i dont know about everyone but i thought this article of his is much softer than his previous takes on spygate. He DOES NOT say the patriots wont make the playoffs. just points out the history of superbowl losers and that the patriots are a tired team already and the upcoming schedule .
Plus he got some +ve quotes too from players who all except barber said good things about the pats
and in typical king fashion , makes a for and against case against spygate
wish he thought of saying this before.
i also thought the quotes from players about spector and pro wrestling were funny.
its by no means a +ve pats article but this is the closest he has come all yr to saying something less -ve.
The problem with this article is less what he wrote this week than what he wrote last week and how he now waffles while still basically defending previous statements that were never more than hystrionics born of misinformation. It's the layers, like Jim Nantz pointed out last week, that have made the coverage of this incident so essentially dishonest and unfair. All along the media has been falling over itself to get on the record commenting about what in the final analysis has proven to be either totally incorrect (walkthrough or in game use of taped signals) or illogical (the impact of taping defensive signals not used in game) reports assumed/presumed to be fact when they were nothing of the sort.
King chooses time and again to return to his contention that if the Commissioner didn't accept Bill's explanation that he misinterpreted a rule so ambiguous it required a memo that no one has yet proven trumps the Constitution and Bylaws of a league - how could he. Yet from day 1 no one in the media including King was willing to accept that same Commissioner's conclusion that there was nothing additional in the tapes he destroyed beyond what he stated in September - signals similar to those Fox showed the nation. That kind of situational reasoning is nothing but media BS.
I challenged King last week to ask a lawyer what he would have advised his client he could reasonably expect the rules as written from 2000 through 2007 to be interpreted to allow him to do. Apparently he chose instead to ask players, including one who hasn't even established himself in the league yet, what they thought the value of intercepting signals is - and 7 of 8 told him what stolen signals amounted to in the grande scheme of things was...a hill of beans. Still, Peter can't accept that because of his pre conceived belief that Belichick wouldn't have taped them unless they provided substantial value...I guess he read Patriot's Reign and Education of a Coach, he just selectively comprehended them. The man values informational minutae that the majority of his peers lack the intellect to utilize. Bite me.
The media creates a February firestorm and when NOTHING comes of it they point fingers not at themselves but at Belichick and the organization and the league for not being more forthcoming and transparent in September. In other words Tomase and the Herald and the sports media by and large are just victims of their victim's unwillingness to be totally transparent. More BS though because the media is totally unwilling to be transparent when the shoe is on the other foot. They will not tell us who Tomase's sources were let alone what it ever was they actually contended. They will not tell us who tipped ESPN and the NYT that Matt Walsh might have items or recollections of interest or who arranged for Walsh to be represented by a high powered DC attorney. They will close ranks and go to their graves insisting that Belichick got off easy and his reputation will be justifiably tainted, while Tomase and the Herald and every mediot or politician who reported rumor as fact is somehow to be lauded for being well intentioned if mistaken and certainly not deserving of any punishment let alone career taint. Bill's multiple apologies on national television and in print fall on deaf ears as if he never made them. Tomase rationalizes about where he went wrong in a local rag and apologizes in hindsight on a blog a few thousand internet lurkers see and that proves he's just a stand up guy who made a mistake (and at verbiage at that).
Situational reasoning from the self appointed morality and ethics in sports police. Who have rapidly dwindling reserves of either in their own industry. Spare me your tortured reasoning, Peter, honestly...
The few people who maintained some perspective on all this within the media have already moved on. They admitted there was nothing else to see beyond September, and the last hundred days was much ado about an unfounded rumor that turned out to be totally baseless. Sucks for the folks who just had to believe there was more, and still have to.
