Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Roger Goodell to ban Patriots from NFL

Based upon the reaction from NFL fans as well as the national media you might expect to see the above headline in tomorrow's newspaper. Personally I'm not happy about the allegations, and I don't condone cheating. Am I surprised about it? No, because I've heard the rumors about this type of surveillance before. Do I think the Pats should lose a second round draft pick in 2008? Yeah, probably. Go ahead and suspend the coach for a week while you're at it.

Still, I think everyone is way overreacting. In a disturbing turn of events, I found myself agreeing with Patriot-Superfans Bill Simmons and Aaron Schatz in their recent discussion of the scandal. In the end, unless more evidence is turns up I think I'll file this under the "Of course they cheated, they are evil people, but oh well, we've beaten them three straight times so I guess the videotape doesn't help that much" file.

And just to clarify, no, I don't agree with Simmons about the Pats going 16-0. After all they still have to play at the dome where the thunderous din is created by speakers and not the 55,000 people screaming at the top of their lungs.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

If this is true Belicheck and the Pats organization should be made an example of. The have beat them three times, how long has this been going on? This is not the first time this guy on the NE payroll has been accused. This is a black hole on the NFL and needs to be addressed severely for the integrity of the game. This goes beond the steroid and drug abuse. This is downright cheating to gain an advantage. Pete Rose bet on baseball but was not found guilty of cheating on baseball and was banned for life. I rest my case.

Rob Cullin said...

Guys,
First off your blog is great. It's become my first click when looking for Colt's news.

But I have to disagree with you on this Cheatriots/Billicheat issue. If a student cheats on a test, even if they really didn't need to cheat to get a good grade they still get busted, get a Zero on that exam, and face further consequences. Shouldn't we hold high profile people to the same standard?

Also if the Pats really didn't need to cheat, because they are just that good, then why did Billicheat feel it neccessary in light of warnings from the league to continue cheating? He must have felt it was pretty neccessary to win, to have risked so much. Yes I hate the Pats but I'm pretty comfortable that my outrage here is isolated from that specific "disdain".
Rob-Westside

Jesse said...

LOL. Love that headline. The patriots are so hilariously cloak and dagger about everything, I think it's pretty funny.

The best thing about this is, (I GARUNTEE YOU he's thought about it) Belicheck is probably trying to think about how to turn this into a "us against the world" mentality to fire his team up. LOL

"We cheated, and everyone else knows, SO SCREW THEM- lets go show them we can cheat if we want too! Cheat on 3. 1,2,3 CHEAT!"

Anonymous said...

I'm afraid I disagree as well. Integrity and sports don't mesh so well these days. Every major professional sport these days is dealing with an asterisk of some sort or other. Baseball has rampant HGH and steroid usage among its biggest starts, the NBA just had its legitimacy called into question with at least one of the referees being employed by the mob. The NFL has had rampant character issues as well as HGH episodes.

The punishment the NFL places on the Patriots will be directly equivalent to how serious it is about being a legitimate, fair, and professional competition. If it's anything less than extremely punitive action, then that will send another message.