Merged Spygate thread (1 Viewer)

Dr. Octopus said:

In the grand scheme of things this is really no big deal - but the Patriots continue to try a push the limits in every way possible and that is a big deal. I really don't knw what the penalty should be nor do I really care but I do love watching Pat fans try time and time again to show us all "there's nothing to see here" instead of just admitting that their team cheats and they don't care.

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It needs to be severe if the NFL cares about cheaters.  Otherwise just let eliminate the rule and let everyone do whatever they want.

I always think of this matter intellectually as Kraft cheating his business partners out of their fair opportunity to reap partnership benefits because that is actually what this is.

Ditkaless Wonders said:

That is an awful lot of B roll.  Also, if they were righteous their reaction would have been much different.  Not denying and offering to delete and can't we forget the whole thing.  No, the righteous would have been, "we are authorized to be here, talk to ( whoever authorized presence), he will tell you. Yeah we will burn you a copy but this is ours, we were approved, and we need it for our production and we have a schedule, now go get (Person who authorized)."

This does not pass the smell test.    

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I used to work for a production company back in the day.  For a 10 minute video, we would often shoot 2x-3x that time in B Roll. That's how that stuff works typically.

Workhorse said:

I used to work for a production company back in the day.  For a 10 minute video, we would often shoot 2x-3x that time in B Roll. That's how that stuff works typically.

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Sure.  But for a 30 minute video following a person for a week, his prep, his travel, his activity and responsibility where there may be 3 to 5 minutes of him in the game day booth would you shoot 8 minutes of film from the booth without him in the shot at all?    No, there would be film of him greeting other advanced scouts.  Film of him hitting the buffet.  Film of him setting up his laptop and his pregame notes, film of him looking down with his binoculars, but not 8 minutes without him at all. Sorry, not buying it.  We are talking about maybe an anticipated 20 second shot of just the sideline where he is not also in the shot.  No way they have 8 minutes of that for that type of shot.  also, had they not been interrupted it seems like it would have been more. 

Does not pass the smell test to me.  Does it really pass to you?  If it does I will have to rethink matters, deferring to your apparently greater knowledge base.

Ditkaless Wonders said:

Sure.  But for a 30 minute video following a person for a week, his prep, his travel, his activity and responsibility where there may be 3 to 5 minutes of him in the game day booth would you shoot 8 minutes of film from the booth without him in the shot at all?    No, there would be film of him greeting other advanced scouts.  Film of him hitting the buffet.  Film of him setting up his laptop and his pregame notes, film of him looking down with his binoculars, but not 8 minutes without him at all. Sorry, not buying it.  We are talking about maybe an anticipated 20 second shot of just the sideline where he is not also in the shot.  No way they have 8 minutes of that for that type of shot.  also, had they not been interrupted it seems like it would have been more. 

Does not pass the smell test to me.  Does it really pass to you?  If it does I will have to rethink matters, deferring to your apparently greater knowledge base.

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I agree with you here. 

Conflicted as it doesn’t pass the smell test but the facts don’t align with this being a team orchestrated operation to gain an advantage. 

Ditkaless Wonders said:

Sure.  But for a 30 minute video following a person for a week, his prep, his travel, his activity and responsibility where there may be 3 to 5 minutes of him in the game day booth would you shoot 8 minutes of film from the booth without him in the shot at all?    No, there would be film of him greeting other advanced scouts.  Film of him hitting the buffet.  Film of him setting up his laptop and his pregame notes, film of him looking down with his binoculars, but not 8 minutes without him at all. Sorry, not buying it.  We are talking about maybe an anticipated 20 second shot of just the sideline where he is not also in the shot.  No way they have 8 minutes of that for that type of shot.  also, had they not been interrupted it seems like it would have been more. 

Does not pass the smell test to me.  Does it really pass to you?  If it does I will have to rethink matters, deferring to your apparently greater knowledge base.

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Sure it does. The documentary is about an advance scout who is sitting in the press box talking about what he's looking for during a game:  Substitution patterns, formations, etc...  A crew would shoot B Roll of all of those things with the scout's voice-over describing those things. It makes perfect sense. As for what else they shot, we have no idea since none of us have seen that footage -- The video on Fox from Glazer was simply the recording of that video screen and a partial back and forth between them and security. I'm sure that the league has all of it since the video card was turned over.  At this point, the NFL knows better than any of us what that crew shot.

The Patriots are 100% guilty of being stupid by allowing their documentary team to exist independently of the operations folks so that they weren't in a position to put the kibosh on this kind of thing to eliminate the appearance of impropriety. 

