The fallout of Spygate

[ALP]

Unfortunately there need be no media fueled circulation when this thread that is now at 4 pages and 1500 views was generated based on nothing more than a patsfans desire to revisit and poke sticks in it...yet again. There is a small percentage of malcontent fans, most of whom are drawn to outlets like the internet to kvetch, who will never let go of any perceived injustice. 1/32nd or so of them reside right here.

what the media did and what we're doing here are two completely different things....

the media went on a witchhunt of the NEP, w/o evidence, w/o proof, w/o looking at any facts

they took very half truch and lie, and even truth and twisted it to make their point, allways against the most respected and most successful club in football of the decade

what we do here is focus on the facts, and analyze things from a pretty open perspective, and then decide wether our much loved team will have to suffer or be unfarely labeled for the future


if u like no part, then by all means

 

[PatsFanSince74]

Seeing as the Chiefs are recognized as among the Godfathers of cheating in the NFL going back 50 years and the "cheater" in question has a Trophy named after him, I'd suspect there will be little who even remember this in 10 years.

Lee Grosscup - Spying in Pro Football - SPORT magazine - thesportgallery.com

The Patriots have won said trophy quite a few times actually!

The stupid people who don't know squat about the history of the NFL and actually think the Patriots cheated likely had bad memories anyway.

Heck - there might even be a "Belichick Trophy" awarded each season by then!

i have no idea what the reason for it might have been, but this was without a doubt the worst case study in crisis management in modern sports media (Mark McGwire's congressional Steroids testimony and its aftermath would probably be a distant second.) I read the terrific article to which you linked and didn't find a reference to what you said happened, which would help explain how bad it was.

Whatever the reason, the Pats just sat there day after day and week after week as lies became "truth." They had no organized system of credible surrogates hitting the web and ESPN every day telling their side of the story. There was no organized system of mass emails and blast faxes setting the record straight ten minutes after a lie was told on ESPN or elsewhere.

I know that the above wouldn't have completely "changed" the coverage, but the idiots who were making these stories up would have thought twice if they knew some respected voice was going to challenge their credibility ten minutes after they told another lie on national television. That's how crisis management works; you know that you're not going to get rid of the crisis, but you chip away at its foundations day after day.

As a result, the coverage became more and more emboldened and more and more one sided and more and more biased with each passing week, driven by a feeding frenzy of irrational, jealous fan bases in large media markets like New York, Miami, Philadelphia (which took its SB loss very badly) and Texas. Add in all of the smaller media markets like Indy and Buffalo and Jacksonville and St. Louis, where there is no love lost for the Pats, and it didn't take the suits at ESPN too long to figure out that there was ratings and clicks gold in this story.

The only organized effort of which I am aware to address the lies and bias was actually developed on this Board!!!

It's rule number one of crisis management in today's continuous media environment that you never let a bad story, let alone a blatantly inaccurate or intentionally misleading story, go unchallenged for more than a couple of hours. Instead, this stuff went on for weeks and months, took on a life of its own and, outside of New England and this Board, it became the "truth" that the Pats had used cheating to win their Super Bowls.

As for the rest of your point, i hope you're right and i'm wrong, but Spygate occurred in a 24/7 media environment unlike most of the wonderful examples in the piece to which you linked. i'm afraid that it is going to "stick" for a long time as a result.

and, i agree, i often thought that if BB won two more SB's, the trophy might one day be renamed for him. Noll has four rings, BB, Gibbs and Walsh all have three; Shula made six trips to the SB and Landry five, both winning two of them. So, five rings would put Belichick in a class by himself.

 

[ALP]

i have no idea what the reason for it might have been, but this was without a doubt the worst case study in crisis management in modern sports media (Mark McGwire's congressional Steroids testimony and its aftermath would probably be a distant second.) I read the terrific article to which you linked and didn't find a reference to what you said happened, which would help explain how bad it was.

Whatever the reason, the Pats just sat there day after day and week after week as lies became "truth." They had no organized system of credible surrogates hitting the web and ESPN every day telling their side of the story. There was no organized system of mass emails and blast faxes setting the record straight ten minutes after a lie was told on ESPN or elsewhere.

