Former Patriots Video Assistant Speaks!...Pats taped Rams walkthrough before SB?

[Alexander]

It makes a huge difference whether it was illegal or not. Tomorrow they could make radios in the QBs helmets illegal. Does that mean every team this season was cheating?

I don't see many taking the legality into question.

I see far more arguments on moral grounds. That's where I take my stand.

To me, legality is simply a construct.

 

[Nors]

Nors a lot of teams did it.......a lot of times tried it and stopped, like the Cowboys under Jimmy Johnson.

When the league found out, they warned all the teams.....which team continued to do it, the Patriots. They basically slapped the NFL across the face and chose to do as they pleased.

Belichick was an inferior head coach...he needed an edge or he was going to lose his job in NE the way he did in Cleveland. So he started cheating......his team was beginning to win, no one was any the wiser, so he continued.........and continued. All those players he brought in, he gave them the keys to spygate....and allowed them to flourish in his system of answers.

It is no wonder when playing the Patriots this decade, they always seem to be in the right place at the right time.....It is as if they are in the opponents huddle (well they are).

Then there is the love by the league. The Pats almost never get called for offensive holding. Their defense is allowed to be overly physical to down right dirty. They are allowed to cheap shot opponents with little to no recourse from the officials or league over this time span. Tom Brady is treated like a demi-God.....you cannot get near him or touch him without being flagged.....the league even busted out some obscure rule just for him and the Pats.....a play that has probably happened a hundred or so times since the rule was put into the books, and this is the first mention of it? The NFL has gift wrapped the Patriots Dynasty for them.

Then after Pats are caught on tape cheating........after they have made a mockery of Goodell.....he gives them a slap on the wrist, and makes himself look all the more like a court jester than he already was. Wade Wilson (a coach) gets suspended for 4-5 games for taking something for his health problem.......but the Pats completely destroy the integrity of the game for the Millennium and they get a slap on the wrist. This is what the fine should have been

Draft - Pats lose all 1st day picks and are banned from trading into the first day.
Kraft - Fined $500,000
Belichick - Fined $250,000 and suspended for 2 games without pay

And for added measure.......the 3 forfeited picks (SFs 1st, NEs 1st, and NEs 2nd) are placed into a lottery, where 3 lucky teams out of 31 will win the picks.

But it is over now....the Pats got away with murder.....as they murdered the integrity of the game......Goodell is in Kraft's back pocket and on his payroll. All the Chowds are foaming at the mouth at the greatness of their Pats....about their perfect season....blah blah blah

I am more convinced than ever that the Millennium Pats couldn't hold a candle to the 60s Packers, 70s Steelers, 80s Niners, or 90s Cowboys.......4 franchises that didn't have to cheat to win....

How Bout Dem Cheatriots

Bill Bellicheck won two SB's as a DC for Giants. He's one of the greatest football coaches - EVER.

If teams are hillbilly enough to get signals lifted they deserve it. Why Casino's keeps counters out. IT'S STILL TOTALLY LEGAL TO TAPE GAMES FROM PRESSBOX. THE ONLY DIFFERENCE HERE IS THEY BROKE RULE AND TAPED ON FIELD - WOOOO WOOOOO

Games are decided on the field. In baseball it's called gamesmanship. Its an art to steal signs, 3B and catchers. Funny when they throw spit balls, grease balls, corked bats, etc.

And NFL teams never try and decipher signals? No, No, Don't go there.

Our SB teams in 1990's was doing it. No uproar about that?
Ever wonder why Parcells was so paranoid about spy's and scouts at his Dallas practices? Because its standard mo in the NFL.

And Coughlin is of the BB/BP tree.....

 

[theogt]

I don't see many taking the legality into question.

I see far more arguments on moral grounds. That's where I take my stand.

To me, legality is simply a construct.

What? Of course the legality is in question. It's the legality that begets the moral problem. Taping someone in and of itself isn't immoral. It's gaining an edge by doing something illegal that's immoral.

 

[Nors]

They were predicted by most as the Super Bowl winner before this scandal came out.

And then they post a perfect regular season and are poised to go 19-0, evidently to "remove all doubt," and crown them the best team ever. Sorry, it's not that easy with me. A little too convenient that every close game they've been in this year they've been the benefactor of some suspect calls, or non-calls.

peplaw 6 - exactly how many close games have the Patriots been in?

A month ago most all were screaming bloody murder that Pats were running it up on teams. Which is it?

I see only 1 team that has gone 18-0 in a season. It's not luck but a damn good football team.

And all this BS is doing nothing but motivating them to rip Giants heads off tomorrow night. All this frenzt is fueling them. I find that ironic that all that think they are distracting Pats are doing nothing but getting them into a total football frenzy. Them against the world.

We might see a 50 spot put up on the Giants.

 

[Royal Laegotti]

Dude chill!!!

I am not excited. And when I said "your" I was speaking in general terms, not specifically about you.



He has admitted it. Yet it is not as sensational, so it isn't mentioned.

Waters, Steroids and a Slippery Slope

Charlie Waters
By Mike Fisher

Posted Jul 10, 2005



I am watching TV. Watching TV with Charlie Waters.

