Official NFL Conference Championship Games-Patriots beat Chargers 21-12; Giants beat Packers 23-20

http://www.nfl.com/scores ^

[mainepatsfan]

OFFICIAL FR NFL CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME SUNDAY LIVE THREAD

JANUARY 20TH, 2008

AFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME

@

3:00PM ET - CBS

NFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME

@

6:30PM ET - FOX

[big'ol_freeper]

Smart looking dog there. Always carry rations with ya.

[discostu]

It’s vastly different from stealing the playbook. Your average NFL playbook has over 1000 plays, on average a team takes 60 offensive snaps a game (which means of course the other team takes 60 defensive snaps a game, but they only ever talk about the offensive snaps). So assuming that the team never calls the same defense twice (unlikely), that the defensive captain makes no audibles to a different play than was originally signaled from the sideline (unlikely), and that the team doesn’t change their signal calling from game to game (unheard of) you still at best get 6% of the playbook.

Sorry but you’re basically full of it.

[aroundabout]

What about all the films they have from other games before they were caught? You way over simplify and minimize what they did. It is no small matter to change the defensive plays of a team, especially in mid season.

Yeah, it’s over and the asterisk remains and will forever,

[aroundabout]

When Dallas was “America’s Team” I hated them also. But they never cheated.

[Bender2]

Re: I’m USAF Retired

And you are calling other men... "Dude?"

My late Father used to make jokes about 22-year old Full Bull Colonels in the Army Air Forces, so I guess a retired Bluesuiter calling other men "dude" shows times have not changed so much since World War Two.

[SamAdams76]

Sorry to hear about Sadie. The dog in #1571 is an Australian Kelpie. It's not actually my Kelpie but mine looks like like the one in the picture except the ears droop a little. I rescued her down in a creek on my parents land in Alabama when she was just a puppy. Evidently she was dumped down there and was covered with ticks and other parasites.

Since then, she's been my constant walking companion up here in New England. Kelpies are herding dogs and need a lot of exercise so I usually do 5-6 miles a day and on weekends we explore lots of trails in the local state parks. Now I understand how people get attached to their dogs.

[Poser]

I have never heard that accusation from anyone but you. Is there some proof that they were using it during the game? I understood it was just a camcorder. Having used a camcorder, I know just how likely that scenario is.

[RGPII]

Aroundabouts' talk is all fine and good to balance what others say. I only think that if the Pats were stealing the other teams' playbooks which could be a possibility, why wouldn't the NFL be cracking down on them and trying to catch them? And don't tell me because the Pats are garnering a lot of attention and popularity for the NFL.

[discostu]

They were turned in and destroyed remember.

I’m not over simplifying anything. It’s a simple fact that teams constantly change their calls. They change what the signals called from the sideline mean, they change the audible codes, the change everything, every game. You can say they don’t but that just shows you don’t know anything about football. It might not be a small matter, but that’s why coaching staffs work 100 weeks and get paid fat cash. The calls get changed, CONSTANTLY. We have it straight from an NFL player that his coach, one of the few coaches to take two different teams to the SB, has the signals change every single time they’re used. That’s the reality, the calls change. And remember teams use multiple defensive signal callers, usually 3 or 4 guys are on the sideline waving their arms around, of course only one is real the rest are decoys. But it’s all part of the anti-theft measure. And you better believe that which guy is really calling the plays changes regular too.

And of course don’t forget, stealing the defensive signals is PERFECTLY LEGAL, it’s using a video camera to do it that’s against the rules. Another reason why the calls change frequently, because everybody knows everybody else is trying to steal their signals, because they’re trying to steal everybody else’s. They just better not use a video camera to do it, that’s the ONLY part of the whole thing that was against the rules.

[PigRigger]

The Giants - lambs to the slaughter?

Although I enjoyed the game with my friends at a jammed packed Napper Tandy's in Smithtown LI last Night (and what a party it was....but that's a story for another time)....I can't find a way to argue that statement...

The Terminator (aka Brady) is awaiting Big Blue.....and unless the perfect game unfolds for the Jints.....it looks like an impossible dream....never the less my friends will cheer, and pray, our G-men on....

Go Big Blue!

[SamAdams76]

What I’ve never been able to reconcile about this so-called “cheating” scandal is that your typical NFL games is one of the most recorded events on earth. Not only are there dozens of TV cameras all over the place but you got 60,000+ people with cameras and camcorders up in the stands. Hell, you don’t need to put some guy on the sidelines with a camera, you can just pay a couple of season-ticket holders to record the sidelines for you. Or just install some webcams up in the owners box. Who would ever know? I’m sure that if there was any real value in this whatsoever, every team in the league would have videotapes of the sidelines available to them.

