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Merged Spygate thread (1 Viewer)

Buffaloes

Footballguy
Brady allegedly (haha, allegedly) had a separate radio frequency that allowed coaches to talk to him as the play unfolded.

In this scenario, the extra frequency is critical, as it allows the team to do something in real time with the stolen signals, out of earshot of the NFL monitor, and change its plays accordingly.

If there’s an open channel during the play itself, you can also alert the quarterback to open receivers he may not see.

O’Leary repeats a rumor that Pats backup quarterback Doug Flutie once said he accidentally picked up Brady’s helmet during the 2005 season.

“He was amazed that the coaches kept right on speaking to Brady past the 15-second cutoff, right up until the snap,” ­according to O’Leary.

“The voice in Tom Brady’s helmet was explaining the exact defense he was about to face.”
http://nypost.com/2014/10/12/they-are-cheaters-spygate-the-nfl-scandal-that-started-it-all/

 
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You don't get the fine they got by stealing signals. No doubt they're still doing some fishy things. That tiger isn't changing their stripes.

 
People don't keep secrets, it takes a lot of people to pull something like this off for just one year let alone many years. Someone would have sold this story long ago to TMZ or someone and cashed in.

IF it did happen and it is a big if, there would be an advantage to to talking after the 15 seconds were up, but as the play develops? You are joking right? So they snap the ball and Brady is drops back and is looking for an open receiver and he has one of his coaches in his ear telling him which way to look or watch out for that late blitzer on the right. Quarterbacks get about 2 to 4 seconds to make up their mind where they are going with the ball, a coach yelling into your helmet would do a lot more damage than good.

 
They are this butthurt.
Considering how close those Super Bowl wins were there should be a question of how much cheating played a part in the wins.

After what the Rams did to the Steelers and Eagles (both top 5) defenses in the previous games it didn't make sense what happened to them against the Patriots.

Faulk can't understand it either:

“I understand Bill is a great coach,” Faulk said. “But No. 13 [Kurt Warner] will tell you. Mike Martz will tell you. We had some plays in the red zone that we hadn’t ran. . . . And a couple of plays on third down that we walked through also . . . And they created a check for it. It’s just little things like that. It’s either the best coaching in the world when you come up with situations that you had never seen before. Or you’d seen it and knew what to do.”
Even Warner, who gives the Pats players credit for how they played, still has doubts about whether cheating made the difference in the game:

“I don't look at it as tainted at all—that's not the perspective that I choose to take,” Warner told 411mania’s Al Norton. “But with that being said, I will say that I don't know how you can't wonder, how you can't wonder if something did happen, if there was an advantage. I simply say that because to know that there was evidence out there, that there were tapes out there, but no one ever got to see the tapes—the commissioner or whoever decided they were going to destroy them from what I understand—and so it continually leaves the question.”

“The Patriots beat us in that game—they outplayed us, they deserved to win—but it's hard to just let it go by saying, ‘Oh, I don't know if anything happened.’ I still have a question on what exactly when down in that whole time period; did they get some kind of advantage? Maybe it wasn't in our game, but did they get some kind of advantage in any game?
 
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So nothing new, just a bitter Bufalo fan sorry that his team lost to NE again and decides to echo bs innuendo and rumors stirred up by a bitter NY media and Jet fans who are unhappy that their teams still blow.

Ok, got it.

 
People don't keep secrets, it takes a lot of people to pull something like this off for just one year let alone many years. Someone would have sold this story long ago to TMZ or someone and cashed in.

IF it did happen and it is a big if, there would be an advantage to to talking after the 15 seconds were up, but as the play develops? You are joking right? So they snap the ball and Brady is drops back and is looking for an open receiver and he has one of his coaches in his ear telling him which way to look or watch out for that late blitzer on the right. Quarterbacks get about 2 to 4 seconds to make up their mind where they are going with the ball, a coach yelling into your helmet would do a lot more damage than good.
It would only take a couple of coaches and Brady to pull off what is alleged....

 
While it's another facet to the Spygate controversey....it's not like most unbiased fans already didn't question the legitimacy of the Patriots Dynasty. It's a shame Goodell didn't seek the truth rather than go for the easy out. That being said, I don't think I'd want a league where you * championships/records/etc..

 
While it's another facet to the Spygate controversey....it's not like most unbiased fans already didn't question the legitimacy of the Patriots Dynasty. It's a shame Goodell didn't seek the truth rather than go for the easy out. That being said, I don't think I'd want a league where you * championships/records/etc..
[SIZE=14.3999996185303px]It wasn't about finding and dealing with the truth; it[/SIZE] was about protecting the shield and the rivers of cash that go with it.