Workhorse said:

Sure it does. The documentary is about an advance scout who is sitting in the press box talking about what he's looking for during a game:  Substitution patterns, formations, etc...  A crew would shoot B Roll of all of those things with the scout's voice-over describing those things. It makes perfect sense. As for what else they shot, we have no idea since none of us have seen that footage -- The video on Fox from Glazer was simply the recording of that video screen and a partial back and forth between them and security. I'm sure that the league has all of it since the video card was turned over.  At this point, the NFL knows better than any of us what that crew shot.

The Patriots are 100% guilty of being stupid by allowing their documentary team to exist independently of the operations folks so that they weren't in a position to put the kibosh on this kind of thing to eliminate the appearance of impropriety. 

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Even if the 'what I do on my job' part of the documentary makes sense, aren't there a number of other cities they can fly to rather than the game of your next week's opponent? There really is no explaining why they covered that component of the documentary in that particular stadium, at that time.

Workhorse said:

I used to work for a production company back in the day.  For a 10 minute video, we would often shoot 2x-3x that time in B Roll. That's how that stuff works typically.

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And when someone walked in on your shooting that B Roll, was your reaction typically "Hello, can I help you?", or something more along the lines of "oh ####, don't tell anyone you saw us here and we can delete footage.  We will totally delete the footage my man, no one everrrr needs to see what we were filming here, just let us delete it, forget this ever happened, and we'll be on our way".

BigJim® said:

Even if the 'what I do on my job' part of the documentary makes sense, aren't there a number of other cities they can fly to rather than the game of your next week's opponent? There really is no explaining why they covered that component of the documentary in that particular stadium, at that time.

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I hate to take the side of the Pats in any way, but the whole point of an advance scout is sending him to a future opponent’s game to scout. So it wouldn’t make much sense to send the guy to watch Green Bay play.

I'm actually pretty impressed that New England had the nerve to film a team's sideline after being punished for doing that exact same thing before.  You don't see that level of resolve very often, and I commend the Patriots for their commitment to cheating.

Ditkaless Wonders said:

Sure.  But for a 30 minute video following a person for a week, his prep, his travel, his activity and responsibility where there may be 3 to 5 minutes of him in the game day booth would you shoot 8 minutes of film from the booth without him in the shot at all?    No, there would be film of him greeting other advanced scouts.  Film of him hitting the buffet.  Film of him setting up his laptop and his pregame notes, film of him looking down with his binoculars, but not 8 minutes without him at all. Sorry, not buying it.  We are talking about maybe an anticipated 20 second shot of just the sideline where he is not also in the shot.  No way they have 8 minutes of that for that type of shot.  also, had they not been interrupted it seems like it would have been more. 

Does not pass the smell test to me.  Does it really pass to you?  If it does I will have to rethink matters, deferring to your apparently greater knowledge base.

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IMO, there is a major difference between cheating (intending or conspiring to get a competitive advantage) and a rules violation (breaking a league rule by accident, stupidity, or miscommunication). To me, this is the latter.

Based on what has come out . . . 

- The Do Your Job web series has featured all types of people involved with the Patriots organization . . . trainers, equipment people, game day operations staff, scouting for draft prep, dieticians, video production, etc. (most of the people featured have NOTHING to do with coaching).
- It does not appear they have ever put anything together for the Do Your Job series at another stadium before. The crew in question had never shot any footage for the show that involved any team other than NE on game day before.
- The main Kraft Productions film crew was in NE for the Chiefs game and this was a contracted crew sent to put a piece together on an advanced scout.
- NE approached the Browns and got permission and credentials to bring in a crew, equipment, and to tape things from the press box.
- The advanced scout in the video was scouting the Bengals . . . which only makes sense seeing how that's who they were facing next. If they really wanted to covertly get an advantage over someone . . . wouldn't they have tried to do it against the Ravens or Chiefs rather than the Bengals?
- The press box in Cleveland is on the visiting side of the field . . . and anything a scout would see looking straight down would be of the visiting team not the home team.
- People apparently have done the research and found that the Patriots did not ask for video credentials to shoot at any other NFL game this season . . . so it does not appear that there was an ongoing scheme to pretend to send a fake video crew to tape the field from the press box.
- Some folks have reviewed the Browns / Bengals game and found that the Bengals called all their plays over the head set and they did not use secondary hand signals to audible plays or alignments. Essentially, everything that was observable on the NE taped footage was accessible through other legal videotape footage.
- If, as alleged by NE, the video crew was showing things from the perspective of the scout looking over the field, it would make sense that they wanted to show some of what happens in game and what they might be looking at. It makes sense to me that they would have some B roll footage to cut to when explaining what the scout sees. The production team likely should have known better, but a guy brought in just to shoot at a different stadium as a newbie contractor may not have known (but probably should have). The producer definitively should have known (seeing how he said he was involved shooting stuff for NE for 18 years.)

