Bellichick is a Gigantic Shitcock.

[Civil War Man]

2. On topic, I hate the Pats. I hope all of their apologists spend all their time crying themselves to sleep at night, knowing that their beloved team has cheated its way to glory rather than winning it the honest way. I got so sick of people pretending as if this wasn't going on during the Super Bowl, or only happened during allegedly meaningless games against the Jets. This oughta shut them up.

I would like to provide a reenactment of the collective reaction of the Patriots fans where I live following the Super Bowl.

"Damn. Patriots lost. Oh well, good for the Giants. They earned it. Hey, isn't spring training coming up pretty soon? I wonder who the Sox are going to pick up."

Of course, being a New Englander, I am surrounded by old school fans. People who rooted for the Pats and the Sox back when they sucked. If there's anything they despise more than the Yankees, it's the sycophantic fair weather fans who started rooting for the New England teams when they started winning.

[Flagg]

Considering how much money these organizations bring in, and how important they are to American culture (I know, sad isn't it?)

Yes, because here in America we routinely have riots at our games and kill our teams when they don't win.

You're right, we only riot when they win.

[Elfdart]

So say the Pats and Belishit are found to have without a doubt, cheated in this fashion since 2000, in all their games. Does the NFL and Goodell have the sack to forfeit 8 seasons of wins, plus all accumulated stats records AND Championships?

I doubt they're going to take away Lombardi trophies from the Patriots. If they started calling championships null and void on the grounds of cheating, Al Davis would be in negative numbers.

[Darth Fanboy]

So say the Pats and Belishit are found to have without a doubt, cheated in this fashion since 2000, in all their games. Does the NFL and Goodell have the sack to forfeit 8 seasons of wins, plus all accumulated stats records AND Championships?

That would be the only way Phildadelphia could get credit for a championship! Just think of the Parade! The Ring ceremony with T.O. present might be a little awkward though. Carolina would have its first Super bowl some four years after it happened!

No, they won't be giving up any wins or championships. The worst of the worst case scenario in this situation I believe is the Pats coaching staff and possibly some front office guys being banned from the NFL, and I consider that unlikely at the moment. It would take something absolutely batshit insane to be revealed, like Belichick stealing playbooks and a huge old file cabinent full of other teams playbooks being discovered in a building at Gilette Stadium with handwritten notes by Belicheck and other coaches inside each of those books in order to see forfietures and the like.

[Darth Fanboy]

Considering how much money these organizations bring in, and how important they are to American culture (I know, sad isn't it?)

Yes, because here in America we routinely have riots at our games and kill our teams when they don't win.

You're right, we only riot when they win.

And sometimes not even then. It does not seem like there have been nearly as many as there used to be in the late 80s and early 90s.

[Havok]

So how about this. For the length of time that Belishit has been the head coach and cheating, an equal amount of time with a salary cap penalty, say 1/4 less then the rest of the league for 8 years.

[General Zod]

Maybe it's just because I don't watch football, but can someone explain why taking notes on the opposing team's signals or otherwise recording them is a bad thing or in any way harms the game? Preferably without an "lol it's bad cause it's against the r00lz" retort.

[Flagg]

Maybe it's just because I don't watch football, but can someone explain why taking notes on the opposing team's signals or otherwise recording them is a bad thing or in any way harms the game? Preferably without an "lol it's bad cause it's against the r00lz" retort.

It's because they were doing it from the stands, and were getting a view not able to be gotten from the sidelines. It basically gives the team cheating an unfair advantage since the other team is (supposedly) not breaking the rules.

As far as cheating goes it's definitely of the pissant variety, but the fact that it's a team that has been a powerhouse for almost a decade and that it was so blatant raises it to the next level. Plus, only an idiot is going to cheat to gain a minuscule advantage. I mean if it's not a big deal, then why break the fucking rules in the first place?

[CmdrWilkens]

Maybe it's just because I don't watch football, but can someone explain why taking notes on the opposing team's signals or otherwise recording them is a bad thing or in any way harms the game? Preferably without an "lol it's bad cause it's against the r00lz" retort.

