ESPN, NFLNETWORK FALSE REPORTS about the Pats cheating (1 Viewer)

[jonessed]

Nobody is talking that much about the radio frequencies. I think that makes this potentially a much bigger deal.

NO wonder the Pats D is so good, and looks like they know the plays - they do!

the talent of the players has nothing to do with the D being good I guess?

Apparently being good doesn't preclude cheating

 

[bostonfred]

With that said, despite popular belief to the contrary, Shanahan is one of the cleanest coaches in the league (at least, among all coaches who have been tenured more than 4 or 5 years). Please give me an example where Denver has willfully and knowingly violated an NFL rule in an effort to gain a competitive advantage.

The Broncos have been fined and lost two third round picks for separate salary cap violations. They cut block more than any team in the NFL. They have a long history of steroid violations, from Lyle Alzado, to Bill Romanowski, to Kenny Peterson just this year.

The cap violations were Bowlen's fault, and the official league statement said they were PLAINLY (their word, not mine) a result of Bowlen being cash-strapped rather than an attempt to gain a competitive advantage. Cut blocking is perfectly legal and practiced by all 32 teams (as well as ever pop warner team ever), so saying that Denver cut blocks more than any team in the NFL as if that makes them cheaters is like saying they tackle more than any team in the NFL as if that makes them cheaters. Romanowski said he didn't take steroids until he was with Oakland, so the "long history of violations" really boils down to Lyle Alzado and some fringe defensive player who has appeared in 3 games in his Denver "career", whose "career" statistics in Denver are 1 assisted tackle, and who didn't even make the team. And I don't know how you're counting Alzado against Shanahan, since his last career year in Denver was in 1978, back when Shanny was the offensive coordinator of Eastern Illinois University, John Elway was a promising high school recruit, and Kaiser still owned the Broncos.Thanks for playing.

I'm just responding to your question. Romanowski's statements aside, if you're going to say categorically that he never did steroids with the Broncos, then you should be defend the Patriots by saying that they never broke the rules before the Jets game.

The cap violations did gain a competitive advantage. There are teams that refuse to pay huge signing bonuses or spend up to the cap. This is not good for the league, so the league set up a fund by which teams can defer some portion of their spending. The Broncos would have been forced to be one of these teams, but they decided to abuse that system and defer $30 million. This was such an abuse of the system that the league took a third round pick from them. Twice. Is that the head coach/general manager's fault? Only insofar as he spent beyond his owner's means. But he did, and he got punished for it, and that's htat.

Cut blocks end players' careers, and depending on the execution, they're against the rules, and Broncos players have been penalized for it. So it's disingenuous to imply that the Broncos haven't done it. They have, and they've accepted the penalty when they've been caught, and that's that.

Why is this less of a rules volation than what the Patriots allegedly did? They both impact the outcome of the game, but the Broncos' dirty blocking techniques end players' careers. Please note that the mob mentality in here will not accept your initial answer of "all 32 teams do it".

I'm not trying to attack you or the Broncos here. I'm just trying to understand the vitriol that's been leveled at the Patriots in the national media and in this forum. I don't remember the same vitriol towards other teams. Is it just that I have a short memory? I'd feel better if that's the case. Or can you help me uunderstand why videotaping signals is much worse than cutblocking below the knees?

 

[NY/NJMFDIVER]

With that said, despite popular belief to the contrary, Shanahan is one of the cleanest coaches in the league (at least, among all coaches who have been tenured more than 4 or 5 years). Please give me an example where Denver has willfully and knowingly violated an NFL rule in an effort to gain a competitive advantage.

The Broncos have been fined and lost two third round picks for separate salary cap violations. They cut block more than any team in the NFL. They have a long history of steroid violations, from Lyle Alzado, to Bill Romanowski, to Kenny Peterson just this year.