Blending all of that together, I happen to believe the story NE is selling . . . that it was miscommunication and was an isolated incident (as far as the Do Your Job crew goes) and was not something that came from or would be used by the coaching staff. Why the videographer was sent to Cleveland to shoot the footage he did seems like just a dumb decision. 

That being said, NE lost the benefit of the doubt a long time ago, but to me this does not indicate a massive cover up and I don't think this was an attempt to intentionally cheat to gain a competitive advantage. Thus why I said I think it is a rules violation and not an on-going cheating scandal. Given other game day rules violations by other teams, if another team did something like this, I would expect a $250,000 fine and being docked a late round draft pick. Since it is NE, I would guess they will be fined double to triple the going rate and lose a middle round draft pick (ie, one of their compensatory picks). Maybe someone in the front office will also get fined or get pinned with a brief suspension. I don't think anything will happen to BB. That's my opinion, and everyone can have their own opinion and conclusions.

GroveDiesel said:

I hate to take the side of the Pats in any way, but the whole point of an advance scout is sending him to a future opponent’s game to scout. So it wouldn’t make much sense to send the guy to watch Green Bay play.

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Meh, on a documentary about what a guy does I don't see why it needs to be concerning a real opponent the next week. It could be any team. It's not like a viewer cares about whether what s/he is seeing in the documentary is actual prep or a general approach to prep. And that's the thing... aren't they saying it is not actual prep, and if it were actual prep that is a problem?

Dr. Octopus said:

In the grand scheme of things this is really no big deal - but the Patriots continue to try a push the limits in every way possible and that is a big deal. I really don't knw what the penalty should be nor do I really care but I do love watching Pat fans try time and time again to show us all "there's nothing to see here" instead of just admitting that their team cheats and they don't care.

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The Patriots cheat, and I don't care. 

Still, at this point, I'd be happy with suspensions for BB & Kraft for being jackasses. I'm pretty tired of their overstepping of the lines leading these asinine weeks of media frenzy, be it due to ignorance or continued intentional instructions.

Fact is the greatest dynasty in sports will be forever tainted with the smell of cheating.

Credibility... much like virginity... once it is lost, well, ya know.

Not a Pats fan....

So what was so bad about videoing, aside from the fact that videoing an opponent is against the rules?  I mean can't they just got the all 22 tape (that the average fan can't get)?  The regular TV feed can show who goes in and out on different plays.  So what extra could they get from this?  There are no signals anymore, it's all audio in the helmets, right?

Tedy Bruschi "I dont blame anyone who sees this and uses it to say 'They are cheaters'."

Buffaloes said:

Pats* fans have played this wrong imo. The victim, poor us shtick is unbecoming of a heel.

Heels walking out like Hollywood Hogan playing the guitar on the fake championship belt while buff bagwell films the opposition's hand signals, Kevin Nash sneaks into walk through, Scott hall lets air pressure out of the balls, and Scott steiner pops some PEDs before winning super bowl mvp.

Pats* fans, you guys are heels in this entertainment industry. Own it. Or in the parliance of new England, Do your job.

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I dabble with this strategy occasionally, but it typically results in a ban.

So the standard schtick is you all are wannabe crybabies who can't own up to the fact that your teams are second rate, so you take solace in the comforting embrace of the asterisk.

Good thing we deflated those balls; never would have beat the Colts without that advantage.  Oh wait...

BigJim® said:

Meh, on a documentary about what a guy does I don't see why it needs to be concerning a real opponent the next week. It could be any team. It's not like a viewer cares about whether what s/he is seeing in the documentary is actual prep or a general approach to prep. And that's the thing... aren't they saying it is not actual prep, and if it were actual prep that is a problem?

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For the video it wouldn't matter. However, for the scout to actually do his job he has to be scouting the team they're going to play.

SeniorVBDStudent said:

I dabble with this strategy occasionally, but it typically results in a ban.

So the standard schtick is you all are wannabe crybabies who can't own up to the fact that your teams are second rate, so you take solace in the comforting embrace of the asterisk.

Good thing we deflated those balls; never would have beat the Colts without that advantage.  Oh wait...

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Your team cheated to beat the Bengals.  That's like running a race against crippled children and deliberately jumping the start.

