Yeah all that is nice, but no interpretation needed to be made dude. You were not allowed. They sent out memos. It was considered cheating. He did it anyway. Pretty cut and dry. BB doesn't get to interpret that rule how he wants, and do it anyway. If you believe that, so be it. I'm sure you will have no problem saying the same thing about this if this mess turns out to be true, that BB interpreted as he wished and it was legal.
If it was illegal by rule then you wouldn't need to remove the whole part about "use during the game" to make your case. It's not BB who's using gray area to interpret something that isn't there. The rule:
"No video recording devices of any kind are permitted to be in use in the coaches’ booth, on the field, or in the locker room during the game"
Since we know for a fact that games are taped, the fairly obvious interpretation would be that those tapes cannot be used as it says "during the game". In fact we know damn well that coaches can, and do watch game film all week, so the operative phrase MUST be "during the game." Or damned if every cameraman in the NFL isn't breaking the rule. It would also be very odd for that phrase to be written into the rule, but expect coaches to know to ignore the phrase. This still happens today:
In fact this 60 minutes interview with BB and John Fox in 2004 about the technology for filming, and storing plays confirms that coaches interpreted the rule just like BB.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-secret-of-their-nfl-success-16-09-2004/
NFL teams have more software engineers today than water boys. The Patriots, the Panthers -- every team spends millions on special video player-super-computers that allow every coach to scout every opponent's every move.
But Fox goes on to explain the rule on tapes during game day.
"We can't use any of this system on game day," says Fox. "They still want the human element. By game day, the coaches have crammed so many details into their brains and onto their clipboards that they themselves are walking computers."
Maybe after misinterpreting this rule on national television to the entire world the NFL should have put out a memo that said Fox was wrong, you can't use this stuff ever! Nope, the NFL forgot to do that. Strange how they keep making mistakes like that. Let's go over the mistakes:
They meant to put a period right before the term "during the game"- but forgot somehow accidentally changing the meaning of the rule to limit use of tape to only during the game.
They forgot to remove the term "during the game" from the rule.
They forgot to correct BB and Fox about their national television interpretation snafu.
Hell, they even forgot to go ahead and clean up that mistake at the competition committee meeting in 2004, 2005, and 2006 despite coaches openly telling them they think it only applies to game time... on national television.
That NFL sure is forgetful. Obviously BB should have known that what really mattered was what Goodell had in his head, not what's in the rulebook.
Who is taking more liberties? The person who thinks the rule means "during the game" as it literally says, and announces on national television what that means. Or you, who are claiming that it's okay to ignore the actual wording of the rule to invent a new interpretation. To ignore not only the literal meaning of the words, but the precedent of teams following the literal meaning, and stating quite clearly what that interpretation means?
Everyone must be wrong except Goodell. It was super clear, they just forgot to put it in words, forgot to put it in the rule book, and forgot to correct coaches announcing the meaning on national television.