The cap violations were Bowlen's fault, and the official league statement said they were PLAINLY (their word, not mine) a result of Bowlen being cash-strapped rather than an attempt to gain a competitive advantage. Cut blocking is perfectly legal and practiced by all 32 teams (as well as ever pop warner team ever), so saying that Denver cut blocks more than any team in the NFL as if that makes them cheaters is like saying they tackle more than any team in the NFL as if that makes them cheaters. Romanowski said he didn't take steroids until he was with Oakland, so the "long history of violations" really boils down to Lyle Alzado and some fringe defensive player who has appeared in 3 games in his Denver "career", whose "career" statistics in Denver are 1 assisted tackle, and who didn't even make the team. And I don't know how you're counting Alzado against Shanahan, since his last career year in Denver was in 1978, back when Shanny was the offensive coordinator of Eastern Illinois University, John Elway was a promising high school recruit, and Kaiser still owned the Broncos.Thanks for playing.

I'm just responding to your question. Romanowski's statements aside, if you're going to say categorically that he never did steroids with the Broncos, then you should be defend the Patriots by saying that they never broke the rules before the Jets game.

The cap violations did gain a competitive advantage. There are teams that refuse to pay huge signing bonuses or spend up to the cap. This is not good for the league, so the league set up a fund by which teams can defer some portion of their spending. The Broncos would have been forced to be one of these teams, but they decided to abuse that system and defer $30 million. This was such an abuse of the system that the league took a third round pick from them. Twice. Is that the head coach/general manager's fault? Only insofar as he spent beyond his owner's means. But he did, and he got punished for it, and that's htat.

Cut blocks end players' careers, and depending on the execution, they're against the rules, and Broncos players have been penalized for it. So it's disingenuous to imply that the Broncos haven't done it. They have, and they've accepted the penalty when they've been caught, and that's that.

Why is this less of a rules volation than what the Patriots allegedly did? They both impact the outcome of the game, but the Broncos' dirty blocking techniques end players' careers. Please note that the mob mentality in here will not accept your initial answer of "all 32 teams do it".

I'm not trying to attack you or the Broncos here. I'm just trying to understand the vitriol that's been leveled at the Patriots in the national media and in this forum. I don't remember the same vitriol towards other teams. Is it just that I have a short memory? I'd feel better if that's the case. Or can you help me uunderstand why videotaping signals is much worse than cutblocking below the knees?

Because one is an open offense in the context of game. Throw the flag or throw them out of the game, to equate penalties with this is like saying one guy got a parking ticket and has a felony conviction and wondering what the difference is.

 

[bostonfred]

With that said, despite popular belief to the contrary, Shanahan is one of the cleanest coaches in the league (at least, among all coaches who have been tenured more than 4 or 5 years). Please give me an example where Denver has willfully and knowingly violated an NFL rule in an effort to gain a competitive advantage.

The Broncos have been fined and lost two third round picks for separate salary cap violations. They cut block more than any team in the NFL. They have a long history of steroid violations, from Lyle Alzado, to Bill Romanowski, to Kenny Peterson just this year.

The cap violations were Bowlen's fault, and the official league statement said they were PLAINLY (their word, not mine) a result of Bowlen being cash-strapped rather than an attempt to gain a competitive advantage. Cut blocking is perfectly legal and practiced by all 32 teams (as well as ever pop warner team ever), so saying that Denver cut blocks more than any team in the NFL as if that makes them cheaters is like saying they tackle more than any team in the NFL as if that makes them cheaters. Romanowski said he didn't take steroids until he was with Oakland, so the "long history of violations" really boils down to Lyle Alzado and some fringe defensive player who has appeared in 3 games in his Denver "career", whose "career" statistics in Denver are 1 assisted tackle, and who didn't even make the team. And I don't know how you're counting Alzado against Shanahan, since his last career year in Denver was in 1978, back when Shanny was the offensive coordinator of Eastern Illinois University, John Elway was a promising high school recruit, and Kaiser still owned the Broncos.Thanks for playing.

I'm just responding to your question. Romanowski's statements aside, if you're going to say categorically that he never did steroids with the Broncos, then you should be defend the Patriots by saying that they never broke the rules before the Jets game.

