Specter: Belichick Was Taping Since 2000
15 Comments Published by clay February 19th, 2008 in Sports.What will be next? Steriods, HGH, Taping?
I want to see sport franchises make information like this public, so we can see in detail what happen. Like Barry Bonds’ record, I think the NFL should put an asterisk next to any of the Patriots’ accomplishments (including the championships).
Bill Belichick has been illegally taping opponents’ defensive signals since he became the New England Patriots’ coach in 2000, according to Sen. Arlen Specter, who said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told him that during a meeting Wednesday.
“There was confirmation that there has been taping since 2000, when Coach Belichick took over,” Specter said.
Belichick was fined $500,000 and the team was fined $250,000 because of the Spygate incident. The Patriots also forfeited a first-round draft pick.
What I don’t get is why they don’t fine him more or even take away those super bowl victories. Take away those rings, or do something to taint the image of this little “Patriots dynasty”. I mean, they’re taping plays and not taking much of a hit for it. If I knew the opposing team’s defensive plays the whole game, I’d be scoring all day. my team would be undefeated…If Barry Bonds got so much coverage for his homerun records and the steroids tainting it, then why doesn’t this have such a big media storm surrounding it? It’s just not right
Ok first of all i thought that the punishment again was not harsh enough. They should have either taken away cap room space or added 2 losses to there record. I disagree wiht mike though they should not touch those rings they did win them whether they cheated or not getting there and pulling it off stil takes talent. They will however have all eyes looking at them at all times now. this is a way of punishment in and of itself. The this is to answer mikes question at the end though is. The Spygate is Really big in football cities so Los Angeles would not have it as a big story other sport cities though this is still big. They should also punish the hell out of belichek himself
Being a cheater totally takes away from the victory in itself. When you win by cheating you don’t get the same winning feel after the game, you get a disgusting feeling of shame. I’m truly surprised that nothing happened. Sure a fine of $500,000, but that’s not anything to them. It should be WAY more than that. I think they should do a further investigation into to this as well to see exactly who did what and when. It’s really disappointing to see this kind of distrust and poor sportsmanship. When they signed on to play ball they signed to be leaders and they are not acting as leaders. They should hang their heads in shame!
It is depressing to see how far corruption has gone in to, and how “fair play” is constantly being bend to this side or that. It is even more sad to see that the punishment they get is a fine, if you institute harsh measure your sure not to have it again, or form another team. They should suspend the team, or something of that sort. they cheated, should it be taken lightly? NO! because football has been rooted in our society, and almost everyone watches it, and to have a public figure, or team, break the law, and have everything go as nothing happened, what does that teach us? What does it teach our kids? that it’s ok to cheat? that the bad guy gets the better deal? do we want to be shown that we are cheaters and it’s ok to cheat. it’s like telling our kids not to seal, as we rob the bank. it is sad. it is depressing, it brings out disgust from with in us. and what do we do? nothing. we should lead a further investigation, and then punish accordingly. to show our society, that we are not cheaters. That Americans don’t stand for injustice.
Really to tell the world the truth that doesnt matter. Yea its cheating but come on, its just hand signals. Tom Brady is really a good quarter back and i bet they could have won championships anyways. I dont like the patriots but they do have good players, and yea they cheated but it wouldnt have made a difference. Look at this season after the firsat week they almost had a perfect seoson. So cheating is bad, and they shouldnt have done it but for the leagues it wouldnt have change nothing much. I have seen the games myself, and they play like any other team, really cheating cant help you win the way they win. It jsut lets you know whats coming, and the way football works you never know whats going to happen. All i say that should be done though is that patriots have to forfeiet a whole seoson. thats the best i can think of, and it will let other teams learn from the Patriots mistakes. Because you know eevryone cheats in the nfl, just the patriots happen to egt caught. Well eevryone but the dolphins and raiders and 49ers and other teams, or they jsut suck at it. But one team that shoulkd cheat is the chargers, i see them going no where.
