NFL's mouthpiece (ESPN) at it again with OTL piece on cameragate

[RelocatedPatFan]

But I agree with your second point. Every time the League "fixes" something "bad," the Patriots have allegedly done, they just get even better on the field, which is what really must piss the Owners off.

Should be a story. This indirectly supports the statement that "everyone does it." Because BB is just plain better, taking away a tactic used by other teams diminishes them more than it does BB.

 

[Ring 6]

Tell that to the FORMER owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. As I recall it was sold to an ex-Microsoftie for $2 billion dollars.

You are crazy if you think Kraft standing up to an injustice from the league is the same as what Donald Sterling did.
And by the way, they didn't take his team away he SOLD it.

 

[zydecochris]

The smear campaign will never end.

Unbelievable. The only time I have seen this type of concerted smear campaign is with a few particularly nasty local political campaigns and a few especially nasty divorces of the rich and famous.

Sports management doing it to one of their own franchises?

It is like they are purposely trying to destroy their brand. Unreal.

 

[QuantumMechanic]

You are crazy if you think Kraft standing up to an injustice from the league is the same as what Donald Sterling did.
And by the way, they didn't take his team away he SOLD it.

Well, they forced him to sell it.

 

[ReverendMaynard]

Well, they forced him to sell it.

You mean they might force him to realize the $2B profit he's made since buying the team? Whatever would he do then?

 

[zydecochris]

Tell that to the FORMER owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. As I recall it was sold to an ex-Microsoftie for $2 billion dollars.

In that case, Sterling finally created (via his mistress) a media firestorm that could not be allowed to stand. The League settled it as quietly and quickly as possible.

In the present case, the League has manufactured the crisis. Far from trying to settle it quietly, for some reason they have used it to try to destroy one of their leading players and its most successful team.

It would be exactly like the NBA deciding the Spurs were too successful and Tim Duncan had been too good for too long, so they manufactured an after-the-fact rule that players weren't allowed to raise their eyebrows. Tim Duncan had been doing that for years, which indicated that the previous Spurs titles were due to cheating. They suspend Tim Duncan for 1/4 of the season, because he should have been generally aware that raising his eyebrows was offensive to the fans. They take away first round draft picks in multiple years to punish the Spurs for that transgression.

.....And all of this was because Adam Silver was under fire for being too lenient with punishing other players, so he manufactured a crisis to divert attention.

So: would Adam Silver try to destroy the NBA brand in this way with one of its most popular players and one of its most successful teams?

 

[QuantumMechanic]

You mean they might force him to realize the $2B profit he's made since buying the team? Whatever would he do then?

Hold the team until he was ready to sell at a time of his own choosing and perhaps make a $4B profit, for starters.

The fact that he made money off the sale in no way minimizes the fact that he was forced to sell the team by the league.

 

[Ring 6]

Well, they forced him to sell it.

That just isn't true. Not even close. They threatened to force him to sell it. His wife tried to have him declared mentally incompetent. Someone came along with $2 billion and Sterling laughed all the way to the bank.
We are talking about whether it could actually happen, not whether it can be suggested under circumstances that have no comparison whatsoever to these.

 

[Ring 6]

Hold the team until he was ready to sell at a time of his own choosing and perhaps make a $4B profit, for starters.

The fact that he made money off the sale in no way minimizes the fact that he was forced to sell the team by the league.

The fact that he wasn't forced to sell the team does minimize the fact that he was forced to sell the team.

 

[SVN]

Bruce Allen ‏@bruceallen 25m25 minutes ago
Bruce Allen retweeted Zolak & Bertrand
Huh. How about that.
Bruce Allen added,
Zolak & Bertrand @ZoandBertrand
Did ESPN contradict itself in their OTL report on Spygate/Deflategate? We have audio RIGHT NOW on @985TheSportsHub

 

[Bella*chick]

I don't want to listen to the audio. What did they say?

