2015 New England Patriots Thread

I mean, no offense, but this is bull****. “I’m not going to argue with you, but I’ll just point out that when I’m confronted I’ll revert to calling you unreasonable rather than pointing out anything new.” No. The reason why Patriots fans get upset at this is that Patriots fans have invested the time and energy to point out how false these reports generally are. It isn’t that hard to do, but people who are not fans don’t spend the energy b/c they don’t care. As seems to be the case with you.

With that out of the way, I suppose you’ll require me to go through your post and point out (a) what we are arguing about, and (b) how you are wrong.

Let’s look at the two sets of issues separately: Spygate brought back up 8 years later, and the myriad of “small s***” that you consider significant. Interspersed, we’ll talk about how whether we should look askew at Van Natta and Wickersham’s sources considering that we have no idea who they are.

There is virtually nothing new in this article about Spygate. Adams as the center of the “gate” has been covered repeatedly: it is even mentioned by Senator Spector in his floor statement (http://old.post-gazette.com/downloads/20080608letter_specter.pdf ). The nuts and bolts of the operation (including Adams as the alleged center) are all old news - its just repeating what Walsh previously said. Matching the tapes to plays – allegedly on game days after the 2006 memo, but there is no evidence of that – is also old news. And, of course, the farce of taping of practices is so old news that I need not mention the fact that ESPN itself two-weeks ago issued an apology for stating that repeatedly on air (an apology that it appears to have forgotten, as it repeated the discredited allegation in this article, too). That these are new to you is more than you haven’t been paying attention to it – which is fine, of course. But that’s the point – Patriots fans have been. So the hand-waving (which I take to mean “not investing real energy/time in something”) is actually on the non-fan side. To be more clear: you (and other fans, for whom this was written) are being lazy.

But let’s not mince words: this is a bull**** controversy. The Patriots could have hired 4 people to:
(1) stand on the Patriots sideline with binoculars and write down the signals they saw the opposition use;
(2) write down the down-distance simultaneously;
(3) write down the play-call; and
(4) write down the personnel.

They then could have relayed that information to Adams in-between quarters, and Adams could speak directly to the sideline on his headphones. All that would have been perfectly legal. Yet taping the same information was not. That’s the entire controversy. It is a very technical violation. It is not “cheating” to look at what “80,000” people can look at. It does not mean that the Patriots weren’t wrong to have done so, and the team’s response was kind of lame, but it’s a BS controversy that should have been treated that way – fine them $250,000 for violating the clear dictates of the memo, and tell them never to do it again or the penalty will be worse. The penalty is for failing to listen even if the rule itself is stupid - but, really, there is no need to relive Spygate – the point is really just that there is nothing new.

Ok the issue of the “small s---“, the issues are all nonsense. But, let’s go through them one-by-one if you must:

1. “during pregame warm-ups, a low-level Patriots employee would sneak into the visiting locker room and steal the play sheet” – Seriously? You think that (a) locker rooms aren’t secured, and (b) people leave play sheets laying around? As Mike Reiss wrote on his ESPN blog (in a piece that ESPN edited to remove this obviously, after it already went up – see Bruce Allen’s blog: www.bostonsportsmedia.com ) security is tight in football stadiums. There is no way that is true. Now, I’m sure that the Patriots have rummaged through trash before – which, of course, is not cheating. Everyone does that – and everyone would love to find a play sheet. ESPN has zoomed in on playsheets before (http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/09/chip-kelly-play-sheet-espn ; they did it to Sean Payten too). Again, the entirety of the proof is unnamed “[several] former New England coaches and employees.” No, I don’t believe that if the authors listed these people we’d believe them. I don’t have any good reason to think that they made up the sources – I just don’t believe their sources.

(That said, they clearly failed to point out that nearly all the Walsh allegations were debunked and that ESPN and the Boston Herald have already issued apologies for reporting it. In fact, they originally did not put the Patriots statement in the article – they then put an edited version of that statement, excluding the fact that ESPN apologies for the false reports, then finally put the full statement in. Seriously, how do you know that and not think this is an intentional hatchet job?)

2. “(The practice became so notorious that some coaches put out fake play sheets for the Patriots to swipe.)” Yet, none of these coaches could put a hidden camera up (or a person!) to catch this obviously breach of ethics? Seriously?

3. “Numerous former employees say the Patriots would have someone rummage through the visiting team hotel for playbooks or scouting reports.” I’m not sure what this means, because it is not clear at all. I am sure the Patriots did look in trash – good for them. Who hasn’t? I’m also sure that they did NOT wiretap rooms, break into secured areas, etc.

