My team, right or wrong. Scratch that: My team, always right.
[9/14 Update: New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick did not alter the way he conducts press conferences one bit today even as news reporters (as opposed to the usual gaggle of football beat reporters) hammered him with what I suppose passes for hard-hitting questions. He essentially dismissed all questions related to the Commissioner's ruling by saying that the team has moved on and is focusing all its energy on San Diego Chargers None of the reporters asked even one game-related question, something that at least might have put him in a talking mood.
Anyway, he offered no tears, no excuses and no declaration that he's heading to rehab.
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft released a statement today.
9/13 update: The League has made its ruling. New England Patriots have been fined $250,000. Bill Belichick has been fined $500,000. Patriots will forfeit their 1st round pick next year if they make the playoffs and their 2nd and 3rd if they don't.
Here's Bill Belichick's statement regarding the League's ruling:
I accept full responsibility for the actions that led to tonight's ruling. Once again, I apologize to the Kraft family and every person directly or indirectly associated with the New England Patriots for the embarrassment, distraction and penalty my mistake caused. I also apologize to Patriots fans and would like to thank them for their support during the past few days and throughout my career.
As the Commissioner acknowledged, our use of sideline video had no impact on the outcome of last week's game. We have never used sideline video to obtain a competitive advantage while the game was in progress.
Part of my job as head coach is to ensure that our football operations are conducted in compliance of the league rules and all accepted interpretations of them. My interpretation of a rule in the Constitution and Bylaws was incorrect.
With tonight's resolution, I will not be offering any further comments on this matter. We are moving on with our preparations for Sunday's game.
]
Indulge me for a few moments as I rather pathetically drudge up a couple of games from my short-lived career as an unpaid semi-pro football player back in the Old Country. We had a rival team that was substantially better coached than our team but that lacked in athletic ability. We were bigger, stronger and faster than they were. That’s just how it was. The second season we butted heads started off with us beating them, 14-8 if my memory serves me correctly, after a hard-fought game. A lot of things - big and small - put us over the top, among them our simple but functional audibles. Well, guess what, the other guys studied the analog videotape they shot during the game and figured out what our different audibles did. In the rematch they beat us 8-0, in no small part because their defensive alignments nullified our called plays and their pre-snap adjustments killed our audibled plays. They beat us because they put in the extra effort to properly tape and analyze the game while we couldn’t be bothered to even minimally change our audibles (we still won the division because of our advantage in strength, speed, and size).
As you can imagine, I don’t have much sympathy for the teams who have had their signals intercepted and interpreted by New England Patriots. We haven’t heard the Patriots side of the story yet, but let’s say they flat-out cheated, as Patriots head coach Bill Belichick’s statement suggests, by recording as much as they possibly could of whatever was going on on the opposing sidelines, in violation of League rules. Big deal. Patriots did nothing that their opponents could not have prevented or circumvented. Instead they just sent messages from coaches to defensive players using clear-text hand messages, relying on nothing more than an essentially unenforced rule for protection. Worse, they did so even as rumors of Patriots’ underhandedness circulated. Here’s a little question for NFL teams: Do you know what happens to your trash after it’s been removed from your facilities? If you do know, why are you so careless about your in-game signals?
As for NFL Sheriff Roger Goodell, where was he last year when Miami Dolphins recorded New England’s audibles and then beat the snot out of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady in the rematch? Go save a dog, Commish.
Many Patriots fans are upset because their saintly Patriots have been caught cheating. If you can’t accept that the Patriots just barely cheated and don’t deserve the moral outrage that is now directed at them, do consider this: Bill Belichick has devoted his entire life to professional football and he has never claimed to do anything other than trying to put his team in the best position to win next game. When Patriots beat Saint Louis Rams, did you really think “I sure hope this victory wasn’t in part enabled by some video trickery because that would really detract from the elation I’m feeling?”
Speaking of video, I have a confession to make: I shot several minutes worth of video at that training camp practice. I didn’t realize until my wife pointed it out afterwards that videotaping any part of practice was strictly prohibited. Not being one who’s overly eager to break rules - yes, I’m a hypocrite - I sort of compromised: I didn’t upload or otherwise share any of the video, but I watched some of it and used observations I made watching it in at least two different posts. But I had nothing riding on my video whereas Belichick had the dreams and hopes of an entire region riding on his.
Finally, Jets head coach Eric Mangini is a total douchebag who would never have had a job in NFL had it not been for Belichick. I hope Patriots run up the score in the most grotesque fashion the next time the two teams meet.
(Adam has a round-up of Patriots fans blogger reactions.)
