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ESPN: "Spygate to Deflategate: Inside what split the NFL and Patriots apart"

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3

3N16MA

Banned
Pats going to go underground with their cheating. The league let them have a free pass after spygate and look what happened.
 
C

Coux

Neo Member
JABEE said:
And the hilarious thing is the Eagles choked, and the cheating Pats almost lost that game.

What a joke of an organization? They not only cheated, but their opponent played their worst game of the season, and the Pats still only won* by a field goal.
Click to expand...

You booed Santa. Who does that?
 
T

Troy

Banned
JABEE said:
And the hilarious thing is the Eagles choked, and the cheating Pats almost lost that game.

What a joke of an organization? They not only cheated, but their opponent played their worst game of the season, and the Pats still only won* by a field goal.
Click to expand...

How many rings did your team get for only losing by 3?
 
L

LudicrousSpeed

Member
ParityBit said:
Why do they have signals to begin with?

Because teams have been STEALING them since the beginning of time with the sport.
Click to expand...

They don't have signals anymore. The reason they did have signals was for the sideline to communicate with the defense. The offensive side of the ball didn't have to do this because they had a radio in the QB's helmet so that instructions could be relayed without signals. Before Spygate broke, there were multiple attempts on the Competition Committee to give one member on the defense a radio ala the one the QB has on offense. Belicheck repeatedly voted against that proposal until Spygate broke, at which point it passed unanimously.
 
C

Cybit

FGC Waterboy
Quotient said:
Do you honestly believe that if the Patriots were breaking into opposing teams locker rooms to steal play-sheets that the only response would be to put "fake call sheets out".

I see only 2 reasons a team wouldn't report the patriots to the NFL/media:


  1. It never happened
  2. They also did nefarious deeds too

I personally am leaning on option 1.
Click to expand...

Considering that article - I'm gonna guess "option 2"; but not to that extreme. Basically - it boils down to that BB was willing to push the boundaries further than most out of arrogance / intelligence, and even when he crossed it, he a) figured some kind of weak fine was worth it and b) figured he could talk / think his way out of it. Unfortunately for the Pats - they got arrogant trying the same normal stuff on someone who had warned them about doing it (IE; Mangini) and got busted. Goodell panicked (as no one should be surprised) and swept everything under the carpet because he was afraid Specter was going to hurt the NFL badly with an investigation. Owners got mad and wanted their make up call.

Add in that we live in much different media times (The Pats are one of the first sports dynasties in the 2000s); more information is bound to get out over time than say, 20 years ago.

I mean, honestly, this article paints the NFL as badly as the Patriots. They openly accuse the NFL of going ballistic on Brady as a "makeup call"; they hint that the NFL openly manipulated signed statements given by their own employees in order to lie to Congress; and they basically routinely cover up major issues that may or may not affect the integrity of the game (even referring to Rozelle and Tagliabue keeping things "in house").
 
D

DoktorEvil

Banned
The Albatross said:
The Mike Martz stuff was really interesting, though, especially how the article mentions that he felt like his signed statement was altered by someone in the league before it was released. To me, though, that isn't a Patriots-cheater story, that's a shady NFL story, and this article is first and foremost, a Patriots-cheater story, not a shady-NFL story. The rest of the paragraphs about Martz are written similarly to how the whole article is written, casting Belichick, this analyst, and other people in the Patriots organization as a vast criminal conspiracy.

The article is certainly presenting Martz, his whole career, as a victim of cheating. "Martz's offense, dubbed the Greatest show on Turf in 1999 was never the same and he was fired as Ram's coach," ignoring that even in the year that the Ram's offense was the greatest show on turf they were 3 feet away from losing the Super Bowl to Jeff Fisher's Titans. Fisher is a great coach, but not one generally considered a coaching genius. And then, when Martz is fired in 2006, that's after five years of total mediocrity in St. Louis, which had nothing to do with losing the 2001 Super Bowl, but down performances in the five years following it. Martz also had mixed runs in Detroit, San Fransisco, and Chicago before retiring.

The story about Martz feeling like the NFL changed his statement before releasing it is definitely interesting, but this article and the whole story (and this thread) is certainly about the Patriots alleged cheating, and that line is definitely an odd factoid that isn't the focus of the article.
Click to expand...