I know that the above wouldn't have completely "changed" the coverage, but the idiots who were making these stories up would have thought twice if they knew some respected voice was going to challenge their credibility ten minutes after they told another lie on national television. That's how crisis management works; you know that you're not going to get rid of the crisis, but you chip away at its foundations day after day.

As a result, the coverage became more and more emboldened and more and more one sided and more and more biased with each passing week, driven by a feeding frenzy of irrational, jealous fan bases in large media markets like New York, Miami, Philadelphia (which took its SB loss very badly) and Texas. Add in all of the smaller media markets like Indy and Buffalo and Jacksonville and St. Louis, where there is no love lost for the Pats, and it didn't take the suits at ESPN to figure out that there was ratings and clicks gold in this story.

The only organized effort of which I am aware to address the lies and bias was actually developed on this Board!!!

It's rule number one of crisis management in today's continuous media environment that you never let a bad story, let alone a blatantly inaccurate or intentionally misleading story, go unchallenged for more than a couple of hours. Instead, this stuff went on for weeks and months, took on a life of its own and, outside of New England and this Board, it became the "truth" that the Pats had used cheating to win their Super Bowls.

As for the rest of your point, i hope you're right and i'm wrong, but Spygate occurred in a 24/7 media environment unlike most of the wonderful examples in the piece to which you linked. i'm afraid that it is going to "stick" for a long time as a result.

and, i agree, i often thought that if BB won two more SB's, the trophy might one day be renamed for him. Noll has four rings, BB, Gibbs and Walsh all have three; Shula made six trips to the SB and Landry five, both winning two of them. So, five rings would put Belichick in a class by himself.

i also agree.....the pats could have easily done "crisis management" and they prob had the capabilities for it....buth CHOOSE not to

the question is why? the things that were being alleged were off the charts, and yet we did not fight it, even though we had the info to fight it.....

why though?

 

[PatsFanSince74]

i also agree.....the pats could have easily done "crisis management" and they prob had the capabilities for it....buth CHOOSE not to

the question is why? the things that were being alleged were off the charts, and yet we did not fight it, even though we had the info to fight it.....

why though?

i don't know. another poster suggested they were told not to say anything, but i have never heard that and have asked him to cite a source. the NFL couldn't reasonably have asked one of its premier and most valuable franchises not to take reasonable steps to defend themselves against lies. these were brand- and value-damaging lies and the Patriots had the right to defend themselves. I believe that Belichick himself was asked to keep quiet, but that didn't apply to the organization.

based on experience in other situations (public crises but not sports related), there are a couple of possible explanations.

(1) the people in the "bubble" (i.e., the Krafts and their management team) didn't realize how bad the storm was outside the confines of their own circle. this happens surprisingly often to high profile people. the **** is swirling around outside their windows and they fail to grasp the damage that is being done, usually because their friends and regular associates are telling them "it will go away" or "nobody will believe that stuff" or "don't stoop to their level." if you read a lot of the posts in this thread, there are still a lot of folks even in the fanbase who don't fully understand the damage that was done to the brand outside New England. this is rationalized by saying, "we'll look better in the long run" (they never do) or "people will forget about it" (they don't) or "we're too good to get down in the mud and fight" (they might well be, but they lose the fight and have to accept the consequences to brand and name damage)

(2) friction among the key players. Some want to fight back while others are against doing so, typically because they are so angry at the situation and at the people in their organization who are responsible for their being in the situation that they are effectively paralyzed long enough to keep the necessary decisions from being made.

(3) incompetence.

From everything I can see, option (3) is out in this case because the Krafts are compellingly competent. So, I think it was some version of (1) and (2).

The Krafts are both very close to the Business School. I hope that they one day allow a Prof and case writers from there to prepare a case on what happened and how they handled it. It would be incredibly valuable for corporations and other organizations facing media crises.