I don't think Goodell took the easy way out with the Patriots; he took the only way out.

 
Lol. Get over it.
Is there a single Patriots fan who wants to know the truth or are you just happy with your three Super Bowl titles regardless?
I'd love to hear what really happened, cause to date through all the smoke and bull#### all I've seen is that the Pats we're doing something literally everyone was doing and the only reason they got cracked down on so hard wasn't because they kept doing it - cause everyone did. It was because the commissioner told them specifically to stop and the Pats tried to angleshoot the situation by doing something that was essentially the same thing but not explicitly what they were told to stop and the commissioner took it personally.

Everything else is just butthurt fans.

 
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Not surprising. We already knew they were cheating during the spygate era and that the NFL chose to bury it. Glad to hear some possible details coming out.

 
Lol. Get over it.
Is there a single Patriots fan who wants to know the truth or are you just happy with your three Super Bowl titles regardless?
I'd love to hear what really happened, cause to date through all the smoke and bull#### all I've seen is that the Pats we're doing something literally everyone was doing and the only reason they got cracked down on so hard wasn't because they kept doing it - cause everyone did. It was because the commissioner told them specifically to stop and the Pats tried to angleshoot the situation by doing something that was essentially the same thing but not explicitly what they were told to stop and the commissioner took it personally.

Everything else is just butthurt fans.
So they had no real competitive advantage then? If everyone was doing it.
 
The Patriots lost the 2000 opener against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, when videotape of signals was used in preparation, according to the former Patriots player, who was among several former players interviewed by the N.F.L but said he did not want to speak publicly because the investigation is continuing.
Wonder if any players will come out and admit what was really being done.

Maybe Bledsoe.

People don't keep secrets, it takes a lot of people to pull something like this off for just one year let alone many years. Someone would have sold this story long ago to TMZ or someone and cashed in.

IF it did happen and it is a big if, there would be an advantage to to talking after the 15 seconds were up, but as the play develops? You are joking right? So they snap the ball and Brady is drops back and is looking for an open receiver and he has one of his coaches in his ear telling him which way to look or watch out for that late blitzer on the right. Quarterbacks get about 2 to 4 seconds to make up their mind where they are going with the ball, a coach yelling into your helmet would do a lot more damage than good.
It would only take a couple of coaches and Brady to pull off what is alleged....
Videographer Matt Walsh -> "Research Director" Ernie Adams -> OC Charlie Weis -> Brady

 
The biggest coverup regarding Super Bowl XXXVI is that a 5-second field goal attempt somehow took 7 seconds off the clock.

 
Idk about this..."as the play unfolded"?? That would mean a coach would have to call in, Brady hear and process it, THEN react...All in about 3 or 4 seconds, while at least 4 guys are gunning to take his head off. That seems pretty difficult.

 
Lol. Get over it.
Is there a single Patriots fan who wants to know the truth or are you just happy with your three Super Bowl titles regardless?
I'd love to hear what exactly the Pats were up to . . . and the 31 other franchises as well.
Every Pats fan tries to act like its not it big deal......it is. Look how close the Superbowls were...cheating definitely helped them.

 
Idk about this..."as the play unfolded"?? That would mean a coach would have to call in, Brady hear and process it, THEN react...All in about 3 or 4 seconds, while at least 4 guys are gunning to take his head off. That seems pretty difficult.
Now imagine if you practiced it and got it down to a concise system.

 
Lol. Get over it.
Is there a single Patriots fan who wants to know the truth or are you just happy with your three Super Bowl titles regardless?
I'd love to hear what exactly the Pats were up to . . . and the 31 other franchises as well.
Every Pats fan tries to act like its not it big deal......it is. Look how close the Superbowls were...cheating definitely helped them.
The only people that think it is a big deal are the people who legitimately believed only the Patriots were taping signals and that it is single handidly responsible for all of their franchises success. Both of which are well known to not be the case.

If you're willing to live in ignorance, and keep pretending this wasn't commonplace at the time then please - stay bitter.

 
Lol. Get over it.
Is there a single Patriots fan who wants to know the truth or are you just happy with your three Super Bowl titles regardless?
I'd love to hear what exactly the Pats were up to . . . and the 31 other franchises as well.
Every Pats fan tries to act like its not it big deal......it is. Look how close the Superbowls were...cheating definitely helped them.
The only people that think it is a big deal are the people who legitimately believed only the Patriots were taping signals and that it is single handidly responsible for all of their franchises success. Both of which are well known to not be the case.