In the NFL the Offensive team has a secure (and there have been controversy with that and accusaitona against the Patriots about that) communications link to its quarterback. They can literally call the play in by radio. The defense has no such simlair system and almsot always (even with some substituting) has to use basically hand and arm signals for the coaches to indicate desired defensive schemes.

Now the problem comes that if a team (say the Patriots) tapes those signals throughout the first half and, through the miracle of TV and photos, they can see exactly which signals match which coverage/blitz packages. If you tell a decent Offensive co-ordinator the exact scheme he will be facing then he should damn well be able to pick it apart. For instance if you know it is up the middle blitz then a short slant route could pick up huge yards through an empty middle, zone coverages have soft spots that differnet receiving routes take advantage of others leave less support near the line to deal with draw plays or power running. The list goes on.

The long story less long is that knowing what your opponent intends to do before he does it means that you are at least one step ahead of him and the only way he can catch up is through surpassing individual effort and/or a bit of dumb luck. If your team is pretty skilled to begin with, and much as I hate them the Patriots do have some good players, then the only thing truly working against you is dumb luck and that is already up in the air for everyone.

Is all of this foolproof? Hell no, defense breaks down and missed assignments for one type of scheme can put you in the right position to make a play by accident, also defenses may use substituitons exclusively to signal schemes which negates this but at the end of the day it does provide an advantage for ones offense that the defense has no truly controllable means of countering it (a hurry up/no huddle offense negates the ability to sub and misplaced luck will only do so much)

[Patrick Degan]

This is where something akin to the NCAA's suspension system would be useful: if the Patriots are indeed guilty of having won regular and post-season games and even whole Super Bowls through cheating for several years or so, a suspension from post-season qualification for an equivalent number of years would serve to balance the scales, punish the guilty team, and act as a strong deterrent against such activity in future. Good luck on any league commissioner having the balls to even propose such an idea to the owners.

Now as to the idea of whether Congress should be investigating this and baseball doping: Investigations are necessary and for a very good reason. These are billion-plus dollar a year enterprises we're talking about here. Not only in the form of direct revenues from the actual games and merchandising, multimedia, etc. but also in the form of gambling. Millions of dollars at stake in wagering and all predicated on the assumption that the game is being played on a level field. But when one team is taking unfair advantage either through cheating or pumping its players up on steroids and worse when a league's officials look the other way when it's happening, that is fixing pennant races.

Beyond gambling, the championship teams gain advantages in the form of secondary multimedia, merchandising, and franchise value revenues stemming from the added exposure and prestige of victory. A team which cheats its way to the championship is effectively stealing that money. With that much cash at stake, there is a logical interest in policing the teams and the leagues especially as they've done dick to police themselves.

To state a hypothetical: suppose it transpired that George Steinbrenner had, for a decade or more, not only allowed but encouraged his star players to juice themselves up and that he used his influence to nobble Bud Selig into not only not investigating the matter but actively cover up evidence of such activity? That would mean that a decade's pennant races were fixed, championships were illegitimate, and one franchise gained unfair financial advantage and inflated value as a result of cheating and other illegal or at the least legally-suspect activities at the expense of every other franchise in the National and American leagues. To extend the hypothetical: suppose the Kraft family were fully aware of Bill Bellichek's little video hobby which gave the New England Patriots unfair advantage in regular and post-season contests and encouraged Paul Tagliabue and later Roger Goddell to look the other way as it occurred? It is already suspect that Goddell in reality wiped several tapes which might have been material evidence for an investigation, and destroying evidence is a crime.

Baseball and football are products, and the American sports fan is a customer. Market relations between seller and buyer are based upon the assumption of a fair exchange for a product of legitimate value. But when the exchange is anything but fair and the value of the product is illegitimate, that customer (millions of them in fact) is being cheated and that deserves the proper attention of the legal powers of society to correct it.

[Havok]

Maybe it's just because I don't watch football, but can someone explain why taking notes on the opposing team's signals or otherwise recording them is a bad thing or in any way harms the game? Preferably without an "lol it's bad cause it's against the r00lz" retort.

Wilkens covered the signals pretty well. What is the big deal right now, is that Belishit may have had tapes of "walktroughs" from as far back as 2000.