 

[JoeSixPat]

i have no idea what the reason for it might have been, but this was without a doubt the worst case study in crisis management in modern sports media (Mark McGwire's congressional Steroids testimony and its aftermath would probably be a distant second.) I read the terrific article to which you linked and didn't find a reference to what you said happened, which would help explain how bad it was.

Whatever the reason, the Pats just sat there day after day and week after week as lies became "truth." They had no organized system of credible surrogates hitting the web and ESPN every day telling their side of the story. There was no organized system of mass emails and blast faxes setting the record straight ten minutes after a lie was told on ESPN or elsewhere.

I know that the above wouldn't have completely "changed" the coverage, but the idiots who were making these stories up would have thought twice if they knew some respected voice was going to challenge their credibility ten minutes after they told another lie on national television. That's how crisis management works; you know that you're not going to get rid of the crisis, but you chip away at its foundations day after day.

As a result, the coverage became more and more emboldened and more and more one sided and more and more biased with each passing week, driven by a feeding frenzy of irrational, jealous fan bases in large media markets like New York, Miami, Philadelphia (which took its SB loss very badly) and Texas. Add in all of the smaller media markets like Indy and Buffalo and Jacksonville and St. Louis, where there is no love lost for the Pats, and it didn't take the suits at ESPN too long to figure out that there was ratings and clicks gold in this story.

The only organized effort of which I am aware to address the lies and bias was actually developed on this Board!!!

It's rule number one of crisis management in today's continuous media environment that you never let a bad story, let alone a blatantly inaccurate or intentionally misleading story, go unchallenged for more than a couple of hours. Instead, this stuff went on for weeks and months, took on a life of its own and, outside of New England and this Board, it became the "truth" that the Pats had used cheating to win their Super Bowls.

As for the rest of your point, i hope you're right and i'm wrong, but Spygate occurred in a 24/7 media environment unlike most of the wonderful examples in the piece to which you linked. i'm afraid that it is going to "stick" for a long time as a result.

and, i agree, i often thought that if BB won two more SB's, the trophy might one day be renamed for him. Noll has four rings, BB, Gibbs and Walsh all have three; Shula made six trips to the SB and Landry five, both winning two of them. So, five rings would put Belichick in a class by himself.

I felt at the time, and still do today, that Bob Kraft decided that to have Belichick or anyone in the organization detail the extent to which "cheating" is routine in the NFL and has been since its inception, that would undermine the public's confidence in the game and hurt Kraft and all the owners.

In many ways it was a miscalculation, with Kraft and Belichick taking it on the chin for the rest of the NFL. Perhaps they thought more would come to their defense - like Jimmy Johnson did...

But they underestimated the ignorance of some fans and players like Joey Porter who are as stupid as a rock, and were aghast at the notion that signals are stolen PERIOD and would rather not know that the dozens of cameras in the stadiums are capturing every play call for analysis later

The Patriots sin of course was that their cameras were not in the stands, but most "fans" would prefer to believe their sin was taping signals - which to this day remains legal.

The point of the Groscup article is that Lamar Hunt, of the AFC Champion Lamar Hunt Trophy, was acknowledged as among the biggest cheaters in the game along with George Halas. They perfected the art of syping and have taken their place among the most respected football minds of their age.

The vast majority of fans don't even pick a hunt of the irony there.

 

[Joker]

The vast majority of fans don't even pick a hunt of the irony there.

which is EXACTLY what Goodell was banking on when he opened this can of worms. Nobody wants to hear that Mangini had TWO cameras filming the Patriots at field level...the SAME "violation"...nobody wants to hear he (Mangini) LIED about removing them when asked by Patriots officials and BB, a point EMPHATICALLY DENIED by BB and the organization...no one wants to hear that Mangini met with Goodell in the NY NFL offices a week before the opener with the Pats....after which Goodell dropped this bomb on our team...what was said at THAT meeting???...nobody wants to take seriously the FACT that Goodell got his START in the NFL as an EMPLOYEE OF THE NEW YORK JETS!!!! This is always poo poo-ed as "so what?". SO WHAT????? THe owner of the New York Jets RECOMMENDED his employee, Goodell, to the NFL offices, where he was subsequently hired. THIS carries no STINK as far as being beholden in some way to the New York Jets organization???? The FACT that Goodell could have and SHOULD HAVE recused himself from sitting in judgement on this particular matter, instead appointing an independent arbitrator to handle the proceedings...THIS means nothing????