The cap violations did gain a competitive advantage. There are teams that refuse to pay huge signing bonuses or spend up to the cap. This is not good for the league, so the league set up a fund by which teams can defer some portion of their spending. The Broncos would have been forced to be one of these teams, but they decided to abuse that system and defer $30 million. This was such an abuse of the system that the league took a third round pick from them. Twice. Is that the head coach/general manager's fault? Only insofar as he spent beyond his owner's means. But he did, and he got punished for it, and that's htat.

Cut blocks end players' careers, and depending on the execution, they're against the rules, and Broncos players have been penalized for it. So it's disingenuous to imply that the Broncos haven't done it. They have, and they've accepted the penalty when they've been caught, and that's that.

Why is this less of a rules volation than what the Patriots allegedly did? They both impact the outcome of the game, but the Broncos' dirty blocking techniques end players' careers. Please note that the mob mentality in here will not accept your initial answer of "all 32 teams do it".

I'm not trying to attack you or the Broncos here. I'm just trying to understand the vitriol that's been leveled at the Patriots in the national media and in this forum. I don't remember the same vitriol towards other teams. Is it just that I have a short memory? I'd feel better if that's the case. Or can you help me uunderstand why videotaping signals is much worse than cutblocking below the knees?

Because one is an open offense in the context of game. Throw the flag or throw them out of the game, to equate penalties with this is like saying one guy got a parking ticket and has a felony conviction and wondering what the difference is.

OK, so you think the appropriate punishment is that Belichick should have been thrown out of the game as soon as his open offense was caught? That seems reasonable. Is that the punishment you endorse?I'm not sure I'm following your argument that one is a parking ticket and the other is a felony. You'll have to explain that in more detail if you want that analogy to have nonhyperbolic meaning.

 

[NY/NJMFDIVER]

With that said, despite popular belief to the contrary, Shanahan is one of the cleanest coaches in the league (at least, among all coaches who have been tenured more than 4 or 5 years). Please give me an example where Denver has willfully and knowingly violated an NFL rule in an effort to gain a competitive advantage.

The Broncos have been fined and lost two third round picks for separate salary cap violations. They cut block more than any team in the NFL. They have a long history of steroid violations, from Lyle Alzado, to Bill Romanowski, to Kenny Peterson just this year.

The cap violations were Bowlen's fault, and the official league statement said they were PLAINLY (their word, not mine) a result of Bowlen being cash-strapped rather than an attempt to gain a competitive advantage. Cut blocking is perfectly legal and practiced by all 32 teams (as well as ever pop warner team ever), so saying that Denver cut blocks more than any team in the NFL as if that makes them cheaters is like saying they tackle more than any team in the NFL as if that makes them cheaters. Romanowski said he didn't take steroids until he was with Oakland, so the "long history of violations" really boils down to Lyle Alzado and some fringe defensive player who has appeared in 3 games in his Denver "career", whose "career" statistics in Denver are 1 assisted tackle, and who didn't even make the team. And I don't know how you're counting Alzado against Shanahan, since his last career year in Denver was in 1978, back when Shanny was the offensive coordinator of Eastern Illinois University, John Elway was a promising high school recruit, and Kaiser still owned the Broncos.Thanks for playing.

I'm just responding to your question. Romanowski's statements aside, if you're going to say categorically that he never did steroids with the Broncos, then you should be defend the Patriots by saying that they never broke the rules before the Jets game.

The cap violations did gain a competitive advantage. There are teams that refuse to pay huge signing bonuses or spend up to the cap. This is not good for the league, so the league set up a fund by which teams can defer some portion of their spending. The Broncos would have been forced to be one of these teams, but they decided to abuse that system and defer $30 million. This was such an abuse of the system that the league took a third round pick from them. Twice. Is that the head coach/general manager's fault? Only insofar as he spent beyond his owner's means. But he did, and he got punished for it, and that's htat.

