Do you think the Patriots would have kept cheating had they not been caught?

Question

In regards to tabi108 question. People say they are over it and have forgiven them because the Patriots got caught in their 1st game. Would you have been so easily to forgive them if it had been multiple games? They got fined $500,000 for one game. Could you imagine the punishment for more than that?

tabi108 - Where does it say I said you forgave anything? Nowhere. I clearly stated that people in general said they had forgiven them and moved on. It may have been a good thing that they got caught early. Be happy.

Yes their coach is the blame but most of the public see's them as cheaters as a whole. Nobody wants to be remembered that way.

Answer 1

They more than likely would have continued to do what they did and the severity of their acts would have been much worse.

Answer 2

First, I didn't say I forgive anything. If it was proven that the ENTIRE team had been cheating and it was multiple games, honestly I don't know how I would feel. But it was the coach, not the team that was caught and that is all I am trying to say. Brady, Moss, Welker, Bruschi.... the whole team, are not the ones that were caught. And yes some can say that they knew what was going on and still "participated" in it but we don't know if that's true or not. Teams change, players get traded, retire, they get new coaches and for some reason I think that in 10 years when the Pats have an entirely different team (and yes I will still be a fan in 10 yrs) people will still be calling them cheaters.
But, yes you do make a great point

**Update: ok I'm sorry I misread. You are right, I am happy they were caught early on.

Answer 3

Your question presupposes that Bellichick knew he was "cheating" and is therefore imprecise. Nevertheless I think I get your drift.

1. Remember that the essence of the infraction was video taping the opposing team coaches from their own sidelines, AND possibly using that information during the same game.

The Patriot's response was that yes, certainly we are taping, but it is only for use in analyzing the opposing coaches behavior/tendencies for FUTURE games. The league did not buy it and heavily penalized Bellichick and the Patriots. BTW the $500k is not what hurt, the loss of a first round draft pick was the heaviest blow.

2. Examining the nature of the infraction it is clear that the Patriots were not hiding what they were doing. The man caught doing the taping was standing within 20 feet of Jets coach Eric Mangini, and worked with Mangini for several years while Mangini was a Patriots assistant coach.

3. It has been acknowledged both tacitly and implicitly that all teams in the NFL engage in similar forms of scouting opponents and looking for tendencies/advantages.

4. Apparently, the NFL felt that the Patriots had recieved fair warning in the prior (2006) season regarding acceptable scouting activity; that consequently was the rationale for the heavy penalties. However, details of the '06 "warning" and the specific behavior precluded were not made public. I infer from the above mentioned details and simple logic that Bellichick and the Patriots must have believed they were within the letter of the NFL rules, because it was so obvious and easy to "catch" them.

5. The upside is of course the motivation provided by the episode and the grossly overblown reaction by media and certain other members of the NFL community led to a display of crushing domination unseen before in the history of the league.

Answer 4

i'm no longer a pats fan, yet understand they are staffed finished of great gamers and marvelous coaches. in case you think of for one minute that the pats purely gained given which you think of the refs helped, then you definately truly need to envision your stats my chum... they have controlled to place at the same time between the terrific NFL communities to ever hit the gridiron. documents will continually stay broken, and there'll continually be people who think of each little thing is often fastened. even nevertheless, while their prominent team is on perfect, then no-one cheated. marvelous how that occurs, isn't it?? i'm a die problematical Houston Texan fan. quicker or later, my team gets it at the same time. I snort in any respect you haters of the Pats fulfillment this 3 hundred and sixty 5 days. Like I suggested, documents will continually be broken. And on each occasion the NFL comes to a decision to bypass to a 18 interest widespread season, then somebody finally will perfect the Pats. And that team will even have great gamers, and great coaches easily. provide up HATIN' plenty!!!

Answer 5

Why are you still bringing this up? It is so yesterday. Give it up,they got caught and they payed for it. Patriots are not the only team who has done it and they will not be the last. Anyone who says they are still cheating are stupid. Get a life and focus on your team. It is not the Patriots fault that your team sucks! Go Patriots!!