Back in the 80's Bill Walsh and Sam Wyche started scripting the first 10-15 plays that their offense runs in a game. This worked very well, and as the NFL is a copycat league, basically every team has adopted this technique. So when some one says a "walkthrough" now, it isn't just going over plays in the play book that the offense may run, it is going over THE EXACT PLAYS you have scripted for the first offensive drive of the game. Now on a game to game basis, over a 16 game season, this may not be that big of a deal, it is a long season and shit happens one way or the other, but knowing the first 15-20 (which is the amount most O Coordinators script now, and I believe Martz did in 2001) of the Super Bowl, well now that is one hell of an unfair advantage.

This isn't just stealing signals that can be changed or even discarded for verbal communication. This is knowing EXACTLY what the other team is going to do for the first 15 or so plays. You know, how the line is going to block, what routes the receivers are going to run, how many steps the QB is going to drop, if the RB is going to stay in and block or run out into a pattern, which hole the RB is going to run into, if the Tight End is going to hold his block or chip and get out into the flat.

Now you take a nobody defense and give them this information along with knowing the defensive signals and you might just win 3 Super Bowls in 4 seasons. Go to 4 Super Bowls in 7 seasons and almost have an undefeated season.

Of course, the O Coordinator can change the plays, but how would he know to? And what is he going to change them to? These are the best plays a team has, or the ones they THINK will catch the other team off guard.

One more thing. If you look at the vast majority of Patriot loses over the last 6-7 years, there isn't going to be too many times that they lost because of a bad gameplan, it is mostly, like the last SB was, a team that beat them physically. Before this year that would be chalked up to outstanding coaching from a future Hall Of Famer and such an intelligent team he assembled, now, it is going to be because a team of average players with a sleaze bag coach cheated their way into the record books.

As a defensive guy, that just hated the offensive players, for the short time I played football, I don't give a fuck if you steal my signals, because I'm gonna run over your sorry ass and kill you pussy QB as long as I want to, when I want to. But KNOWING YOUR plays? Well, that I don't like very much at all. I don't need that help. I don't know how the players (if they actually know, which it is possible that they don't and could explain why Belishit Patriots don't do all that good after they leave the team) could possibly feel good about cheating on and at this level.

[Master of Ossus]

I think that it's also important to remember that the Pats didn't win all those Super Bowls by blowing out other teams. They won all three Super Bowls by less than a touchdown. Filming another team is allegedly a relatively minor advantage, but the Pats were only marginally better than the teams they played against. And that doesn't even count some of the ludicrously lucky things that have gone their way in the past (e.g., the infamous "Tuck Rule").

[Elfdart]

Maybe it's just because I don't watch football, but can someone explain why taking notes on the opposing team's signals or otherwise recording them is a bad thing or in any way harms the game? Preferably without an "lol it's bad cause it's against the r00lz" retort.

Intercepting and decoding defensive signals is like wiretapping the other team's headsets or bugging their locker rooms or coaches' boxes upstairs. Al Davis and George Allen (yes, Macaca Man's daddy) were always accused of doing the latter (and I'd be surprised if they didn't) but the Patriots were caught in the act after being told not to when they were accused of doing it before.

On the scale of cheating, I don't think it's as bad as some of the shit teams have pulled before (Al Davis was the Sith Lord of cheating). One big difference is that the new Commissioner made a big fuss over kicking out players who flouted the rules on off-field conduct, while his predecessors didn't. Well if Adam Jones and other players can be kicked out for being troublemakers, why should a team get off so easy? And when I say easy, I mean anything less than forfeiting games, like the Pottsville Maroons back in the 1920s, who forfeited a championship.

Another thing to keep in mind is that thanks to a law passed in 1996, stealing trade secrets from others is a federal offense. The case could be made that if the Patriots did in fact steal signals or spy on a team's walkthrough, they were engaged in industrial espionage, like Microsoft spying on, and stealing from Apple.

[Straha]

Side not: The media has had a love affair for Bellifuck since the Patriots won their first Super Bowl and it's always fucking pissed me off. I remember that in the pre-game to their second superbowl win they had an interview of Bellicunt wherein he said it was all about honour, etc.

And all I could think of was "I resign as HC of the NYJ." He's a fucker who's out there to win as much as he can and as high-profile as he can. And, you know what I couldn't blame him for that IF HE FUCKING OWNED UP TO IT. That's the difference between Bellishit and Al Davis. Davis made no bones about the fact that he was only out there to win. Bellijackass, to put it simply, doesn't.