Our society as a whole doesn’t really care about this. They cared about Barry Bonds with his steroid use, but the fact that the NFL Commissioner destroyed the evidence, and there was no public outcry, says that we don’t care. Personally, I think Belichick should be banned, and all the Patriots titles stipped from them. But this is the NFL we are talking about, who doesn’t care about retired players, HGH use, or cheating. A famous man once said, “If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying,” so apparently the Pat’s weren’t trying hard enough.
i really dont care about this but i guess it is wrong. and if he was caught he should ahve been fired. they shouldnt ahve punished the team by fining them also. they did nothing wrong it was al him it would suck fi they take away the teams titles over this, but i guess he shouldnt ahve cheated.
I think the punishment should have been way harsher and thats just not because im a patriot hater. This is clear cheating and they should have every win that they had that advantage on taken away. Some people argue that they might have won anyway, but we’ll never know and no matter what way you put it, its still cheating. Its like me cheating on a test just to get one or two answers and the teacher catches me, i might have still passed without cheating but the teacher will still fail me. When it comes to professional sports, just a little advantage can determine a win or not, espeically in tight games which they did have against the rams in the superbowl. I think they should have taken away alot more wins.
What happened with the patriots coach being fined was enough. Their super bowls should not be taken away. It may have been chum change, but it really opened the eyes of everyone in the NFL. People don’t realize just how hard these guys work. They work all week and the games that we see on sundays are the output that they put in during the week. They make it seem that the Patriots coach knew every play but the fact is he only knew the red zone offense. It doesn’t matter whether you know the teams plays, if they are good and they practiced harder that week then they are going to win. In the end it was just a slap on the hand, but i don’t think we are going to hear about cheating from another coach again. GO DALLAS!!!
If Barry bonds must suffer so must the patriots if they really were cheating. There was non-stop coverage on barry for cheating and he is only one person. The patriots are a whole organization they should be critically penalized for breaking a crucial rule. I would understand the fine if it did not give the patriots much leverage to tape other teams. This taping help them win games which should not be taken lightly by the league like it has. All I am saying is that if the league does not do any in depth researching on this matter then I would say they are supporters of cheating. The commercials about the Nfl cares does not mean anything because they are showing me and millions of others that they care about cheating other then honesty. There is no reason to even watcha football game if any team gets to cheat and only get fined for it. The patriots have won a couple of superbowls over the past decade there would not be a question about how they did it if they were taping other teams.
I have to agree with Brandon and say the punishment should have been way harder, but im not a patriot hater. Even though they got to where they were with talent, i think that them cheating helped them a lot. Cheating is like failing but only when you got caught and since the Patriots were caught they should have gotten their rings taken. But when i think about it taken away their rings might be a little too harsh so i guess they could have fined them a lot more, especially Bill. But thats just my opinion.
i personally don’t care about an issue like this.
if anything, the only thing that i get from this is realizing
how competitive this society has got and how they are willing
to do anything to win. i don’t think that his punishment was harsh or less than what was expected.
it’s funny how we care so much about celebrities and athletes and their lives.
i think we think they are perfect and whenever anything wrong goes on, it’s horrible!
well i think that they should get a more severe punishment other than paying money because them having to pay a certain amount of money is like a little kid getting a slap on the wrist. what the coach did was basically cheating and i think that they need a more harsher punishment.
The punishment that the coach and the team got was really nothing. I think they should have suspended the coach because this has been going on for a pretty long time and have gotten championships probably becacuse of the unfair taping of their opponents, but who knows. The amount of money that they had to pay is nothing that’s practically chump change. I wish they would have gotten a more serious punishment.
I agree with most people here. The punishment the coach got was not enough. Charging him money is nothing. They have a lot of it. If anything, they should have banned him from coaching. What he did was the same thing as cheating, therefore, a harsher punishment would be the best thing to do.