Time will tell...as it always does...and the stink and rotting stench of Goodell's illegal actions will come home to roost like an open sewer pipe...eventually.

 

[JoeSixPat]

The vast majority of fans don't even pick a hunt of the irony there.

which is EXACTLY what Goodell was banking on when he opened this can of worms. Nobody wants to hear that Mangini had TWO cameras filming the Patriots at field level...the SAME "violation"...nobody wants to hear he (Mangini) LIED about removing them when asked by Patriots officials and BB, a point EMPHATICALLY DENIED by BB and the organization...no one wants to hear that Mangini met with Goodell in the NY NFL offices a week before the opener with the Pats....after which Goodell dropped this bomb on our team...what was said at THAT meeting???...nobody wants to take seriously the FACT that Goodell got his START in the NFL as an EMPLOYEE OF THE NEW YORK JETS!!!! This is always poo poo-ed as "so what?". SO WHAT????? THe owner of the New York Jets RECOMMENDED his employee, Goodell, to the NFL offices, where he was subsequently hired. THIS carries no STINK as far as being beholden in some way to the New York Jets organization???? The FACT that Goodell could have and SHOULD HAVE recused himself from sitting in judgement on this particular matter, instead apppointing an independent arbitrator to handle the proceedings...THIS means nothing????

Time will tell...as it always does...and the stink and rotting stench of Goodell's illegal actions will come home to roost like an open sewer pipe...eventually.

I'm not saying this in an accusatory way, but Kraft's continued high income is dependent on the public ignorance of "cheating" in the NFL.

Although there's been some light shed, even with Groscup's article in 1968, it's never really altered public perception of the game.

Neither Kraft nor Goodell want to see that change for reasons of continued profit.

Belichick understands this, however once he's finished his career, I'm not so sure he won't go into great detail about what other teams and the state of the NFL is.

 

[Joker]

Yes, I have always seen this point from the start....and I think you're right about underestimating the effects by the Patriots organization...yet I can't help but think ,unilaterally, Goodell had ulterior motives,ILLEGAL MOTIVES, when he entered into this whole mess, separate from acting as "impartial arbiter" as the whole sordid ordeal progressed. You mean to say that he says NOTHING today and let's this keep festering because he's looking out for the league??? I'm not buying it and I'll tell you something else...I may not be some multimillionaire sports figure but I HAVE been all over the world in my 58 years. I KNOW people and I KNOW a lying scumbag when he's talking his bull in front of me...and this Goodell is a LIAR and he's hiding more than "something" from us and the media.

I hope I live long enough to read what BB and Brady have to say about all this 10 or 15 years from now...and I sincerely pray there is no statute of limitations on the crimes committed behind all this spygate garbage.

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

The Krafts are both very close to the Business School. I hope that they one day allow a Prof and case writers from there to prepare a case on what happened and how they handled it. It would be incredibly valuable for corporations and other organizations facing media crises.

As someone who has studied those cases I agree. However, it would not be a success themed case study. Not from the 'brand's' perspective. More of a "Strategies that failed" view.

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

The vast majority of fans don't even pick a hunt of the irony there.

which is EXACTLY what Goodell was banking on when he opened this can of worms. Nobody wants to hear that Mangini had TWO cameras filming the Patriots at field level...the SAME "violation"...nobody wants to hear he (Mangini) LIED about removing them when asked by Patriots officials and BB, a point EMPHATICALLY DENIED by BB and the organization...no one wants to hear that Mangini met with Goodell in the NY NFL offices a week before the opener with the Pats....after which Goodell dropped this bomb on our team...what was said at THAT meeting???...nobody wants to take seriously the FACT that Goodell got his START in the NFL as an EMPLOYEE OF THE NEW YORK JETS!!!! This is always poo poo-ed as "so what?". SO WHAT????? THe owner of the New York Jets RECOMMENDED his employee, Goodell, to the NFL offices, where he was subsequently hired. THIS carries no STINK as far as being beholden in some way to the New York Jets organization???? The FACT that Goodell could have and SHOULD HAVE recused himself from sitting in judgement on this particular matter, instead apppointing an independent arbitrator to handle the proceedings...THIS means nothing????