Watching TV with Charlie Waters while Michael Jackson is traipsing across the screen.

Watching TV with Charlie Waters while Michael Jackson is traipsing across the screen – and talking about the year when Charlie took steroids to play in the NFL.

“What a sick person,’’ says Waters, one of the greatest, most-beloved and most outspoken Dallas Cowboys of all time. “Michael Jackson? He’s sick. S-I-C-K. He’s different. Even if not guilty, he’s guilty.’’

Waters is 56. A brilliant playing career. Time spent as a coach on both the college and pro levels. Now as a Dallas-based business partner with (guess who?) Cliff Harris. Part of the Cowboys radio broadcast team. A writer. A painter. A family man. All that, and he still looks about half his age, still very much the exuberant Dallas safety with the leading-man good looks. (“A lot of little girls in Dallas are now grown-up housewives who still have Charlie’s poster on their walls,’’ jokes running buddy Harris.)

Something else hasn’t changed about Charlie: The ability to be honest and glib and insightful, all in one breath. He is willing to do so today on the subject of steroids. … and his use of them.

“I took steroids,’’ Waters says.

And you can’t help it, the visions of Jose Canseco with needles in his butt and “Big Mike’’ dealing on the street corner and Congressional witnesses/baseballers suddenly losing the ability to speak English and high-school kids with grotesquely protruding foreheads attempting ‘roided-up suicide.

It was 1980, and Waters was rehabbing his knee. Under the supervision of doctors, he took what he says is “minute amounts compared to what’s being taken now. … I felt the ramifications. My personality changed. But I was strong. Much stronger. I recovered much quicker. It was beneficial to the recovery of my knee.

“I could see even then what a brute you could turn into with the stuff. I felt I had a physical and mental edge with it. I felt great about myself. It gives you a sense of confidence. I enjoyed it, to be honest with you.’’

Don’t misunderstand. Waters isn’t advocating the use of steroids. Necessarily.

But when I suggest (at least for the sake of argument) that maybe some day, some sort of regulated steroid-like material will be commonplace, that aiding rehab and adding muscle might some day be viewed as the equivalent to present-time’s good nutrition and Lasik surgery, Waters agrees.

“Maybe, to a certain point, if it is monitored,’’ says Waters, who concedes that, given the opportunity,he might’ve been tempted to take steroids to extend his NFL career. “Somebody is always going to try to figure out a way to do it. … But please, make it to where it’s fair. I’m a purist in the sense of playing by whatever the rules are. So keep the playing field level.’’

Legalize steroid use in sports? There’s a slippery slope. Do it just for healing? Slippery again, because if Player A uses it to recover more quickly than Player B can recover, isn’t that a non-level field? If a steroidal high-schooler in Texas recovers faster than a “clean’’ high-schooler in Florida and therefore beats him out for a scholarship. … well, slippery.

Waters insists that he “isn’t an expert. Cliff and I are still double-teamin’ ‘em, in the natural gas industry. On this subject, I’m just a guy with an opinion.’’

But he is, in fact, an expert on how this world works. Steroids for the knee. Pills available in the training room. And in 1972, a broken arm. Waters played with a cast on the arm. … and unknowingly to the doctors, broke it two more times while it was inside the cast. Eventually, an 18-inch rod was inserted into the arm, through the marrow. Novacaine dulled the pain. Problem was, 18 inches was a bit too long – so the rod would occasionally “stick up out the top of my shoulder,’’ Waters says.

“You’re in the league to play,’’ Charlie says, shrugging off the gruesome nature of his tale.

Yes, Charlie Waters is an expert on how this world works – in part because he was present when this world evolved.

“Back when we were playing, and recreational drugs were becoming popular, Mr. (Tex) Schramm made an announcement to the team,’’ Waters remembers. “They handed out a sheet with all the little nicknames for all the drugs, and then Mr. Schramm said, ‘The drugs we use to enhance the game of football are OK. These drugs we use for recreation are not OK.’

Says Waters: “It was a strange way of looking at it. Mr. Schramm was certainly naïve, and not aware of all the ramifications of what he was saying. His point was that you can take things if they enhance your play, as long as they’re not a danger to your health – except, of course, players don’t worry about the future. They want to perform now. And teenagers want to be the strongest in the class, whip the guys in front of them, and they want that extra boost.’’

Waters’ views and experience with steroids aren’t meant as endorsements for those teenagers; he is careful to note that their minds and bodies are not prepared for that level of involvement. “They’re not mature enough to make a rational analysis,’’ he says.

And he has his fingers crossed that the government’s interest in the steroids issue is rightly motivated. “I hope so,’’ he says. “I hope it’s not grandstanding, trying to get credit for their own political and personal gains. I’d like to think they have the interest of the games at heart.’’

We glance back to the television, and then up at each other. We’ve just gone pretty deep here, agreing that the problem with steroids might not be “steroid use’’ – as demonized as that phrase has become – but rather “steroid abuse.’’ Kids are on steroids. Rods are sticking out of people’s shoulders. Michael Jackson is right there on TV, being found not guilty.