If you're willing to live in ignorance, and keep pretending this wasn't commonplace at the time then please - stay bitter.
I dont really care....just makes you look foolish as more and more info comes out over time. Just a big bunch of cheaters.

 
Lol. Get over it.
Is there a single Patriots fan who wants to know the truth or are you just happy with your three Super Bowl titles regardless?
I'd love to hear what exactly the Pats were up to . . . and the 31 other franchises as well.
Every Pats fan tries to act like its not it big deal......it is. Look how close the Superbowls were...cheating definitely helped them.
The only people that think it is a big deal are the people who legitimately believed only the Patriots were taping signals and that it is single handidly responsible for all of their franchises success. Both of which are well known to not be the case.

If you're willing to live in ignorance, and keep pretending this wasn't commonplace at the time then please - stay bitter.
I dont really care....just makes you look foolish as more and more info comes out over time. Just a big bunch of cheaters.
Yeah, it makes me look foolish, because I'm the one reading rumors and immediately giving any kind of credence to them without any actual information.

 
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Lol. Get over it.
Is there a single Patriots fan who wants to know the truth or are you just happy with your three Super Bowl titles regardless?
Happy with the three Super Bowl titles regardless. :homer:

ETA: But seriously, anyone who actually thinks "SpyGate" was something:

a) That gave a huge competitive advantage.

b) That was substantively different than what every other team was doing.

Is either ignorant about what the Patriots actually did or a hater. I totally understand people being Patriot haters, it comes with the success.

Something like this, admittedly, would be a little different. I will await further details if this thing has legs.

 
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Lol. Get over it.
Is there a single Patriots fan who wants to know the truth or are you just happy with your three Super Bowl titles regardless?
Happy with the three Super Bowl titles regardless. :homer:

ETA: But seriously, anyone who actually thinks "SpyGate" was something:

a) That gave a huge competitive advantage.

b) That was substantively different than what every other team was doing.

Is either ignorant about what the Patriots actually did or a hater. I totally understand people being Patriot haters, it comes with the success.

Something like this, admittedly, would be a little different. I will await further details if this thing has legs.
Q. Did they tell you (Matt Walsh) what their goals were with what you were filming?

A. Nope. They just told me to film the signals, pass the tape along to Ernie Adams. It was ... once I had done it for the first game, and I kind of understood a little bit of the process of how it was going, I actually asked one of our quarterbacks if the information that I provided was beneficial in any way. He said, “Actually, probably about 75 percent of the time, Tampa Bay ran the defense we thought they were going to run. If not more.”
 
Lots of Pats homers claiming everyone else has a bias. Lol.

Seriously though, I don't really know much about this topic. So if I ask questions they aren't rhetorical. With that, I have an actual question.

What information do we have that can verify the 'everyone was doing it' claim? Is it well know and published? If so, we're the Pats simply better at it? Why were they punished and not others?

 
My biggest question with this whole thing, if I could have ONE question answered by Goodell himself...If there was nothing to see, why would you do the shadiest thing possible and burn the tapes, especially if this is a thing you could grab out of every team's facilities like everyone else claims that it's a common practice?

I mean if I wanted to make everyone NOT believe me, then I would burn those tapes too.

 
Lots of Pats homers claiming everyone else has a bias. Lol.

Seriously though, I don't really know much about this topic. So if I ask questions they aren't rhetorical. With that, I have an actual question.

What information do we have that can verify the 'everyone was doing it' claim? Is it well know and published? If so, we're the Pats simply better at it? Why were they punished and not others?
Agreed, pretty significant punishment if its something everyone is doing. Why cant they catch any of the other 31 teams?

 
Lots of Pats homers claiming everyone else has a bias. Lol.

Seriously though, I don't really know much about this topic. So if I ask questions they aren't rhetorical. With that, I have an actual question.

What information do we have that can verify the 'everyone was doing it' claim? Is it well know and published? If so, we're the Pats simply better at it? Why were they punished and not others?
I think the Pats were punished because a) they had been told to stop taping signals but continued to, b) they were the most successful team at the time and it helps prove a point to punish them, and c) if I remember correctly their situation was more public than any other thanks to Mangini, Matt Walsh and perhaps some other characters.
 
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Lots of Pats homers claiming everyone else has a bias. Lol.