4. “At Gillette Stadium, the scrambling and jamming of the opponents' coach-to-quarterback radio line -- "small s---" that many teams do, according to a former Pats assistant coach -- occurred so often that one team asked a league official to sit in the coaches' box during the game and wait for it to happen. Sure enough, on a key third down, the headset went out.” Come on. Seriously? A league official sat there and witnessed tampering but nothing happened to the Patriots??? That’s the allegation – that the NFL witness the malfeasance. Yet, have you heard of the Pats being sanctioned? I mean, I guess its possible that it took place – it certainly isn’t new. The communications system issue (#4) was alleged in 2008 by the Cardinals. It was investigated by the NFL and nothing came of up.

Anyway, as I pointed out above – none of these are new allegations. All of these were listed by SI earlier this year. Plus more. So, this article did not do anything to advance a story. It was 100% a hatchet job. Yet, in response to pointing out an article with the same exact allegations, you respond with “I’m not going to change your mind.” What? Why would you change my mind? I asked what is new – you responded. I pointed out that the same allegations were made nearly verbatim a few months ago (though, they’ve been made repeatedly in the prior years, too) and you say “well, I won’t change your mind.”

I was not then arguing that the allegations were accurate – just that they were clearly not “new.” Yet, they are pretty weak – and they should be recognized as such. But, for my point, I’m really just pointing out that this is a clear hatchet job by the NFL through ESPN. If you didn’t think so before, then the handling of the Patriots statement in response and Reiss’s blog posts should make that clear.

Fair point with respect to the Spygate details-- I fully admit that, at the time, I did not read the Spector statement or dig into the details of how the operation worked. I already mentioned above that I agree that it is mostly a technical violation which did not have a significant effect on competitive balance, so we're in agreement there.

But I absolutely think that getting former Patriot employees to describe and confirm the "small s---" is new and meaningful. There is a huge difference between allegations by opposing coaches/players/executives that these things happened and confirmation by former Patriot coaches and employees that they did indeed happen, and this story provides the latter.

Sure, let's take that approach with respect to the following paragraph:
1) New? Yes-- to the best of my knowledge, no Patriots source had ever previously confirmed that the organization employed these schemes.
2) Sources? "many former New England coaches and employees"
3) Meaningful? Yes-- as discussed above, there's a big difference between accusations by members of other organizations (who, as you and others have correctly noted, have little direct evidence that their accusations are true) and confirmation by former Patriot employees, who would have direct knowledge of these schemes.

The response that joshv02 provided above is that he doesn't believe that these multiple former Patriot employees were telling the truth. That seems implausible to me. What incentive would they have to lie?

If you interview "many" and "several" former employees and can't get a single one of them to go on record, maybe you shouldn't treat that info as fact.

ESPN used to be one of the most respectable journalistic entities out there, despite the fact that they "only" reported about sports. Now they're TMZ ... minus the credibility and accuracy.

I still don't understand why, if this is a "thing", these sources were needed. How were coaches not SCREAMING about this at the top of their lungs, to whomever would listen.

Coaches get fired when they lose games. If Belichek and the Pats were cheating to the extent that the media/NFL would lead you to believe, then why are we only hearing about it through these unnamed sources.

If I'm at risk of losing my job and someone is cheating in a way that could impact that, I'm NOT keeping silent. Unless, of course, it's an accepted part of being a coach in the NFL (that part of the job is to engage in "espionage").

I understand the difference between anonymous sources versus off the record. I just find ESPN's liberal use of anonymous sources to be unethical.

They're not reporting on government corruption or a corporation covering up awful working conditions; they're reporting on sports. If all you have is anonymous sources all the time, maybe it's time to increase your journalistic standards?

It'd be one thing if ESPN had the track record of NPR or the New York Times. But considering Morts' recent Pats-related report didn't turn out so well...

jmei I applaud you for taking, what for me, is a more reasoned and more principled view not the "total blind fan" who damns anything that smudges us, justifies everything that was done, minimizes any benefit obtained, looks the other way on the fundamental principle or even champions resourcefulness in finding ways around the rules of fair play. Often I hear we are picked on because of jealousy, or pick your reason/excuse. I understand the emotions involved when negative comments against 'our' vicariously enjoyed successes are ingested. I feel those too. A thousand times I have defended Papi from the 2003 banned substances list. It stings..it takes away, we feel less. Our teams' successes make us feel better inside by association, the sun shines brighter, the psychological chest puffs, the stride is sprightly. We are the city of champions! Any besmirch does the opposite. The result? 'Those negative guys are bastards and a-holes. Why can't people leave us alone to enjoy "our" success'.

jmei I admire your strength of principle in the face of this so common, so natural, so human and so understandable reaction.

Gostkowski hits the crossbar, and it's time for football!

Check the psi...it's probably under 12....Brady likes it like that.

Not gonna happen, sorry.

I liked him on the Eagles.  Couldn't stay healthy and pretty redundant with McCoy in front of him.

Brady is probably pissed about the 2 incompletions in the first half.