Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Cheaters

Whoops

I already can't stand the Patriots and this morning gave me one more good reason to continue those feelings. The New England Patriots were caught video taping the NY Jet's signals. Now, I'm sure many excuse the actions because "everybody does it." Whether that is true or not, I have no clue. All I know is that the Patriots were caught cheating and it gives me one more reason to cheeer against them. As if the Pat's being caught wasn't enought, the way they were trapped was even more humorous. Apparently Bill Belichick was a jerk to Eric Mangini back in the day (big surprise). In return, Eric kindly tipped off the Jets on Bill's signal stealing system.

I want to know your thoughts. Should they be punished? Is it that big of a deal? I hope the commish sticks it to them, but maybe that is just sour grapes.

10 Comments:

At 11:44 AM, Blogger Alex said...

I've been saying it for years, Billichick is nothing but a pure cheater. It is dispicable, it is a big deal, and they should be punished. It's a much bigger deal than messing with some dogs. Take your homeless sweatshirt and your bitter smile to Jail!!!

Burn in Hell Billichick!!

 
At 3:44 PM, Blogger Sumner said...

The Patriots suck.
they should give their super bowls to the Saints.

 
At 4:58 PM, Blogger Charles Blanchard said...

Of course they should be punished. It's a rule. They broke it. Period.

What the punishment should be is a different matter. I think loss of a draft pick or two is entirely appropriate, but I don't think forfeit of the game is appropriate. Forfeiture should be reserved for stuff that goes beyond infractions that everyone commits, stuff particularly egregious. If it's something that everyone knows that everyone does, it should still be punished, but not something as drastic as forfeiture. My analogy is pitchers in baseball. I don't want the commish to come down hard on pitchers doctoring balls (as if he would come down hard on anything or anybody), but I have no problem with a pitcher getting thrown out of one game because of some pine tar on the ball, etc.. If pitchers stopped doctoring balls, we wouldn't get vintage entertainment value like when a guys has to drop his pants on the mound, or when analysts pick apart whether the smudge on a uniform is pine tar. Likewise, I want the entertainment value of seeing Belicheck getting criticized.

Full disclosure: I hate Belicheck, because he dresses like a hobo. Would it kill him to at least wear a collared shirt, if not a suit like Del Rio and Nolan have started doing?

 
At 5:20 PM, Blogger joel kimmel said...

they can't be forced to forfeit the game, because they were stealing signs to use against them later. so there was no direct help. Billichik should be suspended at the least. if you take their draft picks away, they'll just get them back by convincing somebody to take a backup for a 2nd rounder or something else genius. the patriots represent all that is solace and evil in sports

 
At 7:32 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is like the Montreal Alouettes in the CFL, except in the CFL they do not punish the offending team for being caught at these types of things (so I am glad the NFL does these things). Draft pick loss makes sense, but I doubt they would suspend Belichick, even though me might deserve it. Then again, the new commish has been heavy handed with his penalties, so maybe he will make an example out of him.

 
At 5:23 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

you know this is the tip of the iceburg with his cheating. The way his defenses "held" the Indy recievers in the playoffs and "conviently" came alive during the playoffs. This news explains so much.

-Ben

 
At 10:04 PM, Blogger Kel said...

All of this cheating talk is ridiculous. Seriously, if Mangini really knew this was going on why did he not try to beat Bill at his own game. I have not heard anyone say that Bill was doing this for other games, but I have heard that we was doing this for in game decisions. If this had been going on since Mangini had been with evil Bill why did he let Bill steal his actual plays? that makes no sense. You would think that he would have been smart enough to disguise his plays or at least do something to make bill look like an idiot. If Mangini did know this was going on and did not disguise his plays then he is the idiot, not bill. This whole thing just doesn't make much sense to me. Mark my word, not much will happen. The pats will win 11-12 games this year and will go to the playoffs in two weeks everyone will have forgotten about it and the whole story will fade away...

 
At 10:59 PM, Blogger Alex said...

$500,000 - $250,000 - 1st Round draft pick. Get some Billibitch

"mark my word, not much will happen"


...nice Kelly...nice...u just forfeited some credibility

 
At 1:37 PM, Blogger Kel said...

I never had much credibility to begin with, so this likely won't be the black mark which ends my predictive career. Further, the fines and the penalties handed down might be a lot of money for me, but as for "billibitch" and "patsibitch" and "1strounddraftpickibtch" it won't matter that much. I might lose all credibility by the end of the season if the pats don't win 11 or 12 games and I will take those lumps if they come. I do probably need to change my prediction about no-one talking about this in two weeks. It will be dropped after this weekend, until next year during the draft when the Patriots only have one first round pick (coming from the Raiders, so it will probably be pretty high) instead of the two first round picks they were scheduled to have.
Again, the the pats will not be affected by this...mark my word.

I suppose i should have stuck to the point of the blog...is it cheating? Obviously it is clear violation of the rules, especially when the rules state that you can't film opposing teams. Bill Belichick is not a good guy, and people like him should not be as successful as they are. It is my opinion that the pats deserved a much stiffer penalty. I don't know how much more they should be punished, but since this penalty WON'T affect them at all past some sloppy play this weekend, they deserve more.

Now, to my original point...the former Pats coordinator Mangini who obviously knew that Belichick did these kinds of thing should have been smart enough to disguise his plays last year. Or, he should have at least change them up this year when he played his former team and head coach (who we all agree is an ass and who Mangini knew was cheater). It seems like on this level of competition head coaches would have preventative measures in place to make sure that this sort of thing never happens. Simple things like changing your signals from year to year. Am i missing something here? Doesn't this kind of cheating seem very simple to avoid?

Allow me to retract this one statement, "all this cheating talk is ridiculous". I was overstating, and cheating is always wrong, even if every other team is doing it.

fun stuff...

 
At 3:06 PM, Blogger Brian said...

Wow...our first retraction on comments. Thanks Kelly

 

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