Seriously though, I don't really know much about this topic. So if I ask questions they aren't rhetorical. With that, I have an actual question.

What information do we have that can verify the 'everyone was doing it' claim? Is it well know and published? If so, we're the Pats simply better at it? Why were they punished and not others?
Agreed, pretty significant punishment if its something everyone is doing. Why cant they catch any of the other 31 teams?
Quick answers:

1) Plenty of former players, coaches, etc. have said that everyone did this.

2) The Patriots got tuned up for it because they were caught doing it immediately after the NFL sent out a letter to the teams reminding them that they shouldn't be doing it and telling them to stop. Belichick urinated in Goodell's face.

Long answer below, quotes/references to the quick answers after 2 minutes of Googling. There's information like this all over the place.

A Florio piece from a few years ago:

Regardless of whether the Patriots did or didn’t videotape the Rams’ walk-through practice prior to Super Bowl XXXVI, it’s not the first time that such allegations have been raised.

As Jason Cole of Yahoo! Sports wrote in the days following the discovery that the Pats were taping defensive coaching signals during a Week One game against the Jets, the Broncos were suspected at one time of secretly videotaping Chargers practices.

Wrote Cole: “The San Diego Chargers increased their security several years ago at a hill overlooking the practice field at the team facility during weeks when they played the Denver Broncos. Why? It turns out Broncos coach Mike Shanahan had been hiring spies to videotape the Chargers practices. The NFL had been aware of it for several years (at least one NFL official had seen one of the tapes), but didn’t step in because it was considered a team issue.”

Such stories tend to support the rumor that Patriots coach Bill Belichick included with the materials surrendered to the league extensive evidence of cheating by other teams.

Further bolstering the belief that the Pats weren’t the only team doing what they were caught doing are the comments of former Cowboys and Dolphins coach Jimmy Johnson. The Boston Herald has posted the transcript of a WFAN interview that we first mentioned on September 29, during which Johnson said that the videotaping of defensive coaching signals was a widespread practice.

“I did it with video and so did a lot of other teams in the league,” Johnson said on September 28. “Just to make sure that you could study it and take your time, because you’re going to play the other team the second time around. But a lot of coaches did it, this was commonplace.”

And this kind stuff is nothing new. Way back in 1967, Lee Grosscup wrote an item for Sport magazine that delved into the issue of spying in football.

The bigger issue with what the Patriots did against the Jets is that the Pats continued to do something that the league had specifically told teams not to do, and that the Jets decided to make a sufficiently big deal about it that it set off a media firestorm.

The staggering penalty applied to the Patriots ($250,000 fine and loss of a first-round pick) and coach Bill Belichick ($500,000 fine) created the impression that this really was a big deal, regardless of the fact that it had been going on for an extended period of time.

And by hitting the Pats so hard, the league backed itself into a corner. If the videotaping of defensive coaching signals compels such a harsh sanction, evidence that such things have been occurring on a widespread basis would potentially shake public confidence in the sport.
Bill Cowher:

During a radio appearance on 93.7 FM in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, Cowher, who now works as an analyst for CBS, admitted that the Steelers also tried to steal signals under his watch.

er (AP Photo)

"The only thing (the Patriots) got caught (was) doing it with a camera," Cowher said. "We had people that always tried to steal signals. Stealing someone's signals was a part of the game, and everyone attempted to do that."

The topic came up when Cowher was asked why he didn't ask Belichick about Spygate, in regards to the teams' AFC championship game for the 2004 season, during an interview for "The NFL Today" on CBS.

Cowher insisted the Steelers that game because the Patriots had the better team.

"We didn't lose the game because of any Spygate, because of them having any additional things," Cowher said. "If they're guilty of anything, they're guilty of arrogance because they were told not to do something. But it was something that everybody does."
Eric Mangini, the guy who ratted Belichick out on it:

“Never in a million years did I expect it to play out like this,” Mangini said. “This is one of those situations where I didn’t want them to do the things they were doing. I didn’t think it was any kind of significant advantage, but I wasn’t going to give them the convenience of doing it in our stadium, and I wanted to shut it down. But there was no intent to get the league involved. There was no intent to have the landslide that it has become.”
Etc.,etc.,ec.

 
Lol. Get over it.
Is there a single Patriots fan who wants to know the truth or are you just happy with your three Super Bowl titles regardless?
Happy with the three Super Bowl titles regardless. :homer:

ETA: But seriously, anyone who actually thinks "SpyGate" was something:

a) That gave a huge competitive advantage.

b) That was substantively different than what every other team was doing.

