I’m not sure there’s anything I can add
to the brewing firestorm
centering around the Patriots, videotaping scandal. There are
excellent stories all over the internet, even on ESPN.com, which I
stopped reading years ago. What I find most interesting about
this is
the rabid exuberance shown by NFL fans and even players from around the
country as they attack the Patriots. From where is this enmity
derived? It’s easy for me. I’m a Steelers fan and the Pats
beat my
team in the 2001 and 2004 AFC championship games, both games on our
home turf no less. I’m supposed to hate them, but why does
everyone
else. Listening to Sirius NFL radio, it’s pretty clear that fans
all
around the country have very strong feeling against the Patriots.
Why?
Their coach is a jerk. Obviously, I’ve never met the man,
but many
others have commented on his personality. I’ve heard many times
on TV
and radio that he is arrogant and unapproachable. Mike Greenberg,
of
Mike and Mike in the Morning on ESPNradio, has met him and goes so far
as to say he is a reprehensible human being, but a genius coach.
Frankly, I don’t really care what sort of personality he has. In
my
first article for this website, I made the argument that Belichick is
highly overrated and that his success is due to Tom Brady.
Perhaps I
should amend that now and give the credit to Tom Brady and SONY.
| Their quarterback is a pretty
boy. I wrote in a previous article, that
he is the best player in the NFL. Like David Beckham, he has
transcended his sport to become a celebrity away from the game. Deep
down, we all want to be him. Football, though, is a tough sport
played
by tough men. We expect all the white players to be lumberjacks
or
mountain men, and the black players to be products of a tough inner
city upbringing. I think we’re all willing to accept the well
dressed
black players like Michael Irvin and Deion Sanders with their purple
three button suits, but we expect the white players to be good ole
boys, like Terry Bradshaw in the 70’s sporting flannel, chewing
tobacco, and recording country albums. Even Namath who was the
pretty
boy of the 70’s had his wardrobe eccentricities with the fur coats and
occasional nylon stockings. Brady though is a metrosexual.
He
probably gets manicures to clean the cowhide and eyeblack out of his
fingernails. He belongs on the cover of GQ, not behind a center’s
butt. I’m not sure I’ve ever even seen the guy sweat. Many
fans have
a hard time relating to him as a football player. |
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They won due to the tuck rule. Alright, now I’m beating a dead
horse, so I’ll keep this short. Everyone around the country feels
that the Patriots did not actually earn their first Super Bowl
ring. They were given a gift via the tuck rule. Tom Brady
even admits they were lucky to get that call. This of course does
not take away from the fact that they won two Super Bowls after
that. No, but cheating does.
We’re just plain tired of the national media fawning over them.
We’re all tired of hearing about the “Patriot Way”. How they were
above all the other teams in not signing high priced free agents, or
allowing bad elements on their team. They’ve shown us this season
that they don’t even do things the Patriot way. The one silver
lining in this scandal is that it makes us all forget that one of their
squeaky clean stars, Rodney Harrison, was just busted for using
steroids. He claims that it was just to help him heal faster from
injury, but this in itself gives him a competitive advantage over those
who are injured and don’t take steroids. In addition, how do we
know he didn’t use them while he was healthy. Perhaps he was on them
while playing in the Super Bowls. Patriot apologists will point
to the fact that several Steelers admitted to using steroids during
their dynasty days in the 70’s. This may be true, but steroids
were not illegal then.
Jealousy. Let’s face it. We’re all jealous because our
teams have not had the success that the Patriots enjoyed the past six
years, so it’s fun to see them removed from their pedestal.
Roger Goodell has issued his punishment; loss of the Patriot’s 1st
round pick next year, a $500,000 fine for Belichick and $250,000 for
the Patriots. This is not severe enough. He suspended Chris
Henry and Pac Man Jones for off the field incidents which may have
reflected poorly on the NFL, but certainly did not have any bearing on
the game itself. Belichick and the Patriots gained an unfair
advantage through their cheating, and that is much worse than any off
the field indiscretions. Terrell Davis goes so far as to suggest
that the Patriots should have been banned from the post season for one
and possibly two seasons. To me, this seems a bit harsh, but it’s
more in line with what I feel should be the proper punishment.
The fine is useless. Belichick is probably in the 5
million/year club, so a $500,000 fine would represent about 10% of his
yearly income. While this may seem like a lot, he can easily make
that up in his next contract negotiation, endorsements, or
appearances. The $250,000 fine for the Patriots is an utter
joke. This team is one of the most valuable franchises in the
league, easily worth over 1 billion dollars, so that fine is just a
drop in the bucket. The loss of their first round draft pick is
not even very damaging because they have San Francisco’s first round
pick this year from a trade during the draft. Even if both picks
were taken away, the Patriots could reload with free agents, and as
long as they have Tom Brady, they can win, though I may now have to
reassess my opinion of his success.
In 2000, the Minnesota Timberwolves attempted to circumvent the NBA
salary cap to sign Joe Smith. When the commissioner of the NBA,
discovered this, he became a tad angry. He voided Smith’s
contract, fined the Timberwolves 3.5 million dollars, and took away
their first round picks for the next 5 years. This effectively
ruined the future of the franchise. After several years of
winning with the players they already had, Minnesota, without any new
talent, began and continue to suffer through continuous losing seasons,
until they were finally forced to part with their one star, Kevin
Garnett, who ironically went to Boston. The severity of this
punishment was caused by the fact that the Timberwolves knowingly tried
to circumvent the rules. Does that sound familiar? In his
meeting with Goodell, Belichick claims that this was simply a
misinterpretation of the rules. Goodell should have seen through
this lie and meted out a harsher punishment.
Now that the punishment has been delivered, I’m sure the Patriots hope
this will all be forgotten. Like the Michael Vick dogfighting
case, it is up to us in the media to keep it alive. There is
likely much more to this than has been told. Already players and
coaches from other teams are revealing that they had always suspected
the Patriots of foul play, the extent of which is still unknown.
Belichick knew the risks of sending someone out to videotape the Jets
coaches, yet he continued to take the chances, even in the face of
warnings from the league office. Why would he take these risks if
the information gained was not very helpful? My guess is that
Belichick made much more use of this information than we suspect.
Goodell needs to send out his team of ex secret service agents to get
to the bottom of this. They need to find out how this information
was used, how long this has been going on, and are they using any other
forms of cheating. For example, there are rumors they put
microphones in defensive player helmets to steal audible calls as well
as radios to communicate with the defensive coaches. The Patriots
had better win it all this year because, like the steroid users in
baseball who were caught, if there is any drop off in the Patriots’
performance this season, we will all be quick to blame it on their
inability to cheat.
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