Goddamn, son! Until this day I had always been befuddled by the O.A. "Bum" Phillips Oilers winning in San Diego with their 1st 2nd and 3rd best player (Campbell) and starting QB (Dan Pastrami) sitting out. Please elaborate if there are any good details.
I have mixed feelings about Cameragate. I'd like to rewatch the rather pedestrian Pats-Eagles SB to analyze the screen pass-blitz accusation.
O.A. "Bum" Phillips.
Are you so petty that you needed to screw up D'Onofrio's link? 
The whole thing with Belichick is patently absurd. Roger "GOD"ell should be trying harder to clean up the HGH rampant use in his sport and trying to punish a team and a coach for gamesmanship that's been going on in ALL sports before the best part of Goodell ended up in his Dad's toilet. And Chad, have no fear Chad, I will always check back in here regardless of what links you show us to other guy's writing---the random card will always insure that.
You copied D'onofrio's link twice so it doesn't work....
try davedonofrio.com
The hell with D'Onofrio. Find it yourself.
(Okay, it's fixed.)
The Sports Illustrated story on the Oilers-Chargers game had all the detail about the playbook, but I can't seem to find it online. A DB named Vernon Perry for Houston picked off Fouts four times that day.
Dave Beard, the only one of the three without facial hair.
I think on this the Pats are suffering from Barry Bonds Syndrom. Sure, every team except the Bears probably cheats, but the Pats are the highest-profile one to get caught, and the smugness - or arrogance - of the franchise in general adds to the schadenfreud. If, say, the Lions had gotten caught stealing signals, who cares? Just like no one cares when Neifi Perez tests positive for greenies every week.
You say:
"Consider: Belichick was astoundingly arrogant in thinking he could get away with this after having been warned about it previously - and he was flat-out stupid in thinking he could get away with it against Eric Mangini, the disowned, desperate former protege who simply must have been well aware of Belichick's tactics. I'm still stumped at what Belichick's thought process was in trying to do this, because it simply cannot be justified under the circumstances."
To me, there is only one way to explain it: he didn't think he was doing anything wrong. Simple as that.
I think that Belichick hated the rule and thought it should be allowed and so he kept doing it. Then, if questioned, he would just say that he intepreted the rule differently and they would just warn him or fine him. Quite a miscalculation, obviously.
Further proof of this theory is that the video guy was hiding in plain sight. Belichick made no attempts to hide him (he was wearing a Pats shirt for crying out loud!), he knew that Mangini knew who the guy was from his time with the Pats, didn't position him with other legit photogs, or rotate the guys who did the taping, etc.
To me that is the only plausible explanation for his actions (or inactions, I guess).
Can we please stop blaming Mangini in this mess? If the shoe was on the other foot and the Pats were the team who had been dominated by the Jets and the Patriots' coach knew something like this was going on, I'd expect him to do the exact same thing.
Oh and you are 100% right on the question of how commonplace this is. I would like just ONE reporter to take the time to find out exactly what advantage the Pats gained from this.
It's funny, there have been a few quotes from 'inside sources' that I have seen sprinkled in here and there, and they seem to range from 'negligible to very slight advantage', yet these quotes are lost in the mist of some hysterical article about how the Patriots have 'shaken the foundation of integrity that the league was built upon'... or something like that.
They were wrong. They were punished. Yet, no one is saying the truth: In the end, they are guilty of doing with a videocamera, exactly what other teams do with a pair of binoculars and a ballpoint pen. They got the same info (or 'cheated' if you will), they just used electronic means to get it. Again, it's against the rules, but not 'integrity shaking'.
Please, just ONE journalist... step up!!
tom: i think he thought he had been getting away with it this long, and that he'd get away with it in the future. simple as that.
donovan: you're not the first person to make the bonds comparison to me today, and I admit, there are a lot of similarities. (though belichick's big head is only figurative.)
Chad:
I dunno -- this just feels to me like a game of one-upsmanship between Mangini and Belicheck, with Eric winning this round.
To be honest, I'm more pissed at people like LT trying to sermonize about this, when he's got a known steroid user keying the defense.
I'm just glad that the Pats are collectively doing what I've wanted every sports team and personality to do when a scandal comes up -- apologize then shut up about it. No excuses, no whining that "It's my cousin's bag with all the ecstasy, not mine!" garbage.....
It's over and expect the Pats to cover barely against the Chargers tomorrow so we will hear more about see what happens, he's not so great now stories next week.
Meanwhile back at the ranch its after watching Francona screw up last night with the bullpen and the fragging meltdown of Okajima and Papelbon in the eighth on Friday night, is any lead big enough for the sox against the MFY's.
6-1 bottom of 7th on Saturday and Ellsbury has a chance to salt it away!!
Not sure exactly who you are, but I stop by this site since boston.com links it. Felt compelled to write because you actually called Mortensen out. Seems like nobody else does. The guy is almost always wrong without fail. More importantly, you called BSG out, which I appreciate. It seems like nobody else has. Everybody simply tip-toes around him these days. He lost his fastball around the time he moved and dropped further downhill when he was posting a ton the year the Pats were in the SB down in NO. He's wayyyy too full of himself at this point. While he steps it up every once in a while, it's kind of like watching Pedro in '04.
Um . . . thanks?
Is that what they call "damning with faint praise?"
I'm just a simple man, but riddle me this Finn- If it wasn't really a big advantage against Hines and Del Rio, then why did Billy keep doing it (even after he was warned to stop)?
Oh, and ignore how many times over the years teams said, "It was like they knew what we were going to do before we did it..."
Tainted Super Bowl wins? Yup!
According to the rule itself, then, aren't ALL types of video recording illegal, including your standard scouting tape, along with what the Pats did? Here's the rule itself, quoted:
"No video recording devices of any kind are permitted to be in use in the coaches' booth, on the field, or in the locker room during the game."
Under that definition, you could only use the TV feed for your week's preparations, which I'm sure NOBODY does. Also, had Belichick been savvy enough to have his videotaper in the stands and not on the sideline, he hasn't broken the rule.
Super Bowls tarnished? That's like saying every single game McGuire, Conseco, Bonds, etc. should be forfeited and stricken. Not happening. They'll only be tarnished for as long as this story sits around, which I put at another four days.
Taint this, Norv.
I'm leaving town, so this comment applies to your upcoming first and 10 about the Chargers-Pats game:
*
That is all.
Commenting by HaloScan
