Speaking of crying, FlaSox--we'll see what happens if Walsh has that walkthrough tape some suspect he does. If you lost a 1st round pick for your past infractions, I wonder what you'll lose for that (other than your team's integrity, but some might argue that's already gone).
I tend to think Walsh has little but a pathological exaggerator's profile (and that's being generous.) It was early 2002. Jittery looking kids with Tommy guns attended your air travel at the time. There were metal detectors at some churches and synagogs. Hard to believe that functions associated with the Super Bowl had no security to keep out the "wrong" camera guy. But we'll see.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who has wondered how they'll pull a way out of their patooties to steal our remaining 1st rounder, come by in a trade with the 9ers. At some point the reaction amounts to a 31-1 off-the-field battle to beat the Patriots, since they are, over the decade, the shadow over the league more often than not, in terms of on-field play.
I love today's article speculating that the Pats now lost a super bowl, because they didn't have the "camera" advantage. Sort of like "now watch them fall apart and go 8-8 without cameras" from early last season. Dudes, keep telling yourselves that.
Have a look at the various unproven, maybe this maybe that aspects of what your read about this story, and ask yourself one question:
Unless you simply want to expel the Patriots for doing what -- as I've established -- has been done repeatedly by others....
At what point does the league itself lose its credibility?
There is what's in the press, there is what we say here, then there is the truth. We're fans of this team, and we believe a very stiff penalty has been exacted, very much fueling the disproportionate hysteria about the infraction.
That punishment is, in my opinion, within the leeway of the Commish. I believe I understand the point: setting an example. It's pretty clear it's gotten away from him now.
So at what point does the Commish simply forfeit his legitimacy? Look around this forum - obviously, most Pats fans say he's already over that line.
Look around the league, and most other fans want more of the same... and question his legitimacy if he doesn't somehow remove the Silver and Blue boogieman from their nightmares.
What is the real truth? What is
really the justice of the Jets getting a pass for their 2006 taping
before the Pats' 2007 counter-taping?
Goodell has asked for more power to investigate when he does not have proof in his hand, like the Estrella tape from earlier this season. Seems likely to me he wants a way out fom the Jets-insider charge, and his response is "nobody brought it forward," and the bar against the Pats bringing it forward, was the lack of documentary evidence. In 2007 we were treated to the spectacle of Mangina crowing about how it's "business as usual" for
other teams to operate against the rules, then Dungy and Fisher colluding on the course of a playoff-seeding-determining game. Just for examples.
I know how this works, Fanetic. You go in wanting to tease or taunt a little, or even discuss, you don't realize there's a "concensus" and how prickly the locals can be... and then, slowly, their point of view sinks in a bit.
I hope in my posts I've represented what is least emotionally suspect of our reactions. Ask yourself about the equivalent or worse cases around the league. Ask yourself why all these rough equivalencies are waved off as unimportant -- that is, what
objective principal supports the waving-off.
There is no such objective principal. There is only the subjective principal that the Patriots are a different, black-hearted bunch, and that of
course whatever they do is a whole different level of evil. Christ, look at the guy, he wears a hooded sweatshirt! He's Emperor Palpatine!
Remove yourself to objective analysis, and ask -- by what principle have we decided the "level of evil" we accuse the Pats of, as opposed to the long line of similar examples we could cite?
It's a matter of piling on. And what I personally have absolutely no patience for, is the notion that the Pats' "integrity" is damaged to some level approaching the infinite. I'd rather the Pats had not been busted. I'd rather the Pats had not been engaged in the same level of behavior the Jets, the Fins, the Colts and the Titans engaged in just in the last couple years.
But you'll get no mea culpas from me. Those four teams got free rides, and we've established that illegal roster-building tactics get you only a slap on the wrist in comparison, in the case of tampering.
We got caught, we paid. I don't like the league's notion of proportionality, but I can deal with the concept: "Clean up the League."
I think the unintended consequence here is that every other team which had lost something crucial to the Pats -- i.e., many of the elite teams in the league -- crawled out of the woodwork looking for retroactive super bowl victories. I don't think Goodell thought professional football players and coaches were such whiners that they thought they could get do-overs in the media. Now a Senator wants senatorial do-overs. To me, that was shocking (i.e. unexpeced) behavior, saying things like "can I get my ring now?"
Well, the example is made. Don't think that many Pats fans are walking around in hair shirts thinking.... "My God, they're right... how can we possibly atone for this?"
The enforcement is just too selective for such a reaction, and the rest of the league far too hypocritical.
And when you get to the subject of media...? I dunno. When a guy "slips up" on facts once, I think, "maybe that's a mistake." When it becomes his stock in trade, I start to think of it as fiction, not reporting.
PFnV
