OT: Goodell drops the hammer on Patriots

[Russ Smith]

Sign stealing happens all the time in baseball. (I understand that not all of us are baseball fans.) Should we really get upset about football coaches stealing signs and ignore that it is part of another sport. Or should we just assume that baseball players and managers are smart enough to switch up their signs, but football players and coaches aren't. Especially with the Cliff's Notes of War and Peace that these guys are wearing with the plays on their wristbands now. If the coaches can't figure out different ways of saying "run play 13 from your wrist playbook" then they deserve to have their signs stolen.

Is the venom because the Pats are so easy to hate and their coach is such a prick? Is it because they were so blatant about it? I just find it really hard to believe that this is the first team that had a video camera focused on an opposing team's sideline. Just because they were the first ones to get caught doesn't mean anything. This just seems more like an act of gamesmanship than anything. With the technology available today, there are much easier, more covert, and probably more effective ways of documenting signs and tracking them than some goofball with a 50-pound camera on his shoulder.

Personally it bothers me for one reason, they were told last year not to do it, and first game of the season, they do it.

That's like pulling someone over for driving solo in the carpool lane, giving him a ticket, and then watching him pull out on the freeway and go right back into the carpool lane.

 

[Kel Varnsen]

Goodell should lay the hammer down. Belicheck is a joke how do you misunderstand the rule. How do you even lie about it. He put the guy on the Jets sideline in a green shirt. Filming the coaches while a play was going on. Pic from 910. http://www.xtra910.com/pages/mikejurecki.html

You must be registered for see images

LOL. Where exactly are the Jets coaches that that guy is filming?

Jurecki's such a perv...look at that other picture on that link. LOL.

 

[Russ Smith]

LOL. Where exactly are the Patriots coaches that that guy is filming?

Jurecki's such a perv...look at that other picture on that link. LOL.

Yes now I can understand why they would want to film Natalie Gulbis stretching!

 

[JC_AZ]

Yes now I can understand why they would want to film Natalie Gulbis stretching!

after further review...

http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?_adv_prop=image&fr=slv8-&va=NATALIE+GULBIS&sz=

 

[Trey]

Here's how Formula One handles cheating: http://sports.yahoo.com/top/news?slug=ap-f1-spycase&prov=ap&type=lgns

NASCAR has also started handing out big fines and suspensions if teams are found to have done anything illegal to the Car of Tomorrow.

The NFL won't be nearly this harsh, but I wish they would be. Things like this lead to the questioning of the integrity of the game. If the results on the field aren't 100% above board, then what's the point? This is serious business, and hopefully Goodell does something serious about it...

 

[Brighteyes]

honestly, if you're coaching staff is literally caught cheating, stealing signals over the airwaves and what not, the NFL should make that team forfiet the game - period.

Completely agree with Cheese here. (Wow!)

To me, the whole point of any game is to compete within the rules. If someone deliberately, flagrantly violates those rules (and there sure are a lot of stories coming out from all around the NFL on Belichick's team), what's the point? If they really are playing with radio frequencies and illegally recording the offense as well as defense calls, that's a huge advantage.

Saying 'they're good anyway, they'd probably have won' is flat out wrong. We'll never know, will we? Certainly makes you wonder about the Belichick vaunted talent of changing up at half time. And how much of Peyton's jinx against the Patriots was just Belichick hi-jinx?

Saying 'everybody else' does it to just doesn't cut it -- if we're going to adopt that attitude, let's just turn it into the WWF.

 

[Cheesebeef]

Completely agree with Cheese here. (Wow!)

one day you'll realize I'm always right.

 

[Gambit]

Did anyone see this one?

"At one point we had a good drive going against the Patriots," said one Lion who doesn't want his name involved in this mess, but was willing to talk about it. "Mike Martz really had 'em going. They were getting fouled up, lining up wrong, we were moving the ball. Then boom, the headset from the sidelines to the coaches' booth goes out.

"Next possession we were moving the ball again and the same thing happened. You know it only takes two or three plays to mess up a drive."
Matt Millen, the Lions' GM, was talking to Bengals' coach Marvin Lewis at the league meetings. He started telling him the story.

"Yeah, I know," Lewis said. "Headset went out. It happened to me in Foxboro, too."

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/dr_z/09/13/cheating/index.html?eref=T1

 

[jmt]

one day you'll realize I'm always right.

Today ain't it though

 

[CardLogic]

Did anyone see this one?

http://sp[URL="http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/dr_z/09/13/cheating/index.html?eref=T1"]ortsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/dr_z/09/13/cheating/index.html?eref=T1[/URL]

That's a good article. Had to laugh about the story about Al Davis planting a guy on the Jet's bus!

 

[Gambit]

Final ruling, not that harsh.

http://www.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/reiss_pieces/

Would have been a lot worse if a team other than the Pats, IMO.

