condon84

Victim status is a bit dramatic. He got caught breaking a rule that was implemented specifically to stop our videotaping practice. Yet he continued the very practice that the new rule was implemented to prevent just weeks after the memo of the new rule was faxed and then hid behind a "misinterpretation" excuse that we all know was BS. It's lame and if you feel like his reasoning for doing it excused him from any wrong doing, then maybe you're not as smart as I thought you were.

Scouse Patriot

Something about that kid that just annoys the ***** out of me.

BSR

Its not that anyone is trying to excuse him from any "wrongdoing". The point is degree of wrongdoing. It is literally a video camera placement violation. It should have been the equivalent of a speeding ticket. And now due to the lawsuit that DI cited, the NFL is finally having to admit to this.

Now was BB's explanation possibly just some lame pre-prepared excuse? Quite possibly, just like when pulled over for speeding you might tell the officer that you didn't see the sign or say that you were late for a meeting or some other excuse. I'm sure he understood that there was a risk of getting caught, but I'm sure he never thought the consequences would be so dire for something he believed so minor. If anything BB is a smart man. As its a reasonable guess to guess that it was a lame excuse, it is also a reasonable guess that if he thought he was breaking some important rule he would have taken better care in hiding the practice. Everyone knew he was doing it. He knew everyone knew he was doing it. For the longest time, nobody cared.

Deus Irae

1.) Please produce this "new rule".

2.) Please produce evidence to prove that the "new rule" was implemented "specifically to stop our videotaping practice".

3.) The memo was neither a rule nor a regulation.

4.) You should have read the stuff I linked. You'd have been able to avoid making the same tired and refuted arguments that were made more than 2 years ago.

5.) I don't know how smart you thought I was, but I'm smart enough to know that when filming from the end zone is fine, and filming from enclosed areas in the stadium is fine, the issue with filming from the sidelines is about position, not filming. I don't know why this stuff has to be repeated, but just take a look at how the Jets, who were also "caught" filming, were dealt with.

Jets videotaped Patriots last season in Foxborough - NFL - ESPN

Report: Jets caught spying - NFL - Yahoo! Sports

Now, if filming was illegal per se, the Jets would have needed to be punished regardless of any claimed "permission".

6.) The Patriots had been filming since 2000, and had been doing it out in the open enough for people such as Herm Edwards to be able to see it and wave to the camera. If it had been something the league considered contrary to the rules, they had plenty of time to deal with it prior to Goodell deciding to play the part of of the new guy who's just got to get into a pissing contest.

7.) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/sp...gewanted=print

Now, your arguments were wrong and uninformed. Let's just let this all drop. I don't want to have to continue rehashing spygate. It was a tempest in a teapot, and it's one of Goodell's many idiot moments.

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Box_O_Rocks

So, you're saying he's decorative?

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patchick

You never know, but both did make me nervous in the draft. Here's Matthews' history, make of it what you may:

- Came from a football family, so was steeped in football and had access to great training from an early age.
- Couldn't crack his high school team's starting lineup because he was scrawny and not a great athlete.
- Got no scholarship offers.
- Walked on at USC spent two years as a non-scholarship player.
- Because of his great hustle and work ethic, awarded a scholarship in his 3rd year. Played special teams, and backed up Brian Cushing.
- Once he joined that LB corps, this lifelong football-steeped, hard-working but size-challenged player suddenly "committed to rigorous weight training and conditioning programs to gain size and improve his performance level"
- Emerged a year later as a muscular physical specimen who blew away the Combine.

eom

I think I'd have an easier time believing it was a radioactive spider bite.

IcyPatriot

@ 82 days until training camp ....

PATSNUTme

Add to the fact that his grandfather, father, and uncle were all big men.

A good friend of mine in high school was 6'5 and skinny as a post. He would be pushed around in high school basketball. His father was a big man. In college my friend filled out and added 40 pounds- no roids back then. He was the one pushing college basketball players around by his junior year.

I think that Matthews genetics point to his growing into his body late and didn't need roids to do it.

So I'm not buying the guilt by association on him.

patchick

Nut, it is absolutely, positively possible that Matthews was a dramatic but natural late bloomer. But in considering the likelihood of that, you have to weigh that his dramatic transformation coincided exactly with the time he became close friends with a teammate who has since been proven a doper.

Take a look at Matthews' facial structure early vs. late in his college career: