The letter I would have liked to send to Peter King after his comment that "Belichick's honor... has been forever blackened". Unfortunately SI limits such e-mails to 500 words or less....anyway here goes
Peter,
I can understand a difference in perspective and point of view. I can accept that you do not agree with Bill Belichick’s interpretation of the rule and the memo that lead to the fines exacted by the NFL. I can even accept that you feel there was more of an advantage to the Patriot’s coach from taping the signals than 1 part in a 100. But I cannot accept your assertion that Bill Belichick’s honor has been forever blackened. You have overstepped your professional integrity with such a condemnation and maligned a character who has shown nothing but honor through the whole spygate debacle.
Bill Belichick has never once pointed a finger at anyone other than himself. He has taken the blame, admitted the error and accepted his punishment without reservation. Strangely you can forgive John Tomase for his less than heart-felt apology but not Belichick for his bald and emotionless one. Unlike Tomase, Belichick offered no excuses even though he could have implicated many. Instead he chose to remain silent about any detail that would reflect badly on the game that he loves so dearly. Have you ever read the book “Education of a Coach” by David Haberstram? The Pulitzer prize winning author is a keen observer of people and one thing that comes across in the book is the reverence Bill Belichick pays to his father, the Naval Academy and the game of football. If you had read the book you would not have been able to question his honor when he has done everything to protect those in the game who many feel deserve equal condemnation and criticism.
Let me focus on the commissioner, someone who has never received your condemnation or mildest criticism. If Belichick made a mistake then Goodell made an even bigger one. As the effective CEO of the NFL he allowed a simple rules violation to become a conflagration of unprecedented size and duration. As CEO his first responsibility is to the standards and processes of the organization and to ensure that they are met in any deliberation that attracts risk to the enterprise. The first thing he should have done is to ensure that the rule in question was unambiguous. The fact that a memo was sent out to re-emphasize and restate the rule suggests that it was indeed ambiguous. The second thing he should have done was to determine whether the memo clarified the rule and if it did ensure that the rule was rewritten. The third thing he should have done was to clarify the validity and authority of a memo as a vehicle of policy and ruling. Do all memos from NFL Vice Presidents stand as law within the NFL or is there a process that takes such memos through authorized review bodies like the Competition Committee to ensure consistency, integrity and supportability? The fourth thing he should have done was to check whether there had been any “misinterpretations” or violations of the memo since it was issued before the 2006 season.
Goodell did none of the above. He ignored all four steps that most CEOs would take before reaching a conclusion and a decision. He then imposed the largest fine and penalty ever without further explanation. If he had indeed checked for other violations of the rule in 2006 he would have found that the two teams involved were both divisional rivals of the Patriots, and included his former employer the Jets. The acrimony between the Jets and the Patriots is enduring and well documented, starting with the “illegal” tampering of the Patriots coach in 1996 Superbowl, and including Bill Belichick’s refusal to take the HC position in 2000. Yet no-one, least of all Belichick, questions the commissioner’s motives or evaluation process. Not once has Belichick even remotely suggested criticism of the commissioner. Not once has he suggested that others employed the same videotaping practices, naming names and selling out his peers. Never once has he suggested that the Dolphins and Jets had set the precedent for his interpretation, even though the Dolphins far greater use of videotape helped them blank the Patriots 21-0 four games before the Patriots were caught on the first game of the 2007 season.
Bill Belichick has had to endure persecution by the US sporting press, being reviled as the Evil Empire or Evil incarnate and yet not once has he sought to sell his colleagues down the river to make himself look better. That is the definition of someone who sees the NFL, the game of football, even the commissioner himself as more defensible than himself. That my friend is the very epitome of honor, someone who is willing to have his reputation vilified by the press and trashed by the public rather than bring the game, its officers, its coaches and players into disrepute. I would only wish that the sporting press of this country could exhibit even a fraction of the honor exhibited by Bill Belichick in the last 9 months.
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