Is either ignorant about what the Patriots actually did or a hater. I totally understand people being Patriot haters, it comes with the success.

Something like this, admittedly, would be a little different. I will await further details if this thing has legs.
Q. Did they tell you (Matt Walsh) what their goals were with what you were filming?

A. Nope. They just told me to film the signals, pass the tape along to Ernie Adams. It was ... once I had done it for the first game, and I kind of understood a little bit of the process of how it was going, I actually asked one of our quarterbacks if the information that I provided was beneficial in any way. He said, “Actually, probably about 75 percent of the time, Tampa Bay ran the defense we thought they were going to run. If not more.”
See, this is a good example. You don't really know what SpyGate was about.

 
Lol. Get over it.
Is there a single Patriots fan who wants to know the truth or are you just happy with your three Super Bowl titles regardless?
Happy with the three Super Bowl titles regardless. :homer:

ETA: But seriously, anyone who actually thinks "SpyGate" was something:

a) That gave a huge competitive advantage.

b) That was substantively different than what every other team was doing.

Is either ignorant about what the Patriots actually did or a hater. I totally understand people being Patriot haters, it comes with the success.

Something like this, admittedly, would be a little different. I will await further details if this thing has legs.
Something like Brady's helmet staying live past the 15 second cutoff would be a little different?

 
Idk about this..."as the play unfolded"?? That would mean a coach would have to call in, Brady hear and process it, THEN react...All in about 3 or 4 seconds, while at least 4 guys are gunning to take his head off. That seems pretty difficult.
No. All he'd have to say is "throw it to x" whoever x happened to be. Or even quicker just say the last name. "Smith" or whoever. The guys upstairs can see the coverages better even before the ball is snapped.

 
Former Steelers receiver Hines Ward contended while still playing that the Patriots knew the Steelers' signals, not just during the 2004 AFC title game but also the 2001 AFC championship game that New England won 24-17 at Heinz Field.

Ward said that when the Steelers audibled to different plays, the Patriots defense shifted almost as quickly as the Steelers offense.

“Oh, they knew,” Ward said before retiring. “They were calling our stuff out. They knew, especially that first championship game here at Heinz Field. They knew a lot of our calls. There's no question some of their players were calling out some of our stuff.”

Read more: http://triblive.com/sports/steelers/5423839-74/cowher-patriots-game#ixzz3FygIuZwh

Follow us: @triblive on Twitter | triblive on Facebook
 
Lol. Get over it.
Is there a single Patriots fan who wants to know the truth or are you just happy with your three Super Bowl titles regardless?
Happy with the three Super Bowl titles regardless. :homer:

ETA: But seriously, anyone who actually thinks "SpyGate" was something:

a) That gave a huge competitive advantage.

b) That was substantively different than what every other team was doing.

Is either ignorant about what the Patriots actually did or a hater. I totally understand people being Patriot haters, it comes with the success.

Something like this, admittedly, would be a little different. I will await further details if this thing has legs.
Q. Did they tell you (Matt Walsh) what their goals were with what you were filming?

A. Nope. They just told me to film the signals, pass the tape along to Ernie Adams. It was ... once I had done it for the first game, and I kind of understood a little bit of the process of how it was going, I actually asked one of our quarterbacks if the information that I provided was beneficial in any way. He said, “Actually, probably about 75 percent of the time, Tampa Bay ran the defense we thought they were going to run. If not more.”
See, this is a good example. You don't really know what SpyGate was about.
If you dont recognize... and admit... the immense advantage a team would gain by knowing what they'd run 25% of the time, then you either dont understand pro football, are a blind pats homer, or both.

 
“The only thing they got caught (was) doing it with a camera,” Cowher told the radio station. “We had people that always tried to steal signals. Stealing someone's signals was a part of the game, and everyone attempted to do that.”

Cowher said “part of the things we had (were) wristbands that we were using to do it,” attempting to identify opposing teams' verbal signals that were being yelled to the players on the field.

Read more: http://triblive.com/sports/steelers/5423839-74/cowher-patriots-game#ixzz3FygUhlGn

Follow us: @triblive on Twitter | triblive on Facebook
What Cowher admitted to is not against the league's rules.

 
If you dont recognize... and admit... the immense advantage a team would gain by knowing what they'd run 25% of the time, then you either dont understand pro football, are a blind pats homer, or both.
They knew 75% of the time - and that was just the first time they tried it against the Bucs in 2000.

 

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