Patriots SPYGATE was much worse than let on...OTL report

amusing

 

Hey, if the NFL wants to pay me $30-$40 million a year and one of the people who decides that pay scale wants me to cover **** up, I would think long and hard about covering **** up. The thing I can't figure out is why every other owner, coach, team decided to not make a bigger fuss about it. Only thing I can think is that they didn't have the proof to really come out hard.

 

Because it would hurt their pocket.

 

What a fascinating read.

How anyone that calls themselves a Patriots fan can be proud of their team after this, is beyond me.

I feel a bit bad for Roger with the Spygate stuff. I mean, if he doesn't do what he did, the NFL isn't likely where it is today. It would have taken a MAJOR hit from a fan support standpoint, similar to baseball with steroids etc as the article suggests. He punished them, sure all the facts stay hidden, and that really sucks, but I'm not sure what other choice he really had that would have kept the league, and 31 other owners' best interests at heart.

You're also a fool if you think that this kind of stuff didn't happen prior to spygate. Tagliabue was just better at keeping it under wraps, and in the leagues own house. That's a lot harder for Roger and his crew to do now with how quickly things spread out of control with social media.

All I'm saying, is that I can understand why he did what he did. Now he's tried to handle this one the opposite way, and it's blowing up in his face.

We can sit here and bash Godell all we want, but the root of the problem here isn't Roger. It's Robert Kraft, Bill Bellichick and the New England Patriots. The root of the other problems Godell has botched is nobody other than the players, and the NFLPA. You can't sign over disciplinary authority to the commissioner by way of the CBA, only to complain about it afterwards. You agreed to it. Suck it up, deal with it. Fight to get it out of the next CBA. If players would stop acting like children and fools outside of the game, there'd be less issues for him to handle anyways. Of course, that being said, there's still the Saints issues, and other things he has botched in investigating also.

Bottom line here, the entire thing is a cluster****. Everyone was in damage control mode then, just as they are now. There's one common evil root in all of this... It's not Godell and company, it's Kraft and company.

It's a tough role for Godell, or any commissioner though. How do you punish one of the owners that you work for, while protecting the image of the league you represent, and are tasked with growing and improving, without negative effects.

 

I knew spygate was much worse than they came out with, but are we not confusing era's. Wasn't Tagliabue the commissioner during the era of that Rams/Patriots Super Bowl?

 

even with this story, not a single Pats fan will change their tune, at least none of the diehard fans. Why would they? In their mind, they only "pushed the boundaries" and it translated to being in all those superbowls with multiple victories. Belicheck is an absolute god in New England, you might as well tell Christians that they should stop believing in God.

 

The Brady Jockholders (yes...some on this site, even after all the evidence) will tell you that all this testimony from 90+ people directly knowledgeable of the situation proves nothing. Maybe proves the Cheatriots janitors were "generally aware!"

Sickening.

 

Never be another like Roselle.

 

Yea...lol...yet some mouth-breathers around here dismiss it and tell those who suspected those activities to lose the tin-foil hat.

 

I understand that, but how can you feel pride in those Championships knowing how they were attained? You're doing something underhanded, against the rules, creating unfair advantages for yourself, you've won Championships, sure... but they're cheapened by the facts behind them on how you got there. That's not something to be proud of, that's something to be ashamed of. Congrats, in the ultimate team sport, the ultimate "mans sport", the "toughest sport" out there, you had to resort to cheating to win.

Your beloved coach, is nothing more than a cheater.
Your beloved QB, is a beneficiary of cheating ways.
Your beloved Super Bowl wins, aren't so Super when forever viewed by everyone else as corrupt.
You're nothing but the King... of nothing.

So... I guess they can celebrate, and take pride in the fact they won amongst themselves, but how fun is it to brag to fans of your team that you won, when everyone else looks at you like a piece of ****.

 

He works for the owners. Sure the owners would like to win but they want to make money. Period. A multi-time SB champ going down in flames in a huge scandal would rock the league and lower revenue... Ie ALL the owners make less money. The Coaches want to win of course they do. They also want to get paid. They also work for.... You got it. The owners.

 

Deflategate is Goodell's Iraq War then, it seems

 

What choice do they have? I live here and it is torture. Every time I mention the cheating they just laugh and say that I am bitter because the Dolphins are nothing. I am sure there are some fans that are upset by this but most don't believe it and some even don't care.

