Pony,
Although I am enjoying the humorous responses to your thread, I think you most certainly have an interesting point. A point I've been thinking about since this happened. More than anything, it's the timing of the story that raises my suspicions. People and players can say that the article did not effect the outcome of the game, but as Jim Nantz put it "every game has an X-Factor". And this crap coming up again just could have been that factor that threw the Pats just a little bit "off" in that game.
I believe this should be looked further into. Sports Book is as illegal as "taping" opponets signals in the NFL.
Maybe it didn't affect the outcome of the game (I disagree, I think it did). But the question is :
Was it INTENDED to affect the outcome of the game?
Was it INTENDED to affect the outcome of the spread, for bettors?
The spread was around 14, and my guess is the overwhelming local gambling was on the Pats to cover.
The story may have been intended to influence the Pats' preparations just enough to affect their margin of victory.
I was drawn to this speculation by 4 items.
1) Felger's boasting of his online gambling habits
2) Howie Carr's recent article that the pats' success against the spread had damaged the local mob
3) The timing and lack of substantiation of the Tomase article, which seemed designed for maximum negative effect, giving the Pats no time to prove their innocence before the game.
4) Masseroti's recent slop-fest, in which he gleefully points out that the Pats lost the SB despite being favored by "2 TDs". I found this an odd reference, strange and telling for a sports writer. The loss was the only issue that mattered. Who cares about the spread, unless Masserotti is fixated on it, or he works in a culture where others are fixated on it?
This leads me to entertain the possibility that there may have been a gambling connection to this story, maybe not with Tomase, but with others connected to the story inside the Herald. Who knows? We'd all like to know there wasn't.