NFL Training Camp thread!

I just read a SI article that said 19 of the other 29 teams take special precautions when they play the Pats, that they do not take vs any other team. I find it hard to believe that teams who have so much game prep to do normally would make extra work just because of jealousy.

I think it is widely believed that they cheat, I think people who leave the organization admit cheating and word gets around.

So if you are the NFL and don't care about cheating then you can ignore it, but if you want to keep the integrity of your games then you have to go after the Pats.

There's cheating and there's rule bending. I think the Pats have mostly danced along the lines and done everything they can to win games but I haven't heard anything that I would consider cheating other than jamming radios etc. Anyone who thinks BB just came up with all this stuff on his own and that none of it has occurred elsewhere in the league is naive.

I have no issue with cleaning it up but a good commissioner knows how to fix problems in the shadows. If you want to fix a marriage, you don't go to the media and call her an alcoholic whore, you talk about it privately. Goodell did nothing to improve the leagues image, he only devalued it by dragging the sports biggest star through the mud without considering the implications and without having his act together.

There's cheating and there's rule bending. I think the Pats have mostly danced along the lines and done everything they can to win games but I haven't heard anything that I would consider cheating other than jamming radios etc. Anyone who thinks BB just came up with all this stuff on his own and that none of it has occurred elsewhere in the league is naive.

I have no issue with cleaning it up but a good commissioner knows how to fix problems in the shadows. If you want to fix a marriage, you don't go to the media and call her an alcoholic whore, you talk about it privately. Goodell did nothing to improve the leagues image, he only devalued it by dragging the sports biggest star through the mud without considering the implications and without having his act together.

I don't know if I can call sneaking into opposing locker rooms and hotel rooms to steal playbooks/game material as "bending" the rules.

And I do not believe that "everyone does it" line.

I don't know if I can call sneaking into opposing locker rooms and hotel rooms to steal playbooks/game material as "bending" the rules.

And I do not believe that "everyone does it" line.

There are teams doing each one of those things in the league. The difference is that BB is doing them all..

To everything, there is right and wrong. However, in all but the rarest cases, there is all a substantial amount of gray. To me, the Pats and BB are like a guy I prosecuted once.

He started out in what everyone would agree is a "gray area" between right and wrong. Over the years, he kept inching the line between "gray" and "wrong" further and further - always justifying his actions as just pushing the limits of the law and convincing himself that "Hey, I am still in the gray area.". After several years of this, however, every objective observer of his business practices concluded "Nope, you may have once been in the gray, but you are now firmly ensconced in "wrong."

To me, Belichick is just like that guy - pushing, bending, stretching every rule he can. As a result, he's convinced of his lack of wrong doing and most everyone else just looks and says "No, that's just not right."

Wow.

Inside a room accessible only to Belichick and a few others, they found a library of scouting material containing videotapes of opponents' signals, with detailed notes matching signals to plays for many teams going back seven seasons. Among them were handwritten diagrams of the defensive signals of the Pittsburgh Steelers, including the notes used in the January 2002 AFC Championship Game won by the Patriots 24-17.

From Spygate to Deflategate: Inside what split the NFL and New England Patriots apart (http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/13533995/split-nfl-new-england-patriots-apart)

Inside a room accessible only to Belichick and a few others, they found a library of scouting material containing videotapes of opponents' signals, with detailed notes matching signals to plays for many teams going back seven seasons. Among them were handwritten diagrams of the defensive signals of the Pittsburgh Steelers, including the notes used in the January 2002 AFC Championship Game won by the Patriots 24-17.]

Don't think for a second that you won't find the same in every baseball scouting office in the country..

Don't think for a second that you won't find the same in every baseball scouting office in the country..


Again, I think that is just a throwaway line, that doesn't mean anything. People say "everyone does it", but then can offer no proof to that. Nor can they explain why no other team gets caught. Or that NFL teams take special precautions vs the Pats that they do not take vs everybody else.

Don't think for a second that you won't find the same in every baseball scouting office in the country..

As Hijinx said, then show me someone else who got caught.

Also, I don't give two damns if "everybody does it," there is right and wrong. BB knew it was wrong, Goodell knew it was wrong (everything in the room was destroyed, shredded, etc. almost immediately).

I acknowledge the existence of gray areas. Hell, as a lawyer, that's where I spend most of my time - if everything was clear cut, I'd be out of job. If all a person has is the "everybody does it" defense, however, they are intellectually lazy and a moral coward.

Not to put too fine a point on it.

My point isn't so much that "everyone does it" as much as "no one really cares".. unless you are a specific team from the Boston area.

We live in a society today where everyone is told that they are just as good as the other guy so when the other guy is beating them, then cheating is the obvious reason why. Doing those things helps you gain an advantage, sure but the gains are small. BB is competitive. Competitive to a fault. If he can get a .01% advantage doing something he will do it. I respect that. These aren't new ideas in football.. They just haven't been a big deal until it came to a team that wins a lot.

We know for a fact that Jerry Rice used stickum, that other teams have tampered with radios, that other QBs have had air taken out of footballs. None of these things has bothered anyone except when the Patriots were the benefactor. Then all of a sudden people want to believe that those are the reasons they or their team were beat.. There are 1000 variables each week. Gaining a small advantage here or there isn't going to change the outcome of a game nearly as much as everyone thinks.

Taping walkthroughs? OK.. that one is a no-go..

It didnt effect games - Rams, Eagles, panthers and Steelers disagree

a. "Our players came in after that first half and said it was like [the Patriots] were in our huddle," a Panthers source says. During halftime -- New England led 14-10 -- Carolina's offensive coordinator, Dan Henning, changed game plans because of worries the Patriots had too close a read on Carolina's schemes. And, in the second half, the Panthers moved the ball at will before losing 32-29 on a last-second field goal. "Do I have any tape to prove they cheated?" this source says. "No. But I'm convinced they did it."

b. Ward told reporters that Patriots inside information about Steelers play calling helped New England upset Pittsburgh 24-17 in the January 2002 AFC Championship Game. "Oh, they knew," Ward, now an NBC analyst who didn't return messages for this story, said after Spygate broke. "They were calling our stuff out. They knew a lot of our calls. There's no question some of their players were calling out some of our stuff."

c. January 2005 AFC Championship Game, which was won by the Patriots 41-27, came from stolen signals because Pittsburgh hadn't changed its signals all year, sources say, and the two teams had played a game in the regular season that Walsh told investigators he believes was taped. "They knew the signals, so they knew when it went in what the coverage was and how to attack it," says a former Steelers coach. "I've had a couple of guys on my teams from New England, and they've told me those things."

d. "To this day, some believe that we were robbed by the Patriots not playing by the rules ... and knowing our game plan," a former Eagles football operations staffer says.

Everyone was doing it - not to BB level

"It got out of control," a former Patriots assistant coach says.

A former Patriots employee who was directly involved in the taping system says "it helped our offense a lot," especially in divisional games in which there was a short amount of time between the first and second matchups, making it harder for opposing coaches to change signals.

Several of them acknowledge that during pregame warm-ups, a low-level Patriots employee would sneak into the visiting locker room and steal the play sheet, listing the first 20 or so scripted calls for the opposing team's offense.

Numerous former employees say the Patriots would have someone rummage through the visiting team hotel for playbooks or scouting reports.

"Why would they go to such great lengths for so long to do it and hide it if it didn't work?" a longtime former executive says.