In researching this new development I found this site that lists all teams and their cheats. Not only do the Dolphins supposedly have more than the Patriots, but almost all the Patriot cheats are considered by the authors of the web site as minor. Its ridiculous!

http://yourteamcheats.com/

Edit - most of the teams with the most cheats are teams who are rivals with the Pats like Ravens, Denver, Giants, Indy.

 

To clarify, I'm not arguing against you, just giving you my opinion based on living in Boston.
Here's how they see it:

Our beloved coach, is nothing more than a innovator who was smarter than the other coaches and the NFL.
Our beloved QB, probably would have won those superbowls even without the cheating - which he had no part in very likely.
Our beloved Super Bowl wins, are not tarnished at all, because no way can those minor cheating infractions account for us being the greatest football dynasty ever
The patriots are the King... of NFL history and all the haters are just jealous.

 

If I was a fan of that disgrace of an organization, I would be so torn on how to feel about them...but I can tell you this...if that was my team that did all of this crap..from the speaker in the helmet all the way down to having the refs in their back pocket(tell me they don't), I believe I would have to give up on the NFL. Cheaters have no place in the game. Kraft,Bellicheck,Brady and anyone else that knew(knows), needs to be BANNED FROM THE NFL FOR LIFE. The Integrity of the game is suffering tremendously, and the NFL is losing it's Credibility. There needs to be a stop put to all of this BS before they completely lose the trust of all fans...it is not fair to the Teams or their fans that play by the rules, to have to watch a team cheat, get away wit it, win multiple Super Bowls, and then Talk about what a great team they are..Dynasty..etc..and the media does not do the other 31 Teams and their fan bases any justice by doing this.The Media is all up in Kraft's a$$ kissing it so hard, they fall over themselves getting in line.

 

No doubt in my mind. Last season all but proves it. It's statistically impossible for an offense to look that bad and then look unbeatable from week to week. When you watch the Patriots on offense, they are in the defensive huddle. They didn't stop stealing defensive plays or spying. They just changed the way they did it.

 

Patriots fans are not tormented. I'm a SF Giants fan. There are some, but a lot, who were tormented by Barry Bond's steroid rumors. When it's your team, and you're winning, you just don't care. They're called fans for a reason. Not reasonables, not ethics, not morals. Fanatics.

 

BS cop out, nothing more.

 

I know you aren't arguing against me

I just don't get that mentality though, again, they can see it through the rose colored glasses all they want as fans, but when the rest of the league's fans just look at all of your accomplishments as cheating douchebags who've earned nothing, all you're left with is each other. How fun can that really be?

It's obvious by the way their fans react, they know it. They can deny it all they want, because they have no other option, but in reality they all know it's bull****, and it's tainted, I just don't get how that's something to be proud of. The sense of the gratification of that accomplishment is all but gone in everyone elses eyes. It doesn't make you cool at that point to defend them and their super bowl titles, it makes you an uneducated douchebag who's proud of a team full of cheaters. You had to create yourself an unfair advantage in order to be the best. Congrats I guess?

I just can't figure out the logic that ties between the sense of pride in the accomplishment, versus the proven, and widely known cheating it took in order to accomplish something. It's not something to be proud of, it's something to be ashamed of. Kind of like the guy who brings the gun to the playground fist fight. That doesn't make you tough, that just shows you're a ***** who can't take care of your own business.

 

Who is copping out? I'm telling you what reality is. Not justifying it or making excuses. You want to live in fantasy land, go ahead. Want proof? Find a Patriot fan that is tormented. Good luck.

They DFAF. Neither did SF Giants fans. 2002 over the Angels would have been sweet regardless if Barry Got got with a truck load of steroids after, and baseball hates steroids compared to the NFL. Fans DFAF is what I'm saying.

Are Yankees fan tormented about Petitte, A-rod and Clemens?

 

Wow. Not sure how this never got a headline.

 

NOPE !!!! Not I, and until the owner, coach, quarterback, and whoever else that knew about this is BANNED FOR LIFE, it will continue to go on.

 

The thing this article made clear is that Roger Goodell is about to be fired by the owners.

He turned a lot of owners off with his preferential handling of the original Spygate and he briefly won those owners back by making a showy effort to come down hard on New England over Deflategate. But now that his judgment has been overturned by the courts, the same owners that were all slapping his back and talking about how THIS is how the Spygate investigation and punishment should have been handled, those owners come away thinking the Patriots are off the hook due to procedural incompetence by the league office. So once again the Pats are off the hook. If it's not Goodell being biased, it's Goodell being incompetent.