The Patriots have won 6 superbowls. I don't think Kraft, Belichick, or Brady will lose any sleep if there are sanctions for this latest infraction. They are all fat and happy. 

*Have won 6 tainted superbowls. 

That's how it is.

Anarchy99 said:

I happen to believe the story NE is selling

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:shocked Pikachu face:

IvanKaramazov said:

Your team cheated to beat the Bengals.  That's like running a race against crippled children and deliberately jumping the start.

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Somehow I can picture BB in his racing hoodie doing exactly that.

BigJim® said:

Even if the 'what I do on my job' part of the documentary makes sense, aren't there a number of other cities they can fly to rather than the game of your next week's opponent? There really is no explaining why they covered that component of the documentary in that particular stadium, at that time.

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Doesn't the advance scout scout the team you're about to play?

DropKick said:

Doesn't the advance scout scout the team you're about to play?

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Yes, I guess that makes sense. Still, 8 minutes of footage of the sideline without this guy in the video (ETA: reportedly)? It's stretches logic.  

BigJim® said:

Yes, I guess that makes sense. Still, 8 minutes of footage of the sideline without this guy in the video (ETA: reportedly)? It's stretches logic.  

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I only saw about 20 seconds online... looked about as useful as a TV shot.  I think this is a guy just being stupid but let the league dissect it.

Mark Football said:

The Patriots have won 6 superbowls. I don't think Kraft, Belichick, or Brady will lose any sleep if there are sanctions for this latest infraction. They are all fat and happy. 

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Fat, happy, and cheaters.  Always have that going for them....along with that *

IvanKaramazov said:

Your team cheated to beat the Bengals.  That's like running a race against crippled children and deliberately jumping the start.

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/thread

So, how many picks to they have to give up this time?

JohnnyU said:

So, how many picks to they have to give up this time?

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Screw the picks, cut their salary cap by 25% for the next 5 years

rick6668 said:

Screw the picks, cut their salary cap by 25% for the next 5 years

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That won't do much.  Hell, the Colts have close to, if not the most, salary cap space and they never use it.  Bill Belichick loves the draft and the trading of picks, so take away his leverage.  If the Pats prove to be guilty again take multiple picks away and loss of cap dollars.  

Mark Football said:

The Patriots have won 6 superbowls. I don't think Kraft, Belichick, or Brady will lose any sleep if there are sanctions for this latest infraction. They are all fat and happy. 

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This is basically Stephen A. Smith's take: "Cheating works. Fans of other teams should be mad because their teams aren't cheating well enough to take Lombardis away from New England!"

It is kinda true though -- every team bends rules this way and that way. Why isn't more of what the Patriots do more readily copied? Are the Patriots really like the Babe Ruth of finding edges/cheating?

Doug B said:

This is basically Stephen A. Smith's take: "Cheating works. Fans of other teams should be mad because their teams aren't cheating well enough to take Lombardis away from New England!"

It is kinda true though -- every team bends rules this way and that way. Why isn't more of what the Patriots do more readily copied? Are the Patriots really like the Babe Ruth of finding edges/cheating?

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Even if we ignore any of the gaining an edge illegally stuff, the same question holds true in many other areas. For example, NE gets the most out of the salary cap (ie, the collected value they get from their players is greater than their actual salaries) and they typically don't pay players near the top of the market. Yet come free agency, plenty of teams jump at the chance to sign guys to huge contracts (and many times guys that aren't close to worth it).

Anarchy99 said:

Even if we ignore any of the gaining an edge illegally stuff, the same question holds true in many other areas. For example, NE gets the most out of the salary cap (ie, the collected value they get from their players is greater than their actual salaries) and they typically don't pay players near the top of the market. Yet come free agency, plenty of teams jump at the chance to sign guys to huge contracts (and many times guys that aren't close to worth it).

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I get the finding an edge piece, but this video they took and the past incidents don't equate to this finding an edge stuff.  

As a Colts fan I am jealous of how Bellichek is able to operate his team almost never giving a contract that overpays a player.  He is a genius in that regards.  This topic has nothing to do with that.  They videotaped the sideline illegally.  This isn't gaining an edge.  This is not allowed.  If this was the first time they have done something slightly over the edge I would say whatever this is dumb.  This is not the first time and I am not convinced it was accidental after all the past incidents.  Don't compare FA and salary cap to an illegal activity. 

smbkrypt24 said:

I get the finding an edge piece, but this video they took and the past incidents don't equate to this finding an edge stuff.  