 

[zydecochris]

That just isn't true. Not even close. They threatened to force him to sell it. His wife tried to have him declared mentally incompetent. Someone came along with $2 billion and Sterling laughed all the way to the bank.
We are talking about whether it could actually happen, not whether it can be suggested under circumstances that have no comparison whatsoever to these.

True. It should also not be forgotten why the League even threatened to make him sell. If nothing was done, there would have likely been a player boycott of Clipper Games. The Clipper players probably would have joined that boycott, and maybe even Doc Rivers (again, if nothing had been done). In that case, Adam Silver truly had no choice but to try to force Sterling to sell.

 

[50-yard-line]

OK. Here's how I understand this.

Basically Belichick exploited the system to its full limits and turned what was then a legal system of taping opposing teams signals into a science. That's the material the NFL supposedly helped the Patriots destroy because it would have pissed the other owners off so much if they had seen it. Not because it was illicit, but because it was so good.

That part is analogous to the plays he called against the Ravens in the Divisional Round this year. He took the rule book and exploited it to the limits. He was just better and smarter than everyone else in the early 2000's and he continued being smarter than everyone else in 2015.

But, Belichick made a boneheaded and arguably arrogant mistake and continued taping from the sidelines in 2007 after the League Memorandum said that all teams should stop. He could have done the same taping by springing for a seat in the front row of the stands and it would have been legal, but he did it from the sidelines and that was against the memo. He then compounded his mistake by trying to say he had interpreted the League Memorandum in a certain way and all hell broke loose. Whether or not a dozen other teams were still doing the same thing was irrelevant...the three time SB winners were doing it and that was a crime.

That opened the floodgates for lies, innuendo and false accusations by other teams who were simply outplayed and outsmarted by the Patriots and just plain jealous.

Goodell was attacked by jealous owners and media for letting the Patriots "off the hook" (presumably by not suspending BB for a season as he would later do to Sean Payton), not for doing anything illegal, but just for being smarter than nearly everybody else.

Fast forward to 2015. Kensil and Pagano, without any understanding of the Ideal Gas Law, try to nail the Patriots for an "infraction" that can be explained by the laws of physics.

Kensil leaks a lie to Mort. The whole thing takes on a life of its own and Goodell is pressed by the owners to do what he didn't do in 2007, which is unfairly punish the Patriots for something they didn't do.

So, the bottom line is that Goodell tried to get away with punishing the Patriots for something they didn't do because the owners feel he should have done that eight years ago.

And, they would have gotten away with it, if not for a guy named Richard Berman, who saw through the whole thing.

A day ago, i would have rated this "WINNER" but after reading the PDF on YourTeamCheats, specifically this part:

Article 9.1 (C) (14) of the Constitution and Bylaws of the NFL (p 39 of this pdf): No member shall: "Use at any time, from the start to the finish of any game in which a club is a participant, any communications or information gathering equipment, other than Polaroid-type cameras or field telephones, including without limitation videotape machines, telephone tapping or bugging devices, or any other form of electronic devices that might aid a team during the playing of a game.” (Emphasis mine.)

That seems to say you can't tape, bug, etc.

I'm just not so sure. It's all so damned ambiguous and out of date (how could you begin to prevent it now with cell phone vids so much better than the 1970 taping equipment?) that it seems impossible to win an argument either way.

The Anderson 2006 memo specifically says signals or otherwise, and that can be taken to mean "You can't tape signals from anywhere, but you can't tape anything from the sideline or anywhere else where the coach can get the info during the game."


At some point, BB will speak on this at length. I hope so, at least.

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

i don't believe the previous post is true as all teams use tablets to review other teams formations during the game. They USED to fax the photos down to the bench from above, now it's wireless.

 

[DaBruinz]

i don't believe the previous post is true as all teams use tablets to review other teams formations during the game. They USED to fax the photos down to the bench from above, now it's wireless.

