Actually, I think he should have been suspended 8 games, they forefit the game in which they got caught, and they lose all of their 1st day draft picks. That in addition to the big fines.
If they get caught again, it should be a loss of all 1st day draft picks for 3 years and a year suspension for the head coach.
I also like the idea of removing all Pats communication devices, but that will only encourage other teams to cheat against them so it would be counter-productive.
I guess there are countless ways to judge it, but a sport's integrity is the only thing keeping it from being worthless trash so you would think violating it would carry a huge penalty.
You need to be commish.Lame. If I were commish, BB would've been suspended for the season, and then the team would've been stripped of all communicating and recording devices for the rest of the season.
Let em use hand signals for a year.
you sound eerily like mav fan after 2006.
I can't imagine what that feels like
fair punishment for being caught doing something that everybody else does too. it's definitely possible that they got off lightly though.
Last edited by monosylab1k; 09-14-2007 at 12:37 AM.
I don't think people realize just how much of an advantage this could have been for the Pats. Teams don't change their signs for every game due to a high probablility of confusion and an increased probability of blown coverages leading to easy scores for the offense. The Pats could have been video taping the signs in the 1st meeting for use against division rivals in the 2nd, and also could have employed a "scout" team to tape the next weeks coming opponent. This is a huge development that has people questioning calls going back years and leads to questions like this one from the Cowboys site:
"Dylan Falkenburg, Wells, Maine: Just wanted to get your thoughts on the two amazing blitz pickups in the Bill vs. Bill game back in 2003. When I watched this game I was ready to bow down to the Patriots' staff as the greatest play-callers of all time. Two big blitzes from the Cowboys, and two incidents of perfect blocking assignments being called. Two big plays, leading to two scores. Have I been duped? Is Belichick just a cheater?
Mickey: You know, now that you mention this, I remember that well, how the Patriots seemed to counter the blitzing Cowboys with screen passes thrown away from the blitz. Seemingly every time. And I was with you back then. But now, this is what happens when someone's credibility is called into question, just as the NBA recently went through with referee Tim Donaghy, everyone going back to games he worked and calling into question some of his calls. This is why Roger Goodell's punishment must be swift and harsh. "
To me those are all legitimate questions now and the benefit gained by cheating could have been huge for their entire SB runs. This has to shake the NFL to the core much, much worse than the Michael Vick problem.
How do you know everybody else does it? Has anyone else been caught that I'm not aware?
You're right, you're only cheating if you get caught. Texas has never paid a football player to play there. Only SMU has done that. in cheaters.
The anti-Patriots bias is hilarious.
The Dolphins steal a playbook. Nothing happens.
The Jets tamper with trade offers & contract re-negotiations involving a player UNDER CONTRACT to the Patriots. Nothing happens.
If this was the Bengals getting caught doing it to New England, they'd probably be bumped to the front of the line to receive a Congressional Medal Of Honor.
Last edited by monosylab1k; 09-14-2007 at 12:50 AM.
another thing that needs to be taken into account is that nobody knows the extent to which those video tapes were used. since Goodell is the one that reviewed it, only he knows exactly what the Patriots did to cheat. maybe his punishment was too light, maybe it was just right. unless you see those tapes for yourself you really can't go suggesting year long suspensions and all this crap.
but what the do i know, i'm just a Patriots homer, right?
Woa, no need to take it personally. I'm sure there may be others out there cheating as well, but until they are uncovered there is one major distinction: The Patriots are the ones who got caught. You can't punish people you haven't caught doing anything wrong, so it is up to the league to investigate complaints and punish people who are caught. I'm not so much interested in the severity of the punishment since I don't know exactly what was on the tapes and any other evidence the league has gathered. I'm more interested in exactly what they were caught doing and just how long they have been doing this, because it could possibly have played a role in the championships that they have won. It may not have, but it's very possible at this point that it did.
You just won't give up will you
I won't be surprised in a week or two when there is evidence they've cheated for years.
Here is the picture of the dumbass that got caught...
LMFAO How ING STUPID is this guy? He is RIGHT IN THE JETS FACE just brazenly videotaping them. What the were the Patriots thinking hiring this re ?
Almost as funny is the Jets personnel just sitting there letting him do it.
I'm sure the guy the Jets hired to videotape the Patriots signals was sitting in the stands laughing his head off at this dumbass.
Almost as funny as BeliSnake saying "We have never used sideline video to obtain a compe ive advantage while the game was in progress."
I was thinking the exact same thing...Couldn't of said it better....well put
The difference between 2006 Mav Fan is that he thought 67 wins equals trophy.... kind of like how Patsy fans think signing some big names equals trophy... hmmmmm. This Colts team is better than last year's, don't see why it's impossible to think they would beat the Pats again. Don't know where you got that idea buddy.