Answer 6

Let's be perfectly clear; this is not about "cheating." Goodell flatly stated that New England gained no competitive advantage against the Jets and that he has no reason to believe that New England has gained a competitive advantage in an unfair fashion in previous seasons. This is about power, pure and simple. The NFL has a rule against what the Patriots did. It is a silly rule but it is a rule nonetheless. Bill Belichick violated that rule and he did so in a fairly brazen manner. Goodell is the new sheriff in town and if he lets people jaywalk on his watch--which is what this amounts to, no matter how much Skip Bayless, Jay Mariotti or anyone else has a fit--then pretty soon someone will try to shoplift and then there will be muggings and general mayhem. So Goodell sent a loud and clear message to Belichick and every player, coach and owner in the NFL: "I'm the sheriff in this here town and you are going to play by my rules." I have no problem with that approach; I think that the rule that is involved in this particular case is silly but, as I wrote in my previous post on this subject, if the Patriots violated a league rule then they certainly should be punished for it.

However, I vigorously disagree that they should have received harsher penalties than what Goodell meted out. I also dismiss the idea that New England has won three Super Bowls because of an intern filming coaches wildly gesticulating. Let's break this down scientifically:

1) You only play a team once a year unless that team is in your division. That means that unless you have an army of interns filming coaches at various stadiums each week that you are gathering data that will be worthless the rest of the season. Moreover, if a coaching staff has any sense, it changes its signals fairly regularly during the course of a season and also has someone sending in "dummy" signals at the same time the real signals are being sent.

2) Halftime lasts 15 minutes or so. Does anyone believe that any coach can study a half's worth of film, decode all of the signals and then transmit this information to his team in that period of time? Teams prepare their game plans during the week and they plan for various contingencies. At halftime a team can certainly make an adjustment that was within the scope of its preparation but it cannot just come up with something completely new.

3) What is the likelihood that whatever information is gleaned from the "hidden video" is any more worthwhile than all of the hours of "legal" film that Belichick notoriously watches during the week?

So why did Belichick risk his reputation to do something that was of marginal competitive value at best? Frankly, I don't know. My guess is that a combination of factors is involved, with the most obvious being that he is obsessive about preparation and obtaining every little bit of information to the point of diminishing returns. Although cynics may scoff, his surface explanation may also be true or at least contain a grain of truth: Belichick has publicly said that he explained to Goodell that he had a different interpretation of the rule and that he did not use the film for any kind of advantage during the game. Maybe Belichick was studying how other teams send in signals to compare their methods to his own to look for some kind of way to better disguise what his team does. Coaches like to go to other teams' practices--even teams that play different sports--to watch how other coaches do things. Maybe Belichick was doing some master study of NFL signaling tendencies. I've always called him "the mad scientist"; he spends most of the week in his "laboratory" watching film and then he cooks up a game plan that is tailor made to defeat that week's opponent. Remember when all of the Patriots' defensive backs were getting hurt and he was literally grabbing guys off of the street and putting them on the field? He found some use for ex-Browns' cornerback Earthwind Moreland (whose parents, I'm willing to bet, are huge Earth, Wind and Fire fans); during that time, Belichick also turned wide receiver Troy Brown into an effective nickel back. None of that had anything to do with watching the other team's signals, nor did any of the brilliant coaching moves that he made during the three Super Bowl runs.

The bottom line is that this issue is much more about power and control than it is about "cheating." Belichick did not plant a spy or a hidden microphone in the Jets' locker room; he sent an employee to make a video record of the public actions of the Jets' coaches.

Answer 7

Big news flash!!! This wasn't the first time they got caught. They were warned in previous seasons about this exact same thing & they just thumbed their collective noses at the league & said, "So what?" It's too bad the league didn't do what was right & suspend Billy the Crud for life.

Answer 8

i completely understand why the commissioner chose to bury this as quickly as he could. if the patriots turned over "all" their tapes as requested and those tapes spanned 7 years (encompassing three super bowls)... how much money would the league lose having to punish the patriots for the actual crimes committed? fans of major league baseball took away a big chunk of change when the strike screwed up the baseball season in the 90s. imagine what the reaction would be if three superbowls were won via cheating. they like their money right where it is...and the flow of that money.

*_*

Answer 9

They got caught against Green Bay last year, but it wasn't turned into the NFL so nothing was done. So I think it is really obvious that they would have CONTINUED to do it had it not been turned into the NFL. Oh and don't forget the guy with the camera against the Jets was the same one that security had leave the game against the Packers.

Answer 10

Ah, good counterpoint. If there was evidence that the cheating extended beyond that one game I would probably look down on them a little more. I can't justify hating them for something that I just don't know happened more than that one incident. I am sure if it was more extensive, the punishment the NFL would give would fit the crime.

Answer 11

Wow! That's a very good question. It actually may have been a blessing to them they the got caught early as opposed to down the line in the season.