Final ruling
By Mike Reiss, Globe Staff
Here is the final ruling from the NFL:


Bill Belichick has been fined $500,000 by the NFL.


The Patriots have been fined $250,000 by the NFL.


The Patriots will give up their first-round pick in 2008 if they make the playoffs. If they don't make the playoffs, they will surrender second- and third-round picks.


Belichick will not be suspended.

“This episode represents a calculated and deliberate attempt to avoid longstanding rules designed to encourage fair play and promote honest competition on the playing field,” Commissioner Goodell wrote in a letter to the Patriots.

 

[JeffGollin]

The Pats are so good in managing their personnel that they'll overcome the loss of draft picks with more FA acquisitions.

The best way to hit them (or any other team) where it really hurts would be to skim $20 - $25 million off the top of their cap pool to take away any wriggle room.

 

[Totally_Red]

Final ruling, not that harsh.

http://www.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/reiss_pieces/

Would have been a lot worse if a team other than the Pats, IMO.

Shefter was talking about them forfeiting a 1st and a 3rd. The fine is heavy, the loss of draft choices, not so much.

 

[Gambit]

Shefter was talking about them forfeiting a 1st and a 3rd. The fine is heavy, the loss of draft choices, not so much.

$250,000? That's not heavy at all.

Belicheck personally $500,000. he can afford it.

 

[blindseyed]

$250,000? That's not heavy at all.

Belicheck personally $500,000. he can afford it.

I thought it was 750K

 

[Gambit]

I thought it was 750K

250,000 to the team, 500,000 to Belichick personally, 750 total.

Don't the Pats have 2 first-rounders (got one from SF?) So would they only forfeit the one and still have the other? This seems light to me. I guess I was expecting more.

 

[blindseyed]

250,000 to the team, 500,000 to Belichick personally, 750 total.

Don't the Pats have 2 first-rounders (got one from SF?) So would they only forfeit the one and still have the other? This seems light to me. I guess I was expecting more.

Ohhh gotcha
They forfeit the 1st rounder only if they make the play-offs too. I don't know if they have 2 1st rounders next year.

 

[clif]

The NFL slapped Bill Belichick with a maximum fine of $500,000 Thursday night for videotaping Jets' defensive signals Sunday. The Pats were fined $250,000 and will lose a '08 first-round pick if they reach the playoffs; or second- and third-round picks if they miss the playoffs.

 

[NMCard]

This penalty does not make this NFL football fan feel confident that the problem has been taken care of.

750K seems a little light to me.

I was hoping the nfl would make the Patriots give 1 millon of their next years cap to every team in the NFL. Make them really pay for cheating. IMO.

 

[Sandan]

BB should have been suspended for at least this season

 

[blindseyed]

BB should have been suspended for at least this season

And then made him wear a suit the rest of the year instead of dressing like a homeless bum

 

[Gambit]

Anyone see this article about the Iggles?

PHILADELPHIA -- Sheldon Brown and the Eagles hoped a blitz would rattle Tom Brady.


One problem: Every time the Eagles rushed Brady in the Super Bowl, the Patriots nullified the defensive attack with screen passes. Lots of them. On almost every play defensive coordinator Jim Johnson called for a blitz, the Patriots used the short pass to confuse the Eagles.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3017964

 

[Duckjake]

This taints everything the Patriots have done since BB started coaching.

It puts all their recent accomplishments on the same level as Barry Bonds HR record.

 

[Cheesebeef]

The NFL slapped Bill Belichick with a maximum fine of $500,000 Thursday night for videotaping Jets' defensive signals Sunday. The Pats were fined $250,000 and will lose a '08 first-round pick if they reach the playoffs; or second- and third-round picks if they miss the playoffs.

um, short of a forfeit, that's a pretty damn harsh penalty if you ask me. I was expecting (though not wanting) it to be less.

 

[joeshmo]

500K was the maximum fine they could give to Him. The NFL shelled out the worst possible fine they could. Hardly a drop in the bucket, and really sends a message to all other coaches considering 500K is 25% of most coaches salaries. Maybe he will have to sell the house he bought for his women on the side while he was married.

Also they still have the 49ers 1st rounder so even if they make the playoffs they will still have a pick in every round of the draft. That and the fact that the Pats will now have 1.5 Mill in cap space they can use on FA instead of the rookie cap really makes that slap a lot less harsh. That and the fact that the team is already so loaded they cut more then half of their draft picks this past season anyways and have the least amount of their own draft picks on their team when compared to the rest of the league. They havent been keeping their draft picks anyways for the last 3 or more years, anyways.

A suspension and a cap fine of the amount of cap it would have taken to sign those draft picks they will no longer have should have been added to this IMO.