Cut blocks end players' careers, and depending on the execution, they're against the rules, and Broncos players have been penalized for it. So it's disingenuous to imply that the Broncos haven't done it. They have, and they've accepted the penalty when they've been caught, and that's that.

Why is this less of a rules volation than what the Patriots allegedly did? They both impact the outcome of the game, but the Broncos' dirty blocking techniques end players' careers. Please note that the mob mentality in here will not accept your initial answer of "all 32 teams do it".

I'm not trying to attack you or the Broncos here. I'm just trying to understand the vitriol that's been leveled at the Patriots in the national media and in this forum. I don't remember the same vitriol towards other teams. Is it just that I have a short memory? I'd feel better if that's the case. Or can you help me uunderstand why videotaping signals is much worse than cutblocking below the knees?

Because one is an open offense in the context of game. Throw the flag or throw them out of the game, to equate penalties with this is like saying one guy got a parking ticket and has a felony conviction and wondering what the difference is.

OK, so you think the appropriate punishment is that Belichick should have been thrown out of the game as soon as his open offense was caught? That seems reasonable. Is that the punishment you endorse?I'm not sure I'm following your argument that one is a parking ticket and the other is a felony. You'll have to explain that in more detail if you want that analogy to have nonhyperbolic meaning.

The referee is responsible by and large to maintain whats going on between the white lines. Of course, the occasional stadium issue may prevail, noise being piped in, video replays monkeying with a replay(to benefit a home team) but they can't be expected to police for this sort of thing. There is too much other stuff going on, like cut blocks. That is a deeper indiscretion that should realistically be dealt with as it was, by league security on the sidelines and meted at a later date. There are violations outside the context of the game that still deserve resolution. This falls under that umbrella, I don't know why that's so hard to see. We are still in the speculation mode, so we don' t know exactly what context to grade the severity of their offense. I've used a few times through these threads comparison of a misdameanor versus a felony in assessing what how to deal with this. Surely we can agree that there are differing degrees of offense. I would consider the information on the surface, video taping for future dissection a misdemeanor. A sure violation but not the gravest infraction possible. However, it would upgrade to felony status if it was being used as information gathering for THAT GAME. I assume that will be part of the eventual consideration, and given that the cameraman was pretty irate in reference being nabbed, the burden is on the Pats to prove that it wasn't being done for that purpose.

But we don't know the full details yet, so we are connecting dots based on the availble information and this is all preliminary. Why I call the game infaction a parking ticket, despite your own brand of hyperbole of illustrating the extreme example of a career ending injury, which could also happen on late hits, and unnecessary roughness penalties, which are also generally dealt with via penalties and disqualifications, the infraction is typically dealt with on the spot. A scenario which is not possible with the other spying situation. The penalty is literally the penalty and its instant, you don't go to court for every parking ticket. But if you commit a more serious crime(which this would be in that context), you do go to court. Hope this helps.

 

[SSOG]

I'm just responding to your question. Romanowski's statements aside, if you're going to say categorically that he never did steroids with the Broncos, then you should be defend the Patriots by saying that they never broke the rules before the Jets game.

As far as I know, there is no credible source suggesting that Romo did steroids with the Broncos as anything other than pure conjecture. As far as I know, there are several credible sources that have suggested that there has been tangible evidence of the Patriots engaging in this practice in the past (Green Bay officials and Charlie Casserly). You're comparing pure unabashed what-if speculation with no support to educated inference based on tangible reports by credible officials filed before the scandal broke in the first place.

The cap violations did gain a competitive advantage. There are teams that refuse to pay huge signing bonuses or spend up to the cap. This is not good for the league, so the league set up a fund by which teams can defer some portion of their spending. The Broncos would have been forced to be one of these teams, but they decided to abuse that system and defer $30 million. This was such an abuse of the system that the league took a third round pick from them. Twice. Is that the head coach/general manager's fault? Only insofar as he spent beyond his owner's means. But he did, and he got punished for it, and that's htat.

