I just sent this to Fish:
Mr. Fish,
I’m sorry, but now you’re just getting nasty. In the middle of your article, as a ‘throwaway line’ it seems, you have a comment by the NFL spokesman Greg Aiello, which reads “’The rule which the Patriots violated was the policy that prohibits use of equipment for the taping of offensive or defense signals. I know there've been references to defensive signals, which is more logical. But let us look at the tapes and verify what is on there.”’ Alright…so that’s the beginning and end of the article right there to any unbiased journalist. They have yet to review the tapes; you have not reviewed—and probably will never review—the tapes. All you have to go off of is one label on one tape: ‘OFF Signals’. That’s it.
Now I understand, you have to make this a story because you’ve been cramming it down our throats for the past 4 months. But please, this is getting ridiculous. You are absolutely assaulting a team that has already been penalized for their transgressions. Aiello spelled it out for you, in plain English: ‘The rule which the Patriots violated was the policy that prohibits use of equipment for the taping of offensive or defensive signals.’ I don’t know what your agenda is—whether it’s to cover your ass, maybe you just hate the Patriots because they’re such a successful franchise, maybe something I’m not even thinking of—but your slant is absurd. The First Amendment protects you from any liability in these cases, but you have to realize that you’re swaying the opinions of millions of people with your articles. Do you think most people are rational enough and have the time to really look into the facts of all of this? They see a headline on ESPN.com which reads ‘Tapes reveal Pats stole offensive signals’, then they read an article that has such a biased slant, and they take that as gospel. Well, quite frankly I’d rather trust this guy (two-time Super Bowl Champion head coach…and notice some other names that he brings into the discussion); this was an interview done on WFAN back in September, and yet it never gets play because it isn’t ‘sexy’ news. And yet you, Easterbrook, Specter, et al, continue to condemn the Patriots as an immoral, cheating bunch of scoundrels. Well guess what? They’re hardly alone:
Q: How about the spying thing Jimmy. You’re a coach does that bother you what Belichick did?
JJ: Oh please. I’ve said it on our show. Eighteen years ago a scout for the Chiefs told me what they did, and he said what you need to do is just take your camera and you go and zoom in on the signal caller and that way you can sync it up. The problem is that if they’re not on the press box side you can’t do it from the press box, you have to do it from the sideline. This was 18 years ago.
Q: You think the NFL came down too hard on them?
JJ: No, no, I said it on the show. He was wrong for doing it for the simple reason that the league knew this was going on not just in New England but around the league. And the league sent out the memorandum to all of the teams saying you cannot do this. And so that’s when Bill Belichick was wrong. After he got the memorandum saying don’t do it any more, he did it.
Q: Did you ever steal signals?
JJ: Oh in a heartbeat, yeah. Yes I did.
Q: Via video, Jimmy? Or no?
JJ: Oh yeah, I did it with video and so did a lot of other teams in the league. Just to make sure that you could study it and take your time, because you’re going to play the other team the second time around. But a lot of coaches did it, this was commonplace.
Q: But did you do it by taping the signal caller?
JJ: Yeah.
Q: Oh you did.
JJ: That’s what I’m saying. I was saying one of Marty Schottenheimer’s scouts, Mark Hatley, who has passed away now, Mark told me that’s how they did it, and Howard Mudd their offensive line coach with Kansas City, who now coaches for Tony Dungy, he was the best in the entire league at stealing signals.
Q: Where’d you put your guy who was videotaping? Where was he?
JJ: My guy was up with my camera crew in the press box. So you’d just put an extra camera up with your camera crew in the press box who zoomed in on the signal callers. That’s the best way to do it, but anyway you can’t always do that because the press box camera crew might be on the same side as the opposing team. If they’re on the same side as the opposing team that’s when you need to do it from the sideline.