Stealing signs isn't something against the rules, it was the camera. You're pretty in dense if you think teams do not steal signals, or anything to gain a compe ive advantage.
The Gameface: Sandlot boys
By Michael Silver, Yahoo! Sports
September 14, 2007
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slu...yhoo&type=lgns
Just before halftime of last Sunday's game between the New York Jets and New England Patriots at Giants Stadium, a slight, unassuming man in a dark blue Pats polo shirt and khaki shorts was stopped by NFL security officials as he tried to enter the visitors' locker room. Suddenly, a 26-year-old video assistant named Matt Estrella found himself in a scene that might have been lifted from "The Bourne Ultimatum."
Suspected of having filmed hand signals from Jets' coaches while standing on that team's sideline, Estrella was interrogated in the bowels of the stadium by Jets and NFL security officials. New Jersey state troopers and FBI agents were also summoned. Mike Tannenbaum, the Jets' general manager, left his seat during the second half and entered the fray, sternly lecturing Estrella about his apparent violation of NFL rules.
At one point, somebody brought Estrella a glass of water. He was shaking so hard that he spilled it all over himself. For all we know, that wasn't the only liquid that ended up on Estrella's person during the hour-long grilling.
Congratulations, Bill Belichick and Eric Mangini: your petty, childish little feud just made a member of the hired help wet his pants.
Now that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has come down hard on Belichick and the Patriots, fining the coach $500,000 and docking the organization $250,000 and a first-round NFL draft pick (if New England makes the playoffs) or second- and third-round choices in 2008, we can all sit back and condemn him for blatantly cheating in the pursuit of a compe ive edge. Some people, including a few current members of the Philadelphia Eagles, are even questioning whether the Pats' three Super Bowl victories in the previous six seasons are tainted by this behavior.
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It's a public relations nightmare for an organization that has been mostly classy and commendable in creating the 21st century's first mini-dynasty, but focusing on the potential advantage New England gained from the stolen signals is missing the point.
The people who've truly been cheated are those in the Patriots' organization – and their counterparts among the Mangini-coached Jets – who've been subjected to this consuming and unbecoming sandbox fight between two shrewd yet self-absorbed coaches.
If you don't think Sunday's bust was a setup (granted, a well-deserved one), you're not looking closely enough. Belichick ordered an employee to engage in a practice that Mangini knew all about, as it had been commonplace during his time as Belichick's defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach in New England. Anyone with a brain, let alone a brainiac like Belichick, would realize that videotaping an opponent's coaches in that particular context was a disaster waiting to happen. Arrogantly and blatantly, Belichick did it anyway, operating under the Clintonesque rationale that because he wasn't breaking down opposing coaches' signals until after the completion of the game in question, he wasn't violating any rules. I did not view tape from that camera (until later, when I used it for future signal-stealing reference.) So Slick Billy was there for the taking, and Mangini took down his former mentor, and hard, while watching his team suffer a 38-14 defeat.
Lest you think this was some random occurrence, consider the incestuous connections between the two organizations:
• The Jets' video director, Steve Scarnecchia, formerly worked for the Patriots' video department. Sources say he once had the same duties that landed Estrella in spilled water last Sunday and that Scarnecchia was the one who trained Estrella to clandestinely compile the verboten footage in the first place. Oh, and Scarnecchia's father, Dante, is New England's longtime offensive line coach and has been Belichick's assistant head coach since 2000. Theirs should be a whale of a Thanksgiving dinner.
• Another Jets employee, coordinator of college scouting Jay Mandolesi, was an intern in the Patriots' video department in 2002 and '03. Sources say he was fired after a dispute with then offensive coordinator Charlie Weis, possibly over similar video subterfuge.
• Tannenbaum and his Patriots counterpart, vice president of player personnel Scott Pioli, were once close friends, having previously worked together in Cleveland and with the Jets. Their relationship is now frayed.
How did all of this happen? How did Belichick, probably the greatest defensive strategist of his era and a future Hall of Fame coach, allow one of his prodigies to distract him from the task at hand and make him look like a fool?
It goes back to the end of the 2005 season, when the Jets were courting Mangini as a replacement for departed coach Herm Edwards. Belichick, who as the Browns' head coach in '95 had given his fellow Wesleyan alum an assistant's job after having noticed Mangini's work as a public relations intern, had a deep-seated disdain for the Jets' organization dating back to his infamous one-day stint as New York's head coach following Bill Parcells's resignation in January of 2000.
Go be a head coach anywhere but there, Belichick told his then-34-year-old defensive coordinator. There'll be other opportunities, and I'll help you get them, Belichick insisted. Just don't take this one.