Time will tell...as it always does...and the stink and rotting stench of Goodell's illegal actions will come home to roost like an open sewer pipe...eventually.

You needed to add that 'somehow' the so-called spy tapes made their way from the Comissioner's office to Fox Sports News. Never been explained how this leak happened to find its way to TV. The fact that the Comissioner's wife works for FOX is simply a coincidence.

 

[Patspsycho]

i have no idea what the reason for it might have been, but this was without a doubt the worst case study in crisis management in modern sports media (Mark McGwire's congressional Steroids testimony and its aftermath would probably be a distant second.) I read the terrific article to which you linked and didn't find a reference to what you said happened, which would help explain how bad it was.

Whatever the reason, the Pats just sat there day after day and week after week as lies became "truth." They had no organized system of credible surrogates hitting the web and ESPN every day telling their side of the story. There was no organized system of mass emails and blast faxes setting the record straight ten minutes after a lie was told on ESPN or elsewhere.

I know that the above wouldn't have completely "changed" the coverage, but the idiots who were making these stories up would have thought twice if they knew some respected voice was going to challenge their credibility ten minutes after they told another lie on national television. That's how crisis management works; you know that you're not going to get rid of the crisis, but you chip away at its foundations day after day.

As a result, the coverage became more and more emboldened and more and more one sided and more and more biased with each passing week, driven by a feeding frenzy of irrational, jealous fan bases in large media markets like New York, Miami, Philadelphia (which took its SB loss very badly) and Texas. Add in all of the smaller media markets like Indy and Buffalo and Jacksonville and St. Louis, where there is no love lost for the Pats, and it didn't take the suits at ESPN too long to figure out that there was ratings and clicks gold in this story.

The only organized effort of which I am aware to address the lies and bias was actually developed on this Board!!!

It's rule number one of crisis management in today's continuous media environment that you never let a bad story, let alone a blatantly inaccurate or intentionally misleading story, go unchallenged for more than a couple of hours. Instead, this stuff went on for weeks and months, took on a life of its own and, outside of New England and this Board, it became the "truth" that the Pats had used cheating to win their Super Bowls.

As for the rest of your point, i hope you're right and i'm wrong, but Spygate occurred in a 24/7 media environment unlike most of the wonderful examples in the piece to which you linked. i'm afraid that it is going to "stick" for a long time as a result.

and, i agree, i often thought that if BB won two more SB's, the trophy might one day be renamed for him. Noll has four rings, BB, Gibbs and Walsh all have three; Shula made six trips to the SB and Landry five, both winning two of them. So, five rings would put Belichick in a class by himself.

Very interesting input. Thanks.

 

[Joker]

You needed to add that 'somehow' the so-called spy tapes made their way from the Comissioner's office to Fox Sports News. Never been explained how this leak happened to find its way to TV. The fact that the Comissioner's wife works for FOX is simply a coincidence.

well...what I am putting out there are facts from the genesis of this ridiculous farce...what you say is true along with the onslaught of preposterous "how they did it!!!" moron exercises put out there by the Schlereth's in the business, the hatchet jobs filled with libelous statements by the Easterbrooks, the outright, well planned LIES by John Tomase, dropped the week before the Super Bowl as well as the Massarottis of the Boston sports media clamoring like geese high on smokable methamphetamine.

The damage done to the New England Patriots is incalculable IMO and Roger Goodell is at the very center of the storm.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

I felt at the time, and still do today, that Bob Kraft decided that to have Belichick or anyone in the organization detail the extent to which "cheating" is routine in the NFL and has been since its inception, that would undermine the public's confidence in the game and hurt Kraft and all the owners.

