Originally Posted by PatsFanInVa

I don't think anybody should call that point of view into question as "not being a real fan." Screw that.

Belichick made a mistake. The media, and some crybaby former players, have lobbied all week to extend that mistake ad infinitum, to include all three super bowls the patriots have won. This story will look very different after a season's distance, particularly another Super Bowl season.

An epigram from Frank Herbert's Dune Messiah has been running through my head all week:

Here lies a toppled god--
His fall was not a small one.
We did but build his pedestal,
A narrow and tall one.

The more "above" the league he became, the more he looked "larger than life," the further the fall was bound to be. How often have we seen this -- really loving to bring down the big game? Making the God human again?

That's the source of the piling-on. That, and the excuse that seems so ready made for the likes of Hines Ward and Donovan McNabb.

I was pissed and disappointed too. And I think the league's punishment was actually fair enough. But I also view this rush to judgement and hyperbole as total bull***. Even that, I could take, if it weren't that it includes this wave of "woulda coulda shoulda," unproveable (and un-disproveable) hypotheses that do nothing for the league, the game, or the Truth.

They're only good as halfway-measures to salve the wounded egos of yesterday's losers.

PFnV

Originally Posted by PATSNUTme

Let me ask this of any of you who are "angry" with BB. Do you think he is a stupid man? Do you think that if he really felt it violated NFL rules he would have put this guy in plain sight? And, would he have him in plain sight right by people who knew him and knew exactly what he was doing?

That is why the explanation of "misinterpreting" the Commish's directive is plausible. Otherwise, I would have to think that BB is stupid. And before someone pipes up with "arrogant", I find it hard to believe that BB so arrogant that he would commit a violation in plain sight.


Now let's beat the San Diego Super Chargers tonight! I plan to have my TV on mute.

Originally Posted by shmessy

I think he is brilliant in some areas and not in other areas. Some of those "other areas" are things that have cost the team (and him personally) unnecessarily.

Whatever the feelings of people on the "cameragate" is, he obviously MISCALCULATED the fallout. He knows where he works. He knows he's a public figure whom people envy. A "smart" person in that area would be more circumspect. He's a brilliant on-field football mind. I think he needs to take some advice from savvy people in the organization in other areas.

Originally Posted by MrBigglesWorth

Cheating is turning up the heat in the Boston Garden or shutting off the hot water in the lockerrooms.

Yet no one calls Red Auerbach a cheater.