Undoubtedly the article reads as a hitpiece of Belichick and the organization, but the NFL and Goodell definitely do not appear like boyscouts, playing coverup of Spygate on top of lying to a US Congressman.

What it has shown me is that Goodell has little to no respect for maintaining league integrity or sport integrity and his office will go to greats lengths to protects the shadiness of the NFL's operations.
 
T

ThankYouDaletech

Banned
People cheat whenever they don't think they'll be caught. All the most successful and wealthy people and organizations cheat. But if you want to delude yourself into think your team isn't cheating (they are, the Patriots are just better at football AND cheating) that's fine too.
 
Q

Quotient

Member
Cybit said:
Considering that article - I'm gonna guess "option 2"; but not to that extreme. Basically - it boils down to that BB was willing to push the boundaries further than most out of arrogance / intelligence, and even when he crossed it, he a) figured some kind of weak fine was worth it and b) figured he could talk / think his way out of it. Unfortunately for the Pats - they got arrogant trying the same normal stuff on someone who had warned them about doing it (IE; Mangini) and got busted. Goodell panicked (as no one should be surprised) and swept everything under the carpet because he was afraid Specter was going to hurt the NFL badly with an investigation. Owners got mad and wanted their make up call.

Add in that we live in much different media times (The Pats are one of the first sports dynasties in the 2000s); more information is bound to get out over time than say, 20 years ago.

I mean, honestly, this article paints the NFL as badly as the Patriots. They openly accuse the NFL of going ballistic on Brady as a "makeup call"; they hint that the NFL openly manipulated signed statements given by their own employees in order to lie to Congress; and they basically routinely cover up major issues that may or may not affect the integrity of the game (even referring to Rozelle and Tagliabue keeping things "in house").
Click to expand...

I can't imagine that teams stealing each other play-sheets and we don't hear about it until now.

I do agree with you that the article definitely paints the NFL in a bad light, but it also flings a lot of unsubstantiated accusations at the Patriots, some of which are very, very troubling if true. If you are going to make accusations then you better well have the evidence to back it up.
 
M

MadLaughter

Member
Dutch Patriot said:
Remind me how many championships did the Chargers win? And wasn't it the Chargers wo got caught with their WRs with stick-em all over their gloves? Just like the great Jerry Rice used to do.
Click to expand...

Cleared of those stick-UM charges.

Also, the 'kiss the rings, bro" argument is a favorite of clueless people everywhere. You didn't do anything to help the Pats get those rings. Also, going through life as a Steelers, Pats, Cowboys or 9ers fan is going through life on the 'beginner' difficulty. You know who deserves respect? Browns fans. I'd wager that their lack of success probably weeded the bandwagon of people like you. Ask yourself: Would you still be a fan without the rings? If so, then the 'kiss the rings' argument is a moronic one to make.

Anyway, the world isn't 'jealous' of New England. I pity their fans. It's delusion on a biblical level.
 
A

Arc

Member
The crying is just oh so wonderful... Yes losing teams, the Patriots legally taping signals is the reason your team imploded.

It's laughable and pretty sad that people like Jaebee can't accept that they support a losing franchise so they take it out on the Pats.
 
D

DarkFlow

Banned
MadLaughter said:
Cleared of those stick-UM charges.

Also, the 'kiss the rings, bro" argument is a favorite of clueless people everywhere. You didn't do anything to help the Pats get those rings. Also, going through life as a Steelers, Pats, Cowboys or 9ers fan is going through life on the 'beginner' difficulty. You know who deserves respect? Browns fans. I'd wager that their lack of success probably weeded the bandwagon of people like you. Ask yourself: Would you still be a fan without the rings? If so, then the 'kiss the rings' argument is a moronic one to make.

Anyway, the world isn't 'jealous' of New England. I pity their fans. It's delusion on a biblical level.
Click to expand...

This is new NFL man, so the chargers cheated.

Explained CSNNE's Tom Curran: "They didn’t cough up towels when told to do so. They tried to hide them. The towels had sticky crap on them which – if they were being hidden – makes it more probable than not that an advantage was being gained that the Chargers wanted concealed. And the NFL’s Competition Committee laid down a new [rule]. No sticky towels."
Click to expand...
 
M

Mihael Mello Keehl

Banned
As a packers fan I just lol.. like seriously who cares? I mean if they was using steroids and loaded up or somethin I would be like damn but how much could some deflated ball stop a man from being tackled?
 
