Friday, September 21, 2007

No cookies before supper

Cheating in the NFL! Oh really. I don't think anyone is surprised about that. It's been very obvious for a long time that every team tries to steal the other's signals. But what is the NFL to do about it? They could rule that the only thing the video cam guy could record is cleavage, now I would be in favor of that rule. On the cheating scale of 1-10 this latest New England scandal is a 20. The only thing worse is if Rocky Balboa was caught with steroids in his dressing room and the big shots from Hollywood were to ban all Rocky movies.
My favorite NFL cheating scandal involved you guest it, the New England Patriots. Twenty five years ago during a snow storm in Foxboro the Patriots were tied with the New York Jets 0-0 with only a few minutes left in the game. The winner would advance to the play offs and the loser would be finished for the year. The Patriots had the ball somewhere around the Jets 20 yard line and it was fourth down. The Patriots head coach ordered a snow plow onto the field to clear a place for his kicker and to make the situation a little more bazaar, the snow plow was driver by a convict who was on work release. You know a convict is going to do what authorities tell him to do so no one questioned the Coach's order. The thirty three yard kick was good and the Patriots won the game 3-0. The Jets protested the game but all the NFL did was ban snow plows from the field in any further games, the Patriots were never penalized.
This time the NFL at least slapped the wrist of the Patriots coach. Coach Belichick was fined $500,000. Big deal! That's about one tenth of his 4.5 million dollar yearly pay check. I don't think he will have any problems paying his alimony. The NFL commissioner is acting like he really flexed his muscles on this one but really all he did was use a powder puff instead of a hammer to administer punishment to New England.
Coach Belichick said his interpretation of the video taping rule was different than the NFL's interpretation. So just what was his interpretation? Was it simply that the rule did not apply to the Patriots. There will always be a kid who claims not to understand the rules. The kid who grabs a hand full of cookies before supper even though his mother has told him not to. That kid always has the same excuse "this isn't before supper, it's after lunch".
In the long run, this latest New England cheating scandal will be almost forgotten. It will just be a footnote to the Patriots dynasty. Just a funny story like when some of the old Packers get together and talk about how the gouged their opponents genitalia at the bottom of a fumble pile.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:00 AM

    I agree that the Pat's coach got off really light on this one. He was caught in the act!!! What if I rob a bank and get caught in the act of the robbery, can I say I was confused on the rules and get off light????? Look what they did to Pete Rose. Cheating is cheating and I say what the Pats did is no difference. There's only one team in the NFL that will never cheat.... and that's the Cowboys! ybb

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  2. Anonymous3:05 PM

    Well I agreeeeeeeee, cheating is cheating, but EVERYONE gets away with it, just like murder.....but it is the NFL and they turn the other cheek.
    LR

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