just hyperbolic silliness. Here’s the punchline to all of this, stealing signals is PERFECTLY OK in the NFL rule book, the only thing the Pats screwed up was videotaping them. It’s the TOOL that broke the rules, not the goal. They can have guys on the sideline stealing signals, in the press box stealing signals, in the stands stealing signals, in the freaking blimp stealing signals, so long as none of them are trying to make video recordings. They can even video tape the various TV broadcasts of the game hoping to get signals, you just can’t video tape from IN the stadium.
The integrity of the game is not threatened because somebody chose the 1 method (of dozens available) of stealing signals that’s actually against the rules. This isn’t betting on games or shaving points, that threatens the integrity of the game.
“How many times does he get sacked, throw a bunch of picks or make bad decisions?”
It is easy to look good when you know what the opposing defense is going to do. Shady Brady should be suspended, he used information gained by cheating.
No, it isn’t you hysterical liberal.
My point is that it’s “okay” to steal but only under certain conditions. Where’s the logic in that?
OK everybody that is acting like the problem was the theft of signals needs to read this article:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?columnist=chadiha_jeffri&id=3017423
There is absolutely nothing against the NFL rules with trying to steal signals. The rule they broke was using a video tape to do it. It’s not the what that got them in trouble, it’s the how.
You make a lot of suppositions here with no basis to back up anything. While we are at it:
Let’s suspend the entire team for using ill begotten information.
Let’s take away their draft for three years
Let’s deny Brady all visitation with his kid
Don’t forget to shoot Belichick’s dog just to cover all the bases.
There’s nothing Clintonian about it. That’s the rule.
And this is the crux of the problem. Stealing is okay provided you do it fairly....
A rule is a rule and if it was broken here then there should be consequences. The hysteria over this is laughable though. The commissioner looked at the facts and made his ruling and Goodall is nothing if not tough.
Exactly where I’m at with it. I have no problem with the punishment, rules were broken, but people need to understand what rule was broken, and it’s not the one most of the people having spastic fits seem to think it was.
The thing I find amazingly funny about that is that some of the Chargers players (including LaDainian Tomlinson) were incensed that some of the Patriots players were imitating the disrespectful dance performed by Shawne Merriman.
Now, it is one thing to lose your temper when an opponent performs a disrespectful dance to taunt you. It is quite another to lose your temper when it is done to you in retaliation. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
The whole trash talk thing in sports is completely offensive to me, but if you wish to do it, you better be prepared to get it back.
I used to be a hockey goalie, and in my league we had one team that used to taunt us unmercifully. On the ice they were bad enough, but even when they were in the stands, they would loudly and rudely taunt the team, especially me. As a goalie, some of that is part and parcel of the game, and if you cannot get used to it, you simply will be unable to play, since so much of the game is mental. Their abuse went so far beyond anything I (or anyone else on my team) had ever experienced in 15 years of playing hockey. Well, one night from the stands, I took it back to them with spades, to the point I had their entire team completely unhinged on the ice.
I hated doing it. But anger will sometimes drive you to do things you might not normally do. (BTW...this was an adult league, no women, children or even spectators were present...)
I did get some degree of satisfaction from seeing that they were unable to take what they so eagerly, maliciously, and freely dished out. The hockey team was from...get this...Cambridge, the hotbed of liberalism. Figures.
The NFL has become far too Ghetto in its attitude I find.
Because it is over nothing and the guys in the know would know that its over nothing and the Commish given such a slap on the wrist knows its much to do about nothing or else BB would have been suspended. You know why most in the NFL are responding the way they are? Because they mind the timber in their own eye, more than the cinders in Belichick’s.
Its pretty well known among those within the league that all home teams often place video cameras on the sideline to record the opposing team's signals. The cameras are placed on the sideline under the guise that they provide extra game tape for the home team's coaches. When road teams attempt to get credentials for their sideline cameramen, the applications are usually rejected.
Yeah, but...nobody remembers Jackson for that game...nor the fact that Bill Buckner didn’t actually LOSE the World Series in 1986...but that is what people remember. Heck, most people don’t even REMEMBER there was a seventh game that year...:)
LoL!!
Commish already stated the forfeit drafts are not going to any other team. Case close. ;-)
Don’t waste yout time trying to explain things to the hystericals on this board. No amount of blood or tribute will satisfy their whining and overreactions. Mangina was more than happy to make use of such tape when he was DC of the Pats but he’s going to make sure he screws his old boss in the ass when he’s got his own team. Meanwhile, he’s got a camera on the Pats making sure he’s going to get every piece of information he can.
Goodall went about as far as he dared here and made an example of a premier coach. I don’t think he wants to deal with another of these cases and if the practice of stealing is as bad as some claim then he would be hearing more of these case down the line if he didn’t spike the Pats.
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.