Those are legue provided pieces of equipment.. And that may be the difference, in the league's eyes.. *shrug*

 

[AzPatsFan]

You are crazy if you think Kraft standing up to an injustice from the league is the same as what Donald Sterling did.
And by the way, they didn't take his team away he SOLD it.

He WAS FORCED to SELL the Clippers.

 

[zydecochris]

He WAS FORCED to SELL the Clippers.

I think this is mostly semantics about what "forced" means, and by who.

The NBA threatened to hold an owners meeting of the NBA Board of Governors to initiate a forced sale of the team under the league's Constitution and By-Laws. That probably would have eventually taken place, but it would have taken a very long time while Sterling initiated a million lawsuits.

Instead his wife did an end-around Sterling, had him declared incompetent, and got a California court to give her authority to sell the team. She quickly came to an agreement with Balmer to sell the team for $2B. Adam Silver was ecstatic that it worked out that way instead of him having to force a sale through the league's bylaws (with endless court challenges by Sterling).

So: he was forced to sell, by his wife and the court that gave her authority to sell the team.

The NBA certainly threatened to force him to sell, and they encouraged having his wife sell the team, but the NBA didn't have to force the sale themselves through the NBA Constitution and Bylaws.

At least that is how I remember it, let me know if I have it wrong.

 

[Ring 6]

He WAS FORCED to SELL the Clippers.

Putting it in caps doesn't mean its true.

First, which is totally different than Kraft, he was found to be offensive to basically every player in the league. The league sanctioned his comments, and threatened to force his to sell the team. He refused.
How they could actually force him to sell the team would be interesting, since he would have to agree to a price and other conditions, which would seem to show that it wasn't by force.
If you are suggesting that they would find a buyer, set a price, accept it and somehow be allowed to, what?, hold him at gunpoint to sign?
What happened was his wife had him declared incompetent and sold it herself, and when he saw the price tag he was happy to go along.

How in the world you can consider this him selling the team against his will by force from the NBA is beyond me.

Also, the claim is that the NFL could take the team away from Kraft, which we all know could never happen.

 

[Ring 6]

A day ago, i would have rated this "WINNER" but after reading the PDF on YourTeamCheats, specifically this part:

Article 9.1 (C) (14) of the Constitution and Bylaws of the NFL (p 39 of this pdf): No member shall: "Use at any time, from the start to the finish of any game in which a club is a participant, any communications or information gathering equipment, other than Polaroid-type cameras or field telephones, including without limitation videotape machines, telephone tapping or bugging devices, or any other form of electronic devices that might aid a team during the playing of a game.” (Emphasis mine.)

That seems to say you can't tape, bug, etc.

I'm just not so sure. It's all so damned ambiguous and out of date (how could you begin to prevent it now with cell phone vids so much better than the 1970 taping equipment?) that it seems impossible to win an argument either way.

The Anderson 2006 memo specifically says signals or otherwise, and that can be taken to mean "You can't tape signals from anywhere, but you can't tape anything from the sideline or anywhere else where the coach can get the info during the game."


At some point, BB will speak on this at length. I hope so, at least.

This is what it comes down to. In Clintonesque fashion BB is asking what the definition of "a" is.
He felt it meant the game that was being played, not any game. The league said that it meant any game.
It is so ridiculous. If BB didn't misunderstand that why would he not just have the guy film from the designated area? There was no advantage of having him film from the spot he did rather than a designated area other than the possibility of needing more than one from a designated area (which could include a luxury box) to deal with angles.
This is what is so stupid. It is characterized as a scheme, when if he really thought there was anything wrong with it he could have put the guy in a different location and it would have been perfectly legal.

 

[QuantumMechanic]

Also, the claim is that the NFL could take the team away from Kraft, which we all know could never happen.

It could happen in theory. There's a provision in the Constitution and Bylaws that a vote of 24 (or 23 -- can't remember) of the other 31 owners can force a sale.

Now I agree with you that in actuality it would never happen unless Kraft did something really wild.