T

The Albatross

Member
DoktorEvil said:
Undoubtedly the article reads as a hitpiece of Belichick and the organization, but the NFL and Goodell definitely do not appear like boyscouts, playing coverup of Spygate on top of lying to a US Congressman.

What it has shown me is that Goodell has little to no respect for maintaining league integrity or sport integrity and his office will go to greats lengths to protects the shadiness of the NFL's operations.
Click to expand...

#ProtectTheShield
 
P

ParityBit

Member
The awesome part in all this, it is still legal to film signals, just not from the sidelines and only from designated areas such as the end zone team film boxes.
 
D

DarkFlow

Banned
ParityBit said:
The awesome part in all this, it is still legal to film signals, just not from the sidelines and only from designated areas such as the end zone team film boxes.
Click to expand...

Yep.
87E4PL7.jpg
 
T

TheLostBigBoss

Banned
MadLaughter said:
Cleared of those stick-UM charges.

Also, the 'kiss the rings, bro" argument is a favorite of clueless people everywhere. You didn't do anything to help the Pats get those rings. Also, going through life as a Steelers, Pats, Cowboys or 9ers fan is going through life on the 'beginner' difficulty. You know who deserves respect? Browns fans. I'd wager that their lack of success probably weeded the bandwagon of people like you. Ask yourself: Would you still be a fan without the rings? If so, then the 'kiss the rings' argument is a moronic one to make.

Anyway, the world isn't 'jealous' of New England. I pity their fans. It's delusion on a biblical level.
Click to expand...

Yea if you're under the age of 25 then being a Pats fan is easy mode growing up.

But if you're over the age of 30 and grew up with them it was far from "easy mode".
 
D

Dutch Gronk

Banned
MadLaughter said:
Cleared of those stick-UM charges.

Also, the 'kiss the rings, bro" argument is a favorite of clueless people everywhere. You didn't do anything to help the Pats get those rings. Also, going through life as a Steelers, Pats, Cowboys or 9ers fan is going through life on the 'beginner' difficulty. You know who deserves respect? Browns fans. I'd wager that their lack of success probably weeded the bandwagon of people like you. Ask yourself: Would you still be a fan without the rings? If so, then the 'kiss the rings' argument is a moronic one to make.

Anyway, the world isn't 'jealous' of New England. I pity their fans. It's delusion on a biblical level.
Click to expand...

The whole bandwagon argument is a favorite of losers everywhere. I didn't choose a fandom, no choosing in where your family is from.
 
M

MadLaughter

Member
Dutch Patriot said:
The whole bandwagon argument is a favorite of losers everywhere. I didn't choose a fandom, no choosing in where your family is from.
Click to expand...

Bandwagoning is most commonly used to describe becoming a fan when you weren't a fan before, but a person who is technically a fan of a team but gets WAY more into it when they're good is also someone jumping on the bandwagon.

Which seems appropriate, considering how desperately you cling to those rings*.
 
D

DarkFlow

Banned
MadLaughter said:
Bandwagoning is most commonly used to describe becoming a fan when you weren't a fan before, but a person who is technically a fan of a team but gets WAY more into it when they're good is also someone jumping on the bandwagon.

Which seems appropriate, considering how desperately you cling to those rings*.
Click to expand...

So every San Diego fan. I live here, no one gives a shit about them unless they win. Even then they don't care enough to fill up the stands. Likely why they are about to move to LA.
 
D

Dragon

Banned
MadLaughter said:
Bandwagoning is most commonly used to describe becoming a fan when you weren't a fan before, but a person who is technically a fan of a team but gets WAY more into it when they're good is also someone jumping on the bandwagon.

Which seems appropriate, considering how desperately you cling to those rings*.
Click to expand...

Proving that your 'fanhood' is legitimate is some of the most ridiculous shit on message boards. Just stop. You're already behind because I assume you root for the Chargers and that religious nutjob Rivers!
 
B

blackflag

Member
Sports fans trip me out. They so invested that their team wins when they have no part in it and could never do what the athletes do.

I love playing sports but fan culture is ridiculous.
 
M

MadLaughter

Member
DarkFlow said:
So every San Diego fan. I live here, no one gives a shit about them unless they win. Even then they don't care enough to fill up the stands. Likely why they are about to move to LA.
Click to expand...