That's a powerful argument against his continued reign as Commissioner. This is very political and it's about losing votes and factions. Goodell is dealing with a faction of owners that miss the good ole days when dirty laundry was kept in-house, before we started hiring independent law firms to put a microscope up the NFL's butt and then post its findings on the web for all to see. Those guys probably want him gone. Now he's going to be dealing with a faction that think his heart was in the right place with respect to Deflategate, but that he and his staff are just woefully incompetent and probably have been for years. There's the 2014 debacles with Ray Rice and whatnot, a year where Kraft actually had to go to bat for Goodell for him to keep his job. You know the Saints people hate him after Bountygate. He's now thoroughly lost Robert Kraft and with him will go John Mara (despite Mara temporarily disagreeing with Kraft's position on what to do about Deflategate). Arthur Blank became one of the first to openly question whether Goodell should be involved with disciplinary stuff and that's probably a sign of which way his winds blow.

Lucky for Roger, his contract is guaranteed. So he's going to pick up $175 million regardless. But I think the owners will seize on something involved in this ESPN Outside the Lines report, most likely the fact that he brazenly re-wrote Mike Martz's statement exonerating the league and then submitted it to Congress which potentially opens the league up to government proceedings, and they'll oust Goodell as soon as they can be convinced he's not so thoroughly chaffed about it that he's about to roll out with some sort of tell-all book.

 

NE, Belichick and Brady have basically so far gotten off with barely a slap on their hand (some draft picks taken away) for at best/worst some Super Bowl wins. The question is whether they are winning battles to only lose the war at the end.

Don't forget how some athletes seem to have gotten off scot-free and then lost official recognition for everything. Best example is Lance Armstrong.. most Tour de France wins ever (7) and stripped of them all well after the fact.

If Goodell isn't replaced (and the NFL's appeal is denied), he's going to have a grudge against the Patriots for a long time I bet. The harsh penalty of 4 games (relative to the penalty doled out for similar offenses) was probably because Goodell didn't want to be seen as a lackey in the first place. Maybe, just maybe.. if NE/Kraft/Belichick/Brady keep sticking it up Goodell's ***, we might all get what we want someday. You never know..

 

EDIT: nevermind

 

I thought Goodell was a little more secure in his job now that he made up for Spygate and pleased the current NFL owners with the punishment of Brady BUT, impeding a Senate investigation? Yikes!

 

I think its naive to think Goodell's actions for Spygate, Bountygate, Deflategate, Whatevergate, were not approved by the owners as a whole.

 

The positive thing is , with how easy it is now to access information and reach out to people anywhere , some journalists will not let this go and we're sure to see and hear more from this .

It won't necessarilly be from the " NFL " but several dependable , legitimate news organizations or individuals will pursue this and bring their findings public.

We'll hear from players , coaches , staff and as it begins to build in validity and stature it won't be able to be ignored by both the Patriots and the NFL .

 

Wont happen..but for good of League...both Goodell and Belicheck should immediately resign.

 

My guess is the owners are going to try and make him go away, and they'll dangle 170+ million reasons he should keep his mouth shut about everything he knows and has witnessed over the decades.

Giving falsified statements to a US Senator during an investigation is bad. They need to make that go away. It's not an issue if Roger Goodell is gone. Hell you could argue ESPN Outside the Lines doesn't run this story if Roger Goodell is gone.

Belichick isn't going anywhere unless Belichick decides to go somewhere.

 

Of course a Dolphins connection. The report says that their spying worked best against "primitive" teams like Dolphins who failed to change their signals.

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

 

I just don't care about this stuff anymore, they cheated, they didn't cheat. At his point what does it all really matter? I just want to beat they're a$$e$ on the field and for the division this year with no excuses from them.

That's what really matters to me now.

 

Yeah, let's get documentary investigative shows like Dateline or 20/20 to thoroughly investigate this garbage and get the whole truth out to the public.

 

I thought it was funny that during the Spygate era, the Patriots filmer would wear a Patriots shirt with tape over the logo, or the shirt inside out. Why have a shirt with a logo on it anyway???

 

Oh man, I hope so. What a beautiful and perfectly timed distraction to start the season off. I hope this goes on for weeks and they struggle to a 2-5 record. Just to see how many Pats fans show up to Gillette Stadium for a home game.

 

For every ESPN outside the lines show or segment , there are dozens of other legitimate options that won't be swayed or coddled into being quiet .

These reports are like apetizers to whet their appetites and a chance to really break open an incredibly huge story . This won't remain as it is imo , not even close .

 

cognitive dissonance - See Patriot Fans.