[big'ol_freeper]

My two are Australian Cattle Dogs and the breed was developed by crossbreeding Kelpies with wild Dingos, Scottish Sheep Dogs, Dalmations, and American Staffordshire Terriers. Also herding dogs, they are high energy long stamina dogs. Very bright (often smarter than me!). They are attached at my hip which is a breed characteristic...more so than most dogs..plus I work at home.

[Bender2]

Re: When Dallas was “America’s Team” I hated them also. But they never cheated.

American's Team Cheat? You just... bite off your tongue, fella!

Well, if you consider Tex... having our state of the art computers tap all the phones of the other teams and downloading all their playbooks and scouting data is not cheating, then, no. We never cheated. But don't get me started on George Allen or Lombardi!

[big'ol_freeper]

Air Force...pfft.

U.S. Army Retired

[Dysart]

Shucks, Bender, what if I offend someone? One must be mindful of delicate sensibilities round here.

My two pesos on this burning issue: I actually like the robot quite a bit in moderation. I think there is an inverse relationship here with robot posting frequency and corresponding comedic effect though. This is true with other devices such as sarcasm. So sometimes the robot-intensive postings are hysterical; other times not so much. But I fail to see how anyone would be moved to hostility in response to your posting as I've seen lately. As someone much more versed than I in the ways of this here internets thing so brilliantly pointed out some time ago, you can simply block all those images in Firefox with a simple "right click." And who doesn't use FF? So I've done this and choose how I want to view your postings by simply rt clicking and choosing "view in IE" whenever I want to see your graphics...about half the time.

And as for the little dog...I'll get him my pretty!! heheheeh But seriesly, I like the dog. What the hell is wrong with the dog? Now I couldn't append my dogs to my postings because most freepers would probably perform an exorcism each time I posted so I won't go there...no, the dog stays.

[Diplomat]

He was a disaster when it came to judges. He basically traded them one-for-one with the rats which all but ensured that he nominated way too many American hating leftist judges. Scalia and Bork = good (1 for 2 onto court); O’Connor and Kennedy = bad (2 for 2 onto court). Mind you, neither of his bad SC Judges can compare to the gross incompetance of GHW Bush appointee David Souter. Regardless, both O’Connor and Kennedy have frequently sided with the left to invent new meanings for the U.S.Constitution.

He raised the corporate Social Security tax rate.

He campaigned for and ultimately SIGNED the “1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act” which provided a “path for citizenship” to all illegal aliens. The truth was that this was an amnesty bill. Furthermore, Reagan, on numerous occasions, honestly called it “amnesty”. He said it was amnesty, because it was. Contrast this with Bush’s attempt to push an amnesty bill through congress, and then pretend it wasn’t amnesty. Pathetic.

The Federally deficit never shrank under Reagan. Furthermore, Reagan, not one time ever, signed a balanced Federal budget when he was in office. Now in fairness to Reagan, he tried in the early years to get congress to send him a balanced budget. That wasn’t ever going to happen given the large rat majority he faced.

[discostu]

The problem is there is no balance it his talk. It’s all hyperbole that’s in blatant disregard of the real facts. The idea that video taping the signals in 1 game is stealing the entire playbook is laughable, not balanced. The idea that teams rarely if ever change their signals is not only laughable it’s disproven regularly by various NFL Films and NFL Network programs where they talk to coaches, we know for a FACT (unless every player and coach that’s ever discussed this on camera is lying) that they do regularly change the calls.

He’s all hyperbole all the time. No balance.

And the NFL did crack down on them. Biggest fine possible against a coach, biggest fine ever against a team.

[discostu]

So salary cap violations aren’t cheating? I’m sure Jerry Jones loves to hear that.

[Bender2]

Re: You pic of Dean Jones and Haley Mills from That Darn Cat!

I've been head over heels in love... with Haley since she appear as twins in 1961's Tha Parent Trap

She is still a babe today... and will always be the dream older woman in my life. She was born in '46, me in '47!

[lepton]

Filming the defensive plays and the signal calling is no DIFFERENT dfrom stealing the defensive play book.

Please accept my apology. I thought you were merely being hysterical in your ignorance...not outright unable to comprehend the subject matter of which you shrilly screech. Since you failed to mention the actual violation, and instead flailed about things that were not done, it is fair to have assumed that you - as most who run around screaming about the issue - don't really know what the issue was. Why you would choose to be hysterical about things that weren't done while knowing what *was* done does not cause one to look favorably upon your own ethics.

So, in exploring the line of ignorance, you do know that it is legal to film the plays, and even moreso, that there is an official NFL mechanism for exchanging such tapes, and that it is not the only method allowed? ...and that a playbook is much more than guys running around the field. ...and that your metaphor breaks down pretty much completely when you view the effect in reality.