As a Colts fan I am jealous of how Bellichek is able to operate his team almost never giving a contract that overpays a player.  He is a genius in that regards.

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That's not genius, it's called winning. If you, as a player, have a choice between New England who has a perennial shot at getting you to the Superbowl every single year or the Cleveland Browns making a few extra hundred thousand (theoretical dollars), then which are you going to chose? It's no different in any team sports setting, the teams that are consistently better have a much easier time recruiting players.

smbkrypt24 said:

This is not the first time and I am not convinced it was accidental after all the past incidents.  

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All you have to do is watch & listen to the recording to come to the conclusion the guy knew he was doing something against the rules.  The team continually cheats even when it is not necessary for them to win.   They deserve a harsh punishment but probably won't get one and even if they do they'll cheat again.

Godsbrother said:

All you have to do is watch & listen to the recording to come to the conclusion the guy knew he was doing something against the rules.  The team continually cheats even when it is not necessary for them to win.   They deserve a harsh punishment but probably won't get one and even if they do they'll cheat again.

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Guy was probably worried he was going to lose his job - which he prob will

Nothing the Pats do is by accident. 

Tool said:

Guy was probably worried he was going to lose his job - which he prob will

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Didn't that guy whose primary job was to deflate balls lose his job?  

Doug B said:

This is basically Stephen A. Smith's take: "Cheating works. Fans of other teams should be mad because their teams aren't cheating well enough to take Lombardis away from New England!"

It is kinda true though -- every team bends rules this way and that way. Why isn't more of what the Patriots do more readily copied? Are the Patriots really like the Babe Ruth of finding edges/cheating?

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It's not the cheating.

It's getting caught. 

Death Penalty.  Belichick and Kraft, Two years away from all team activities. Two first round picks.

Not a pats fan at all and they probably cheated my team out of a super bowl. That said any time a lineman holds and doesn’t get flagged is a bigger cheat than this. 

BassNBrew said:

Not a pats fan at all and they probably cheated my team out of a super bowl. That said any time a lineman holds and doesn’t get flagged is a bigger cheat than this. 

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Stealing signals is a lot bigger deal.

SeniorVBDStudent said:

I dabble with this strategy occasionally, but it typically results in a ban.

So the standard schtick is you all are wannabe crybabies who can't own up to the fact that your teams are second rate, so you take solace in the comforting embrace of the asterisk.

Good thing we deflated those balls; never would have beat the Colts without that advantage.  Oh wait...

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I ran this through a translator and came up with "The Patriots are a genuinely good team, and the fact that they cheat doesn't matter because they would win anyways."

I think, the NFL needs to conduct an exhaustive and thorough investigation, just like and immediately after the AB investigation. Maybe combine them, AB was a Patriot and might know something.   

BassNBrew said:

Not a pats fan at all and they probably cheated my team out of a super bowl. That said any time a lineman holds and doesn’t get flagged is a bigger cheat than this. 

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How often is a hold not called? every play? Because that's how often stolen signals matter- every play

Dr. Dan said:

How often is a hold not called? every play? Because that's how often stolen signals matter- every play

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Likely every play

the only stolen signals that are of any significance would be eves dropping on the communications. Actually that would be pretty easy to pull off and much more beneficial. Wonder who has done that

BassNBrew said:

Likely every play

the only stolen signals that are of any significance would be eves dropping on the communications. Actually that would be pretty easy to pull off and much more beneficial. Wonder who has done that

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Do you support holding calls on likely every play?

Dr. Dan said:

Do you support holding calls on likely every play?

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Nope. I also don’t support banning the online coach for 2 years for excessive holding.  

What happened was wrong and should be punished. I just rank this somewhere south of the falcons piping in crowd noise

For reference, I think Brady got off light on the ball issue and that punishment should had been harsher. 

The whole ball "air" issue was a farce. Goodall should have been suspended, lol. If Brady had just been up front from the start and said that yes, he likes the footballs on the "less air"softer side, but he doesn't specify the exact psi, etc. People don't want to hear it but the balls were within specs anyways- and Brady went on to torch more teams. What Goodall didn't like was the lack of cooperation.

This incident is just weird and is on a level of stupidity that's hard to fathom. But I don't think there's much there. What exactly can be gleaned from filming the bench from behind (along with thousands of fans who have the same view) doesn't seem like much, and it's available for all to see. And it's CINCINNATI!! lol. The interaction between the security and the camera guy was bizarre for sure. Poor questions from the guard, poor answers from the camera guy. What else is on the footage, and interviewing the crew should get to the bottom of it. Still dumb as hell.