Promote your business or product on 700level.com. For
more information about advertising with us CLICK HERE!

Per ESPN

The jist is that Spector sent a letter to Goddell in November asking why tapes of the Pats' "cheating" were destroyed so quickly. No one has gotten back to him about it, and he's asking Goddell to come in front of Congress to explain his actions, due to their antitrust agreement with the government.

Also mentioned in the article is one guy who used to be with the Pats who says he has embarrassing info on both the Pats and the NFL (I expect someone to take a hit out on this guy, sadly enough). He has suggested that he might go in front of Congress if asked.

This could end up being very bad for the NFL. Not just the possible public humiliation of that scandal (if there's tons more to it, such as other teams that do it, which is pretty much known), but the antitrust agreement they have with the government allows stuff like Sunday Ticket to happen.

And with talk of a strike if the NFL owners decide to back out of their agreement with the NFLPA, this could get very interesting (and very troublesome).

New stuff on this

OK I guess this is as good a place as any to stick this tid bit... from the Boston Herald about a quote from Ted Johnson from three years ago.

http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/football/patriots/view.bg?articleid=1075781


Here’s the quote in question: ”Every now and then I’d get a sheet, one hour before the game, with a list of audibles for our opponent. I don’t know how, but they just showed up.”

Those remarks were lumped into a story about Camera-gate, coming after Indianapolis Colts president Bill Polian stated sideline signals could be matched to game footage to decipher codes.

“To take a quote from an article I did three years ago and put it in a recent article with respect to the allegations against the Patriots, with possibly more evidence coming out on (Camera-gate), and more details, I think from my standing, it’s irresponsible,” Johnson said. “I don’t see the connection, to be honest with you. Having said that, I will tell you, it’s not an uncommon practice for us during my playing career to every now and then get a call sheet about teams you’re about to play, and potential audibles. That’s not an uncommon practice.”

loks kind of like cheating to me...

It all depends how they got the information.

I think (not sure) that you can't mic any players on the field for these purposes, but I don't think there's any other rule against it.

"It's immoral to let a sucker keep his money".

It's the responsibility of offenses to assume their audibles are on file and they have to change them every week.

So is Bella-cheat back this year or do you think he gets canned?

Considering it took them this long to finally get close to interviewing the guy, it gets swept under the carpet.

Wouldn't want anyone to think the NFL's been dragging their feet on this one, oh no.

In the NFL's defense, they wanted to talk right away and offered legal protection, but this Walsh character wouldn't sign off because it only protected him for "truthful" statements.

I don't understand the holdup, but if he has the tapes (as he said he does), that should be enough to prove he's being "truthful".

This Fuck cheated his whole fuckin carreer and when this all plays out he should be banned for life!!!!!!!

These meetings, etc. should be televised live. I don't trust Goddell at all and think he'll hide any really damaging information that comes out of this.

So the latest out of Spygate is that Walsh turns over his tapes of the Pats cheating between 2002-2004, but the league won't punish them because it's nothing they haven't seen before. Of course, it'd be nice to know what they HAD seen before, before they destroyed the evidence.

Walsh talks to Goddell on Tuesday. Something tells me nothing will come of it.

On all of this, rules are rules for a reason. Someone does something, the majority of people think it's unfair or gives an unfair advantage, they make a rule, "You can't do X" and then list consequences. You don't go back at the people that caused the rule to be broken, because the rule didn't exist.

If the rule existed before, they should be penalized. If it didn't, they should either A: Make a rule and define penalties, or B: Tell everyone what they did and tell them it's ok to do that.

It evens out the playing field, and allows people to understand what is fair and allowed, and what is not. It's a competitive sport that is governed by rules, and those rules need to be defined.

The problem as I see it is that most of the teams that don't tape teams feel that this is against some rule of the game. If the rule isn't defined, or is loosely defined, it needs to be expanded upon so teams know what they can and can't do so they don't avoid it completely and allow other teams an advantage because they walk the line.

As mentioned above, you would figure that smart defensemen would hear the audible on a play and report back to the sidelines during a game what the audible was, so the coaches can use that information to modify the gameplan and be ready the next time it comes up. That has to be allowed by the rules. However, if it's allowed for teams to tape other teams' practices, with audibles, before a game, all teams should be permitted to do so.

The problem as I see it is that most of the teams that don't tape teams feel that this is against some rule of the game. If the rule isn't defined, or is loosely defined, it needs to be expanded upon so teams know what they can and can't do so they don't avoid it completely and allow other teams an advantage because they walk the line.

The truth of the matter is that this was REemphasized during the off-season coaches meeting with the NFL that it was illegal and that was issued in writing to all the teams. Of course, Bellicheat didn't care and did it against the Jets. Sorry. No excuses.

Bass,

The NFL reps were saying that it was nothing new BEFORE they even saw the tapes. I think this is a PR spin to make sure that nobody gets too riled up over a repeated violation.

The more I read about this topic, the more it stinks. I remember the vehement denials by players that they knew anything was going on, but then you have admissions by Mike Vrabel and Drew Bledsoe about knowing. Bledsoe talked about "bending the rules". I remember I believe Rodney Harrison and even Assante Samuels saying that they knew nothing about this.

I find it hard for anyone to say unequivocally that this had little or no impact on the games. If the maxims of the NFL hold true, then one play can make all the difference in this game of "inches". Just reading how the Pats are 5-1 against the Steelers since the AFCCG in 2002 really does make me wonder. They had some pretty solid teams including the team that went 14-2 and was pretty much trounced by the Pats several years ago. Also makes you wonder how Bellicheat got Peyton Manning to choke so many years in a row. Manning has performed poorly when the rush gets to him or when facing the Pats. A guy whose TD/INT ratio is usually greater than 2/1 suddenly reverses that in an inexplicable way with one of the greatest WR tandems against his Achilles Heel...the Pats.