“Why isn’t your television on sports?’’ Waters says, looking for my remote. “Let’s put it on ESPN Classic, OK?’’

I don't think back then they saw it a cheating or knew what it would turn into today, they probably saw it a "super vitamins" or something, I don't know. But I certainly don't think they thought they were cheating and it was probably league wide. Like Waters said, Schramm was naive about it, and I believe that. I think they all were.

Today is a different story! This stuff has been out and everybody knows what these drugs do or can do and everybody knows it's against the rules to use them. I think there's a difference there. JMO!

 

[Nors]

What US legal Law did the Patriots/NFL break that should involve a Senate investigation?

This is McCarthey esque logic.

 

[peplaw06]

Because involving referees would get down to a level that defies what I think is manageable.

What happened? Did Goodall suddenly call up the referees crew in the Giant/Patriot finale and tell them, "Time to get the fix on, boys!".

I just don't think that realistically you could pull it off.

It does make for a great movie script however.

Manageability? That's the reason? It doesn't seem like they've been able to manage this cover up very well in the past couple of weeks

 

[theogt]

What US legal Law did the Patriots/NFL break that should involve a Senate investigation?

This is McCarthey esque logic.

Since when does Senate investigation require that a law be broken? Usually when the law is broken, it's the DOJ and judiciary that get involved. I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the US government.

 

[The Panch]

What US legal Law did the Patriots/NFL break that should involve a Senate investigation?

This is McCarthey esque logic.

Are you in love with the Pats are something??



While I agree like many who say the Senate should have better things to do, its become apparent Goodell is doing a trashy job of running the National Football League which is for the people and the people havent gotten any answers and seemingly there's a bigger reason for that and it should be looked into.

 

[5Stars]

I think what he's saying is that there is a little bit of hypocrisy involved here. Our laundry is dirty as well.

Aside from Jimmy saying he learned how to tape in college and tried it once or twice in the NFL and found it worthless, what dirty laundry are you talking about?

 

[Royal Laegotti]

Because involving referees would get down to a level that defies what I think is manageable.

What happened? Did Goodall suddenly call up the referees crew in the Giant/Patriot finale and tell them, "Time to get the fix on, boys!".

I just don't think that realistically you could pull it off.

It does make for a great movie script however.

Looks like they did in the Pitt-Seattle superbowl 2 years ago!

 

[peplaw06]

I don't see many taking the legality into question.

I see far more arguments on moral grounds. That's where I take my stand.

To me, legality is simply a construct.

Legality of it is the foundation of the debate. If it weren't illegal, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

 

[peplaw06]

peplaw 6 - exactly how many close games have the Patriots been in?

A month ago most all were screaming bloody murder that Pats were running it up on teams. Which is it?

I've already gone over this, try to keep up.

all the pats slurping

It might help if you stop doing this.

 

[Alexander]

Legality of it is the foundation of the debate. If it weren't illegal, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

I doubt that. You would still have people moaning about them being dirty rotten cheaters based on the moral issue. The legality just adds a primitive form of validity.

 

[theogt]

I doubt that. You would still have people moaning about them being dirty rotten cheaters based on the moral issue. The legality just adds a primitive form of validity.

My god, how do you not grasp the idea that gaining an edge through illegal means is the immoral behavior. The legality is a necessary element.

 

[J-DOG]

I think comparing anything that the Cowboys did as far as cheating to what the Patriots are accused of is ridiculous.
I don't remember teams coming out and accusing the 90's Cowboys of cheating all the time.
It's different...no doubt.

 

[peplaw06]

I doubt that. You would still have people moaning about them being dirty rotten cheaters based on the moral issue. The legality just adds a primitive form of validity.

I guarantee you that if it weren't illegal, there would have been no tapes destroyed, and there would be no Senate involvement.

Hence we would not be here. There would be no "real" debate.

Those who are just whiners would whine if they did everything by the book and went 19-0 just cause they were too good. They're irrelevant.

 

[Rampage]

Looks like they did in the Pitt-Seattle superbowl 2 years ago!

and before that they tried to do it to pitt against indy 2 games before that one. it didn't work though cause Peyton M anning is a bum in the playoffs

 

[jimmy40]

I guarantee you that if it weren't illegal, there would have been no tapes destroyed, and there would be no Senate involvement.

Hence we would not be here. There would be no "real" debate.

Those who are just whiners would whine if they did everything by the book and went 19-0 just cause they were too good. They're irrelevant.

of course they same guys whining about the Patriots whine about the refs, the media bias against the Boys, the NFL bias against the Boys, NFL bias against Roy Williams, slick balls, the whole worlds bias against TO, Jackie Smith dropped the ball on purpose because he was really a Cardinal, FDR knew about the JFK assassination but didn't say anything because he wanted to get us in to the Gulf War, etc.etc so on and so on.

 

[burmafrd]

what is moral and what is legal; and what is immoral and what is illegal quite often do not connect. Laws are made by politicians and interpreted by judges who have their own prejudices and agendas. What makes the law better then the judgement of people as regards what is moral and what is immoral?
frankly, what the majority of people think is immoral or moral to me is a higher standard then the law.