Back on topic:
Bellitwat should be suspended for this, at the least, as fining him is a slap on the fucking wrist because he could probably make that much money through a licensing deal. If the league is going out of its way to punish players for misconduct (Vick, the on-field celebrations, etc.) it should apply that same rule to its coaches. Secondly, and more importantly, one of the big selling points of the NFL in the modern era is parity. The idea is that each team in the NFL can come back to a winning schedule after a bad season (last year's New York Jets,) or fall apart after a good season (this year's New York Jets.) Because, in essence, there is a level playing field, created mainly thanks to the salary cap. Gone are the eras where you could have the same team playing with each other for ages so that even when they were old and falling apart they could mop the floor with other teams (the Packers who won Super Bowl I and II) because they knew exactly how to play with each other, gone are the days when a team could have 16 draft picks giving them a massive talent pool to recruit from in key positions, and gone are the days of Al Davis tactics where in certain people through back door shenanigans, arm-twisting and cheating (without getting caught) could gain all sorts of unfair advantages. Letting Bellicock get away with this is a wide open pass to throw out a corner stone of that system, the idea of a "clean" NFL. So fuck him.

And the Patriots should also get reamed for this too. Banning them from the play-offs would be nice, but I've got a better idea: stripping them of homefield play for a season. Why you ask? A. This makes it so that, if the Patriots are good, they can still be competitive and get into the Playoffs. B. It is a real handicap to the team itself not only in the loss of homefield advantage but in forcing them to travel everywhere. C. It gives something to the other teams who they've been cheating against for the past 7 years (namely a better chance at beating the Patriots and increased Stadium receipts.) D. It's a massive monetary punishment to the Patriots team who will lose their merchandising and stadium transactions for the year.

[Straha]

Maybe it's just because I don't watch football, but can someone explain why taking notes on the opposing team's signals or otherwise recording them is a bad thing or in any way harms the game? Preferably without an "lol it's bad cause it's against the r00lz" retort.

Let me make an analogy. In baseball the catcher will signal what pitch would be best against the batter on plate through use of hand signals. Now suppose the batter had a radio to his dug out which would relay information from the coaches. Now suppose the batting team had a video of what signals the catcher was sending but also a dictionary of what the signals meant from years of watching the signals and correlating them to the pitches. The team could then gain a massive leg up by telling the batter what was coming next while the other team lacked this advantage.

That's essentially what happened here.

[CmdrWilkens]

Again in all of this the advantage of taping signals is relatively minor especially as it principally would help in the second half. At the same time the second half is when your defense needs the most help because if the offense makes scheme corrections and new plans then being tired will affect the defense much more especially the down linemen. On top of this you have the "walkthrough" taping which is a HUGE advantage. If you combine the two then for a decent teams its worth at least a touchdown over the course of the game (the walkthrough helps in the first half while the signal taping helps in the second). If you were to go back just through the playoof history of the Patriots in the last 7 years how many times would they have lost if you shift the score by a touchdown? Simply put there would have never made it to the Super Bowl period so its certainly something to be investigated.

[MKSheppard]

I'm not really seeing the furor over taping hand signals and then analyzing them to figure out what they mean. For christ's sake, next you're going to say that each goddamn team in the NFL cheats, because they all tape every single game in the NFL; so that they can watch replays of next week's opponent doing their thing, to figure out how to beat 'em.

[Elfdart]

If the League came out tomorrow and said that from now on, taping the other team's sidelines is perfectly legal, I wouldn't have a problem with it. But the Pats were caught red-handed and might have broken a federal law about corporate espionage.

[Havok]

I'm not really seeing the furor over taping hand signals and then analyzing them to figure out what they mean. For christ's sake, next you're going to say that each goddamn team in the NFL cheats, because they all tape every single game in the NFL; so that they can watch replays of next week's opponent doing their thing, to figure out how to beat 'em.

It's not just the hand signals, its the walkthroughs as well. And the difference with those tapes you refer to Shep, is that you watch them AFTER the game to see how you can defend or attack something better next time and watching TV replay film is NOT the same as watching coaches film.