In many ways it was a miscalculation, with Kraft and Belichick taking it on the chin for the rest of the NFL. Perhaps they thought more would come to their defense - like Jimmy Johnson did...

But they underestimated the ignorance of some fans and players like Joey Porter who are as stupid as a rock, and were aghast at the notion that signals are stolen PERIOD and would rather not know that the dozens of cameras in the stadiums are capturing every play call for analysis later

The Patriots sin of course was that their cameras were not in the stands, but most "fans" would prefer to believe their sin was taping signals - which to this day remains legal.

The point of the Groscup article is that Lamar Hunt, of the AFC Champion Lamar Hunt Trophy, was acknowledged as among the biggest cheaters in the game along with George Halas. They perfected the art of syping and have taken their place among the most respected football minds of their age.

The vast majority of fans don't even pick a hunt of the irony there.

but, deciding not to use the "everybody does/did it and even Lamar Hunt cheated" defense didn't preclude the organization from defending itself against the lies that were directed against the Pats. that's where my problem is.

there was no way they could have shut down the criticisms, but they could have forced the mediots, especially on ESPN and also on SI, to tone down what they were saying by constantly taking them to task on the facts.

Instead, people like Mark ("If I only had a brain") Schlereth soon discovered they could say anything they wanted to say about BB and the Pats and NO ONE would stand up to him or question him. ESPN didn't care about the "truth"; their ratings and clicks kept going up. If within an hour of any Schlereth distortion, the Patriots' crisis management firm sent a blast email pointing out his lie, and if within two hours, a sympathetic spokesperson publicly made a statement about the same thing, Schlereth would have known that his credibility was on the line if he kept lying. It probably would have cost the Pats $4 or $5 million in fees to a PR agency that specializes in this kind of thing, but IMHO, it would have been well worth it!

That's what crisis management is all about; you're not trying to make the crisis go away, nor are you trying to deny the underlying facts of the case (we broke the rules, we taped in a way we weren't supposed to, no matter how we might try to spin the "memo" or whatever); what you try to do is blunt the impact of the criticisms directed against you by making those who defame you pay a price.

The aim of crisis management is not to get everybody to agree with you but to keep the whole thing from turning into a media feeding frenzy, which is what happened in SpyGate.

I think many folks in New England have no idea how badly the Patriots "Brand" was damaged by spygate across the country. That didn't have to happen.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

well...what I am putting out there are facts from the genesis of this ridiculous farce...what you say is true along with the onslaught of preposterous "how they did it!!!" moron exercises put out there by the Schlereth's in the business, the hatchet jobs filled with libelous statements by the Easterbrooks, the outright, well planned LIES by John Tomase, dropped the week before the Super Bowl as well as the Massarottis of the Boston sports media clamoring like geese high on smokable methamphetamine.

The damage done to the New England Patriots is incalculable IMO and Roger Goodell is at the very center of the storm.

agree 100%. Would only add that the Patriots shouldn't have taken this without fighting back and that, by failing to do so, they played a role in allowing the "incalculable" damage (I agree with the use of that word; outside of NE it is indeed incalculable) to occur.

BTW, I am not saying this for the first time now. I said it here on Tuesday or Wednesday morning after the story broke that Sunday night in the Meadowlands; that the Patriots had to get ahead of the story fast or it would blow up in their faces. They never did.

 

[Joker]

Here is the PERFECT example of media distortion and LYING...read this interview with holier than thou born again never lies Kurt Warner in January of 2009...

No Spygate on Goodell's plate, but Kurt Warner remains unconvinced

TAMPA -- Just because commissioner Roger Goodell wasn't asked a Spygate question in his state of the NFL address doesn't mean the issue has gone away.

The latest person to thrust Spygate back into the NFL conversation: Kurt Warner.

The Cardinals QB led the Rams team that lost 20-17 to the Patriots in Super Bowl XXXVI. Allegations broke at last year's Super Bowl that the Patriots had recorded the Rams' walkthrough prior to the game.

