Patriots Cheat Their Way to Winning
Filed Under (Forever Young) by Amy on 09-11-2007
In more football news, I just read that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has determined that the New England Patriots violated league rules Sunday when they videotaped defensive signals by the New York Jets’ coaches. D’oh! Busted. And the announcers were making fun of the Eagles shielding their coaches when they were calling plays. Not that the shielding helped the Eagles, but still, it’s sad that it’s necessary.
Why would the Patriots even resort to cheating? They seem to be doing just fine on the basis of sheer talent. I watched part of their game on Sunday and the Tom Brady / Randy Moss connection seemed to be a match made in Heaven. I hope there is some punishment for this – it wouldn’t be fair if they got away with it – the NFL needs to make an example out of them so other teams don’t start following suit.
The thing that really irks me is that they’ve been suspected of doing this before, at least once last season. It’s not enough for them to win all the Super Bowls, they have to cheat too? Bah. I hope Goodell is harsh with them. That’s not how championship teams should behave.
Fines won’t work. Teams just do cost/benefit analyses when deciding which rules to follow. Break a rule that gets you to the playoffs, where you make an $10M in ticket sales, and that 500K fine seems like a bargain.
They need to start talking about forfeits.
I totally agree with you, Tim. I’d love to see them have to forfeit a game… but then you start getting into advertising revenue. So, I don’t think that’s going to be happening any time soon, sadly.
A forfeit would be a good start. Darn cheaters.