You're a pretty reasonable fan................. take a step back, get over the fact that it was the Patriots, and take a look MUCH deeper then what the media has feed you and you will understand exactly what this was.
Had this been the Saints, Arizona or someone like that, it would have been a 2-day story MAX.
Well, okay, you've drawn me in. First of all, I don't jump to the conclusion that the Patriots players, or even Bob Kraft, were aware of or participated in the illegal videotaping that Belicheck was sanctioned for.
I'm sorry, however, but I do consider that cheating, and I believe Belicheck should have received a much stiffer penalty. However, I don't jump to the conclusion that New England's titles are necessarily "tainted" or that there must be asterisks put next to them.
There's no doubt in my mind, unless the NFL has been beaming digitally recreated football games to me over the past six years, the Patriots have been at the pinnacle of the league in terms of talent, execution and coaching.
I don't have any resentment, as many NFL fans do, about the Patriot's winning their first title in 2001 on the strength of the "tuck rule" because, although I think it's a stupid rule, it was and is a rule and so there's no favor the NFL granted the Patriots by enforcing it.
The whole "Spygate" episode is, however, incredibly disturbing to me, but I'm pretty much a Nazi about this kind of thing.
I think Indy's amplification of crowd noise in their dome is cheating, and the league should sanction them severely, and, to gore my own ox, I think the Steelers cheated during the 74 AFC Championship game versus Oakland, when only most of the field at Three Rivers was covered, leaving the lanes along the sidelines iced over, which had the effect of impeding the Raiders' receivers routes. Pete Rozelle should have delayed the game and sanctioned the Steelers severely.
Actually, I think the league screwed New England by refusing to conduct an investigation into Spygate and by destroying the evidence presented to them by Belichick perhaps BECAUSE they didn't want it revealed how common the practice of illegally mic-ing players or videotaping signals was around the league.
It is quite possible that league officials' desire to cover their own asses left the impression league-wide that they were carrying New England's water, when in reality they could very well have been trying to cover up a wide-spread scandal, maybe involving teams that New England played prominently, that they knew about but ignored. We'll never know.