Mangini took the job anyway, and Belichick felt betrayed. When Belichick learned that Mangini, while still serving out his final days with the Patriots, was soliciting Pats coaches, support staff members and players to join him at his new gig, the war was on. Belichick had Mangini's key card access revoked, but not before Mangini, a source says, took a laptop with confidential files stored in its hard drive out of the building. Mangini hired a Pats employee, Erin O'Brien, as his administrative assistant.
"He did exactly what Bill would do in the same situation," says one high-ranking league source who knows both men. "Bill raised him too well."
Whereas Belichick remained on good terms with ex-assistants Romeo Crennel, who took the Cleveland job, and Nick Saban, who went to the division rival Dolphins, Mangini was persona non grata the second he went to the dreaded Jets. Worse, the Patriots believed, star wideout Deion Branch felt empowered to hold out before the 2006 season because he'd been told by Mangini that the Jets sought his services at the price he desired.
Last August, when the Patriots gave Branch a week to negotiate with other teams in pursuit of a possible trade, the Jets were one of two franchises, along with the Seahawks, who made big-money offers. Branch was ultimately traded to Seattle, and the Patriots filed tampering charges against the Jets, who were later cleared by the league of wrongdoing.
The bad blood between Belichick and Mangini was evident after each of the two teams' regular season meetings in '06. First, following a 24-17 Pats victory at Giants Stadium, Belichick refused to look at Mangini during their brief handshake at midfield. Two months later, after the Jets pulled off a 17-14 upset at Gillette Stadium, Belichick tried a similar tack before Mangini grabbed his arm and gloated, "Great job!"
In January, after the Pats eliminated the Jets from the playoffs by a 37-16 score, Belichick shoved a photographer out of the way to get to Mangini and gave his former assistant what appeared to be a showboating, insincere hug.
After the season Mangini hired Brian Daboll, the Pats' wide receivers coach the previous five seasons, as his quarterbacks coach, compelling Belichick's staff to change much of its terminology over the offseason.
The gamesmanship continued before the start of the '07 season when Mangini brought in two players, wideout Reche Caldwell and cornerback Artrell Hawkins, who'd just been released by New England, a move some believed was little more than a ploy to pick the players' brains about the upcoming opponent's plays and terminology. The Pats countered by bringing in wideout Tim Dwight, who'd just been released by the Jets.
What went down on Sunday, of course, escalated this hissing match to a much darker place. Now that Mangini has made him the object of national embarrassment – and taken a $500,000 chunk out of his bank account – how should Belichick retaliate?
Here's how: Stop the madness. Take the high road. Start focusing on what he does best – coming up with brilliant game plans, picking the best players for his system and motivating them to perform at the highest level – and let go of a grudge that is totally beneath a coach of his stature.
When I hear about Mangini's paranoia, the secrecy over injuries, the threats of fining players whom he suspects of having given anonymous quotes or whose agents comment publicly about their clients' ailments, I think, "What a bunch of wasted energy." But I also can somewhat forgive him: He's young, and he thinks that by emulating Belichick in these ways he'll be destined for the same kind of towering success. Or perhaps he just got caught up in his "Mangenius" nickname and the guest turn on The Sopranos. Whatever: He's 36, and hopefully he'll grow up in the years to come.
Belichick is 55, and even though he's smarter than a fifth grader, he's acting like one. I've been a fan of his work from way, way back, through the post-Browns days when he was considered a classic head coaching washout, and despite his media-repellent ways we've had a good relationship for a long time. I want to see him enjoy the fruits of his labor and the legacy he has earned through hard work and exceptional a en; I don't want to see him pushing photographers or revoking key cards or, worst of all, getting popped for cheating because he seemingly believed he could do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, no matter who was watching.
Well, Little Brother was watching, and now he's laughing at Belichick because he's gotten so far under his skin.
Belichick may think it was the height of hypocrisy, not to mention an ungrateful maneuver by a guy who owes him a career, and he might be right. It doesn't matter.
As a very smart coach has often said, it is what it is.
And now, gentlemen, it's time to let it go.
TAKE IT TO THE ATM:
Highly doubtful there. It's going to take more than 1 week of beating a team that was primed to come back down to earth to prove that.
I wish Stern was the Commissioner of the NFL too, then they might have gotten a real penalty like what Minnesota got for the joe smith thing, 4 first rounders would have been a real punishment.
so, since someone somewhere at some time cheated and got away with it, everyone is now cheating, most just haven't been caught?
since your team has been proven guilty, now every team is guilty until proven innocent?
Apparently Goodell and Bob Kraft are tight.So Wade Wilson gets 5 games because he took some stuff to get him a boner, but Belicheat gets busted for CHEATING and only get a fine?
I'm still not sure how an assistant coach taking HGH is a compe ive advantage. It is illegal and should be punished for breaking the rules, but 5 games? and Belichik gets a fine that will probably get paid for him anyway?
That's ed up.
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