Pats1 et al
I had posted this in another thread - with some embellishments above and beyond this about Goodell, but I'll leave out the comments about Goodell here and just pose my incredulous question about how Goodell could ever have legitimately made the ruling that he did.
A couple pre-comments:
1) anybody have a good contact of an English professor specializing in sentence structure and grammatical construction ? I'd love to hear their analysis on what meaning is appropriate from the actual wording of the Constitution/Bylaw and the memo.
2) there have been comments about the memo not having authority over the Constitution/Bylaws. However, the memo, to me, ALSO HAS THE CAVEAT of "
accessible to club staff members during the game. " and is no more restrictive than the Constitution/Bylaw !! !!
3) I am beginning to think that the Krafts made a HUGE HUGE HUGE mistake by not challenging Goodell right then and there. I can't see how Goodell could have supported his flawed ruling in the face of a serious challenge at that time based on the actual wording of the pertinent sections. Belichick must be so sick at heart because this hasn't been challenged - I can't imagine.
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Let's go back to the basics in this whole affair (courtesy of Mike Reiss who once again was a stellar NEWS reporter giving his readers solid
information):
http://www.boston.com/sports/footbal...aping_rul.html
From Mike's blog item, we get the following - [bolded/underlined print is my emphasis and was not in Mike's blog item]:
'In the league's Constitution & Bylaws, it reads: "Any use by any club at any time, from the start to the finish of any game in which such club is a participant, of any communications or information-gathering equipment, other than Polaroid-type cameras or field telephones, shall be prohibited, 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." '
OK. By it's wording, the proscription in this paragraph IS in relation to:
that might aid a team during the playing of a game." Ask any English professor if this paragraph can be construed in a more general sense and they will tell you that the last phrase limits the whole paragraph. You probably don't want to go to that trouble, so use a common sense test. If you read it as a general prohibition, note that information-gathering equipment is not to this day prohibited in general - as we all know, teams make full tapes of the games !! So, to reiterate, this paragraph can only be applied in the context of::
that might aid a team during the playing of a game."
Now, let's go to the infamous September 6, 2006 memo (again, courtesy of Mike in the above URL reference):
'In a memo to NFL head coaches and general managers on Sept. 6, 2006, NFL executive vice president of football operations Ray Anderson wrote: "Videotaping of any type, including but not limited to taping of an opponent's offensive or defensive signals, is prohibited on the sidelines, in the coaches' booth, in the locker room, or at any other locations
accessible to club staff members during the game." '
Are you beginning to see something here ?? This paragraph is completely limited in scope by the last phrase:
accessible to club staff members during the game. In plain English, you can't generalize beyond that phrase.