The only competitive advantage gained was the new stadium. The two scenarios are that Denver violates the cap (which is what happens), or Denver doesn't violate the cap. The only difference between the two scenarios is that in the latter, Bowlen honors his contracts and doesn't have the liquid assets to fund the new stadium. I suppose you could argue that the revenue from this new stadium has given Denver a competitive advantage, but that's an advantage that wouldn't be felt until several years after the Superbowl victories, and as a result, couldn't really taint the aforementioned victories. Regardless, as I already said, the NFL specifically said that the violations were LACKING AN INTENT TO GAIN A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE. Intent is a big deal here. It's the difference between homicide and criminal neglicence.

Cut blocks end players' careers, and depending on the execution, they're against the rules, and Broncos players have been penalized for it. So it's disingenuous to imply that the Broncos haven't done it. They have, and they've accepted the penalty when they've been caught, and that's that.

Denver's coaches do not teach their linemen to chop block, which is illegal. Denver's coaches teach their linemen to cut bluck, which is legal. Sometimes chop blocks occur, just as sometimes holds occur, and both are penalized accordingly- saying that makes the coach a cheater is ludicrous. What about false starts? If an offense false starts, does that make the coach a cheater, too?Regardless, my challenge was to name an example where Denver WILLFULLY AND KNOWINGLY violated an NFL rule in an effort to gain a competitive advantage. You've given examples of where individual Denver players have done so, and you've given an example of when the Denver franchise Willfully and Knowingly violated a rule, but by the league's own official statement, it was not done in an effort to gain a competitive advantage. There are two key parts to this challenge- you must name an example where a rule was willfully violated by the franchise, and the intent must have been to gain an advantage. Failure to meet both criteria is a failure to meet the challenge. Bill Belichick WILLFULLY violated a rule. He did it with the intent to gain a competitive advantage. The point of this excercise is to give you a little bit of context into why this is viewed with more horror than anything the Broncos have ever done.

Why is this less of a rules volation than what the Patriots allegedly did? They both impact the outcome of the game, but the Broncos' dirty blocking techniques end players' careers. Please note that the mob mentality in here will not accept your initial answer of "all 32 teams do it".

It is less of a rules violation because what the Broncos do is not against the rules. No rule against cut blocking means that cut blocking is not a rule violation. There's a rule against videotaping, which means that videotaping is a rule violation. Something that is NOT a rule violation is less of a rule violation than something that IS a rule violation.

I'm not trying to attack you or the Broncos here. I'm just trying to understand the vitriol that's been leveled at the Patriots in the national media and in this forum. I don't remember the same vitriol towards other teams. Is it just that I have a short memory? I'd feel better if that's the case. Or can you help me uunderstand why videotaping signals is much worse than cutblocking below the knees?

In my opinion, the vitriol is partly fueled by resentment of the Pats success, partly fueled by loathing of the average Pats fan (not the genuine educated Pats fan, but the whiny, entitled, fair-weather Pats fans who only showed up when they started winning). The largest part of the vitriol, though, is because for 6 years now we've had this concept of the "Patriot Way" crammed down our throats by the media. We've been force-fed the idea that the Patriots win with class, dignity, and integrity, that they're somehow a better, more honest, higher-character franchise than the rest of the league. This has been shoved in our faces until we're absolutely sick of it, and now we have tangible proof that this was all nothing more than B.S. New England has been getting 6 years of undeserved positive press, and now karma is coming around and trying to negate that all at once. New England might not be as evil as they are being portrayed right now, but they also weren't anywhere near as good as we were told they were for the past 6 years. When the 90s 49ers or the 80s Giants rolled around, nobody tried to sell us on this idea that they were all a bunch of goody-goody choir boys who were just better than the rest of the league, so we didn't care when they broke the rules of common decency, if not the rules of football. Also, I think what really pisses me off about this is that this is the most flagrant cheating I've seen in the sport. It was willful, it was deceptive, and it was done with malicious intent- hitting all three of the key points, whereas all other examples have only hit one or two at most.