According to a report on Tuesday, it appears that Senator Arlen Specter wants an independent investigation of the Patriots’ taping of opposing coaches’ signals, which he says should be similar to the Mitchell Report on performance-enhancing drugs in baseball.
Apparently, he doesn’t understand what he’s pushing for. The Mitchell report was not a report drafted to go after an individual. It was a report that was a blanket investigation that targeted the entire league and contained the names of many different players who were discovered to be using steroids.
A blanket investigation is something that every fan in New England would have liked to have seen from the beginning. The problem was that it never occurred, and instead, it was the Patriots who were singled out. So now I’m sure many of the teams who were likely using similar tactics have long since changed their ways after the New England got nabbed.
Imagine a room full of people sitting down and looking at sideline video of every single game from the past decade, with all of them trying to find individuals with cameras, and then having them try to figure out who was supposed to be there and who wasn’t. I have to believe that other teams would finally be caught as well. The thought of that would finally bring to light the fact that despite how smart head coach Bill Belichick is, he’s probably not the guy who pioneered this method of espionage.
Specter again reportedly criticized the league’s handling of the investigation and threatened the possibility of revoking the NFL’s antitrust exemption during a news conference Wednesday. The senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee met with former New England video assistant Matt Walsh a day earlier.
According to published reports NFL commissioner Roger Goodell indicated he considered the investigation over after his meeting with Walsh on Tuesday.
All I have to say is that if he’s planning on wasting time and energy figuring out what fans already know, then be my guest. I’m personally looking forward to reading about other teams who used similar tactics so the rest of the world realizes that all NFL coaches use some method of signal stealing. The thing that leaves me shaking my head is that everyone acts like New England was the only one capable of this. It’s ridiculous.
Now Specter seems to be hell-bent on crucifying the guy who beat his team in Superbowl XXXIX. Unfortunately, he will need to be intelligent enough to realize that the Mitchell report was a blanket investigation, and he will only take a negative spotlight away from the team he seems to be trying to destroy as more and more teams would probably be found using tactics that likely date back into the early years of the league.
But as a New England fan, this is one of the few things I agree with him on. I said this a while ago and will say it again, fair is fair. I honestly thought that there would have been a broader investigation when this all started back in September, but instead, it focused only on the Patriots. I truly believed that commissioner Roger Goodell dropped the ball and instead used New England to send a message to the rest of the league because he knew that the Patriots weren’t the only ones doing it. They were the only ones foolish enough to get caught.
So bring it on. Let the names of the rest of the teams be revealed, and when it’s realized that nearly the entire league has a guy in the stands or on the sidelines who’s wearing a mustache and glasses and trying to figure out what their opponent is doing it will only make this matter disappear even more.
Hopefully, Spector realizes what it is he’s asking for. Just imagine….how nice would it be if an investigation revealed his beloved Eagles used cameras against the Patriots in Superbowl XXXIX? One can only hope.
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Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.