Yeah, we have our fair share of fairweather fans. I think the same of them too.

Dragon said:
Proving that your 'fanhood' is legitimate is some of the most ridiculous shit on message boards. Just stop. You're already behind because I assume you root for the Chargers and that religious nutjob Rivers!
Click to expand...

I'm about as far from religious as one gets without carving a pentagram into myself, but Rivers doesn't bother me at all. Dude is humble as hell, and has never been one to OVER-express his views like Russell Wilson or Tebow. The santorum thing was an odd blip, but Rivers has always thanked his team, his o-line, his wife etc before pointing towards the clouds. I've never heard him say "god decided to challenge me" when he had a bad game. I bet, like many people in the world, his views have evolved a bit since 2012. No proof of that though, that was the last time we heard anythingp olitical from his world.

I actually watched an hour long special of Rivers on some religious network, and he turned it into a thing more about family and loyalty and hard work and all that. Dude's flight got cancelled for some kid's event two states over and instead of canceling, he drove himself like 8 hours ot get there and back. Guy's a lot of things, but I'd never include nutjob among them.
 
M

msdstc

Incredibly Naive
Rivers? Dude is insane, and I don't even mean just the religious thing. He's good though so who cares.
 
D

DarkFlow

Banned
msdstc said:
Rivers? Dude is insane, and I don't even mean just the religious thing. He's good though so who cares.
Click to expand...

How so? Other than him being a baby making machine, he's not really all that out there. He's religious, that doesn't make someone insane.
 
P

PeregrinSe7en

Member
Dutch Patriot said:
Another championship less franchise complaining about the greatest franchise in NFL history. It's must suck to be as terrible as you guys are. Even with the stick-em on your gloves you can't win shit.
Click to expand...

by that you must mean the green bay packers

cause championships:

13 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 4
 
H

hom3land

Member
msdstc said:
Rivers? Dude is insane, and I don't even mean just the religious thing. He's good though so who cares.
Click to expand...


He gave the speech at my wife's graduation at nc state a few years back. He might be a good football player bit damn he is boring as hell. Maybe that's why he has 8 kids.
 
D

DarkFlow

Banned
PeregrinSe7en said:
by that you must mean the green bay packers

cause championships:

13 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 4
Click to expand...

No one cares about non Super Bowls. Otherwise I get to claim one as a Cards fan, but I don't.

Dragon said:
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015...n-philip-rivers-wants-nothing-to-do-with-l-a/

He's out there. The Rick Santorum thing doesn't surprise me. Santorum is an absolutely abhorrent human being.
Click to expand...
He just signed a 4 year contract, so that shit went out the window.
 
C

Cybit

FGC Waterboy
Quotient said:
I can't imagine that teams stealing each other play-sheets and we don't hear about it until now.
Click to expand...

As someone who has a friend from HS who plays in the NBA (and keeps in touch with us all) - that kind of stuff being kept from public view for years would be pretty par for the course for sports leagues. MLB did the same thing with greenies in the 80s, and steroids in the 90s (on top of the entire "colluding against free agents" thing) - everyone knew about those for years, if not decades.

All of the leagues are basically doing this with regards to PEDs (except maybe MLB).

Gamesmanship is insane when it comes to pro leagues - and a lot has to do with the money associated and complete lack of outside oversight in any meaningful way. Remember that from a financial perspective, NFL teams are working 100% together and not competing with each other. So if something is a potential financial threat - they close ranks - even if it means hurting their own individual teams (See: Washington and Dallas, 2010 uncapped salary cap years, and punishment leveled by the NFL on those teams) in the process.

Quotient said:
I do agree with you that the article definitely paints the NFL in a bad light, but it also flings a lot of unsubstantiated accusations at the Patriots, some of which are very, very troubling if true. If you are going to make accusations then you better well have the evidence to back it up.
Click to expand...

What's incredibly interesting is that the Patriots response doesn't refer to them stealing sheets being incorrect at all. They very specifically don't mention that being false. They talk about "general" things - but refer specifically to the debunked report about the Rams super bowl and the erroneous deflate-gate numbers.
 
G

GregLombardi

Member
A multi-billion dollar all powerful company wants to publicly shit on a franchise with whom they are having problems, and we are giving them equal footing via ESPN, another company that gets a LOT of money covering a LOT of things that are equally as involved?
 
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