Thank you PinVa.
Just one further note.
If anyone has the videotape of the night game against the Chargers, I suggest they send it to PinVA for viewing because the CORE of this issue rests with Goodell's interview with Bob Costas before the game.
As a matter of fact, it may be possible to find a transcript of the interview on NBC's website.
EDIT: video of the interview can be found here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20891188/
The key for me is this:
Costas asks, How does the NFL plan to police the league from teams using hi-technology to spy (Costas specifically refers to hi-powered binoculars with recording capability which allow you to "spy" from any seat in the stadium).
Goodell responds: "This was not hi-technology, it was being done with a camera out in the open!"
And right there we have the crux of it. The NFL can't police this at all. What the NFL is really worried about in the end is mere perception. This is all part of the game, but the NFL wants the illusion to be there that football players are simply executing a gameplan delivered far in advance. They don't want us to see the gears that are at work ALWAYS in creating the product that's put out on the field.
Goodell reveals here that his whole entire policy is a SHAM.
PatFaninVA wrote an excellent contexted piece on all the ways that teams get that edge. Well, here is proof that the commissioner fully realizes that what the Patriots did is not abnormal. He also realizes that there is no way the league can police these things to the letter of the law. Instead, the Commissioner simply took an idiosyncratic and inconsistent approach to the Estrella incident in order to make a point about the league's perception. That's it. I take this as Goodell's admission that the whole thing is really just based on perception rather than any rule. The league pretty much admitted there are no rules when it ignored Mangini's admission of taping the Patriots. The league expressly stated you can BREAK the rules when you have permission. The Patriots denied they gave permission. The league made this statement after CAMERGATE broke. Essentially, the league has implied that all Estrella needed to say in order to be left off the hook is that he was given permission by someone on the Jets staff. It wouldn't have mattered whether that permission was given or not since the league did not take into account the Patriots' statement that they did not give the Jets permission.