Maybe it is just wishful thinking on my part but it does cast the Pats' mystique in a different light. Of course, there is no ignoring the impact and skill of the single player who made that success possible, Brady...since he still had to beat all those teams on the field.

Bass, Goodell claims he can't even remember which teams were taped in the original tapes he had. They also could not recall the details, etc. I'd also like this to be televised. The problems are that Walsh meets with Goodell first and may be "debriefed". Judging by his nature, I think Walsh won't roll over in his role as whistle-blower. Spector actually brought up some good points. What was the scope of the "taping" (which was minimized by Goodell), when precisely did it start, which teams was it done against, what precisely was their routine, who was involved, who organized it, and did it affect the outcomes of any games. Naturally, most of those questions will never be answered, particularly the last one.

We all wanted blood, to have the Rams Super Bowl walk through or maybe internal memos and recordings, and see Belichick humiliated and suspended. Instead all we are getting is Geraldo Rivera opening up Al Capone's vault. Walsh has tapes that the Patriots already admitted making, big deal. So why did Walsh not come out and say he didn't have the Ram tape? I'm thinking he thoroughly enjoyed seeing his former employer that fired him get raked over the coals every day for nine months.

This was kinda my fear from the beginning. I think this Walsh guy was just in it for the publicity.

Obviously, the Rams walk-through was the piece of tape people wanted to see. The entire time this has been happening, I've assumed he didn't have the tape because of the way he was acting and the way he was positioning himself.

Without that tape or something similar, this is a 3 or 4 months cock tease.

Goodell claims he can't even remember which teams were taped in the original tapes he had.

One of the biggest scandals in NFL history, drops the biggest fine ever for a coach (not to mention the team fine wasn't a slap on the wrists, either), and he can't recall what the original tapes had? That's crap. They said they were destroying the tapes so they wouldn't fall into the hands of the media, but who is better than the NFL for controlling the flow of information?

Even if Walsh is asking for his 15 minutes, there's more there, and the NFL won't touch it.

I think you're looking way too deep into it.

The list of teams isn't important, though I'm sure they have it somewhere. The fact is the Patriots ADMITTED to taping EVERYONE for 7 years.

What else can they do?

The only thing Walsh could have given the league is the information he was rumored to have....tape of private walk throughs.

I don't even think that would be too valuable, but if he had it, it would prove (without a doubt) that the Patriots lied/left things out in their confession. When he shows up with exactly what the Patriots had already admitted to, it doesn't raise many new questions.

I don't think I'm looking too much into it, but I preface that by saying I didn't expect much to come out of the Walsh stuff (especially since it was seemingly delayed for however long). Also didn't expect Belicheat to be suspended on top of this.

What I mean by "more going on the NFL won't touch" is in the same spirit of their "drug policy".

I guess anything is possible, but the punishment was pretty significant. You can't punish them twice in terms of draft picks just because they happened to have 2 first rounders.

Another thing that hurt the case of those who thought the taping provided a big advantage was the fact that they steamrolled the entire league this year without taping.

I think what they did was cheating and I think they were punished. I just don't see what else should be done unless new evidence is discovered and I don't think the league has under-reacted.

The stat of being 5-1 against the Steeler's dating to the AFCC game and their collective records says something to me. The minute advantage is still significant if it affected even a single play. Then with Walsh admitting he shouldn't get caught and Bellicheck stating he "didn't know" just irritates me to no end. He needs to be F'd in the A to quote South Park.

Last year, FD, they had assembled the best offense ever seen....they should have and did win. The problem was that most teams were haning on for dear life. The Ravens, Eagles and Giants didn't. That records may or may not be repeated this upcoming year and they are still the team to beat, but they haven't always had that caliber of personnel.

But they were punished...what else do you want?

They got the stiffest punishment ion league history for a practice that isn't even illegal unless you're videotaping it. It's perfectly legal to have 6 staff members completely dedicated to watching the signals coming in every way and take detailed notes that can later be used for an advantage.

What they did was cheating, they knew they were cheating, and it probably did give them an ever-so-slight advantage.

They were punished for that.

I'm just not sure what you guys want...a first born? You want them to take away all the Super Bowls over this? That's just not realistic.

If Walsh had been telling the truth and he DID have new evidence, they should have been hammered again (no matter the significance of what they left out), but it looks like Walsh was completely full of shit.

End of story unless some new evidence comes to light, IMO.

It's unrealistic to expect another punishment, due to both the late nature of Walsh's "revelation" and the way the NFL handled this mess the first time (the evidence, not the punishment - thought the punishment was fair but they should've put a caveat in there to take away their pick or the SF pick, whichever was higher).

AS is asking for an independent inquiry (which Goddell has to ultimately sign off on) and the media's going to turn on AS something fierce, like they turned on him when he threatened anti-trust pressure the first time. I think AS should back off (because ultimately, not much is going to change), but the media's got some nerve telling him to back up. Probably because he'll reveal some stuff that's considered "wink wink nudge nudge" in the media?

It's like one big fraternity and no one wants to be known as the guy who killed the golden goose.

FD,

I don't want anything other than Bellicheck to be shrouded in a veil of ignomy. His single best decision was selecting Brady which has facilitated everything he's achieved. Without him, no go.

I didn't state I wanted anything else, just pointing out to the contrary the notion that "it didn't help at all or so little that it didn't matter". I believe that the difference of a single play can and does make all the difference.

1  2