NFL punishes Spygate II with light tap on Broncos' wrist
The Patriots' three Super Bowl victories and Bill Belichick’s career are forever tarnished by “Spygate.” Some NFL fans and players even claim the Patriots stole those Super Bowls and never could have won them fairly.
Nevermind that the 2007 season in which Spygate was exposed — in the first half of the first quarter of the first game of the season — the Patriots broke the all-time NFL scoring record, won their first 18 games and nearly completed a perfect season before a string of miraculous plays by the Giants — including a helmet making an impossible catch after Eli Manning escaped a defensive lineman’s grasp — robbed “us” of our perfect season.
Nevermind also that the Patriots have been an elite NFL team year in and year out for a full decade, including four post-Spygate seasons.
Nevermind also that “Spygate” was really just “Videogate” because spying on other teams' signals is completely legal under NFL rules and a universal practice. The only thing illegal is using a videocamera to record those signals. Using a lip reader? Legal. Binoculars and written notes? Legal. I even believe Belichick’s self-serving interpretation of the rule violated the spirit — but not the letter — of the rule.
The Patriots deserved punishment, but I’ve long believed the Patriots received a much harsher punishment than any other team would have for the same offense. After the Broncos were caught cheating on the salary cap to win back-to-back Super Bowls, they lost only a 3rd-round draft pick. After Videogate, many former NFL coaches admitted to having done the same exact spying. They all seemed to say this was one of those rules that existed on paper but had never been enforced. Quite a few experts doubted how helpful recording signals in one game and utilizing that information only in a later game (as the Patriots claimed they did) could be, esp. since teams can and should change their signals from game to game. Regardless, red with envy at the Patriots, many were/are eager to rationalize away all the Patriots' success as due to cheating.
My belief the Patriots were excessively punished is bolstered by the NFL’s response to another team doing the exact same thing:
A $50,000 fine is almost laughable for a serious offense. The Broncos make $50,000 in seven minutes selling John Elway jerseys. McDaniels can earn that cash back with a few appearances alongside G. Gordon Liddy at a local Radio Shack.
The Patriots and Bill Belichick paid harshly — $750,000 in fines and the loss of a first-round pick — for videotaping the Jets' signals in Week 1 of 2007. That’s where the precedent was set. How is a second offense of illegal taping worth a far less severe punishment?
“It was not heavily fined enough,” [former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Bill] Cowher said. “Draft picks should have been taken away.”
Jeff Pash, the NFL’s executive vice president, said the difference between the Patriots' and Broncos' spying cases was the extensiveness of New England’s….
That sounds reasonable, but this is still a second instance. The punishment ceiling was raised by the Patriots.
Posted by James on Monday, November 29, 2010