Patriots coach Bill Belichick denied the team ever recorded the Rams that week, and the NFL confirmed it had no evidence the Pats recorded the walkthrough.

Still, Warner remains wary of the Patriots' victory. He suggested to Yahoo Sports that the Patriots may have recorded the Rams' signals when the teams met earlier that season in Foxborough and used it as an advantage in the Super Bowl.

"You can't help but wonder," Warner told Yahoo Sports this week. "Perhaps it didn't happen that way – obviously, it could have been good coaching. But it's possible that something else was also going on, and if so, think about the ramifications. People's careers were altered. I hate to think about it that way, but it’s human nature."

Warner had previously indicated to Yahoo Sports that the Patriots' win in Super Bowl XXXVI contributed to his demise in St. Louis:

"If they had an unfair advantage, and that's the reason we lost – just imagine how differently things would have played out if we’d won. Even after I got hurt and struggled, would the Rams have gotten rid of me? If I'm a two-time Super Bowl winner, I don’t think so. And things would’ve been different for a whole lot of people."

No reporters asked Goodell about Spygate during his annual news conference on Friday. That's a stark contrast from last year's meeting, which was dominated by Spygate and occurred just after Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter demanded to know why the league destroyed the tapes it seized from the Patriots.

what is wrong about all this??? Uh...EVERY SINGLE TEAM IN THE NFL makes tapes of their games with opponents. Warner is being impossibly idiotic!!!! There was NEVER a question about the legality of filming ANYTHING!!!!!! Jeezus....THIS is what I mean when I say Goodell is responsible for this ongoing damage to the Patriots. Printed comments that are patently false given by NFL employees should be IMMEDIATELY addressed , discounted and reprimanded by Goodell through ALL media outlets.Instead the LIES, distortions and libels just keep coming.

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

The only speculative explanation that's credible to me as to why Kraft did not respond to the outrageous distortions is that somehow the Comissioner told him that if the Patriots presented a vigorous defense (thereby in Comm Clouseau's eyes extending the issue in the public eye) that he would impose further, more onerous sanctions.

Because of this gag order Kraft had to sit back and see mediots and players extend the issue ad infinitum.

 

[NJPatsfan26]

It also seems that the general public, those who post comments on websites like ESPN or NFL.com, there is always a group on there who post comments like, Cheatriots, or simply cheaters cheaters, and the such. Those comments would have never happened and Spygate would have never happened if the commish would have listened to the facts of the story before listening to the media and probably his wife who urged him to get the leaked footage onto the news.

Spygate has and always will be a blemish on the NFL as a whole and will go down in history as a witch hunt on the Patriots and the Krafts and of course onto the great career of Belicheck.

 

[Raymond]

Warner had previously indicated to Yahoo Sports that the Patriots' win in Super Bowl XXXVI contributed to his demise in St. Louis:

"If they had an unfair advantage, and that's the reason we lost – just imagine how differently things would have played out if we’d won. Even after I got hurt and struggled, would the Rams have gotten rid of me? [/b]

This is too funny. He doesn't think his demise was a result of playing in 9 games with 4 td's and 12 int's in the next two years????

I'm glad the Pats rolled him like a pop warner qb last year when he came out at the end of the third qtr with 25 yds. I'm sorry, but a person has to have a weak character to be that bad and later try and spin it on the Pats. I hate him.

 

[Patspsycho]

The only speculative explanation that's credible to me as to why Kraft did not respond to the outrageous distortions is that somehow the Comissioner told him that if the Patriots presented a vigorous defense (thereby in Comm Clouseau's eyes extending the issue in the public eye) that he would impose further, more onerous sanctions.

Because of this gag order Kraft had to sit back and see mediots and players extend the issue ad infinitum.

I don't think so. I think Kraft would be cunning enough to get around that gag order, if it did ever happen.

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

I don't think so. I think Kraft would be cunning enough to get around that gag order, if it did ever happen.

I don't think so. NFW The downside exceeds any upside. Kraft MUST obey the rulings of the Commish.