Now they are just the latest of the NFL’s Bad Boys, guilty of violating league rules by videotaping opposition signals on the sideline. And just as he did to Michael Vick, Pacman Jones and the other sinners, league commissioner Roger Goodell socked it to the Pats: fining coach Bill Belichick $500,000, the Patriots team another $250,000 and taking away the team’s first-round draft choice.
As a longtime Patriots fan and season-ticket holder, I am dismayed and more than a little ashamed. And I have no quarrel with the stiff penalty. Still, the swift justice leaves me with far more questions than answers. Were the Patriots doing something more than just videotaping? If they were caught spying, as has been suggested, against Green Bay last year, it could only be because the information might be helpful later in the same game. Are stolen signals at the heart of Belichick’s legendary brilliant halftime adjustments?
Moreover, if the NFL scuttlebutt is correct and New England has been cheating for a long time, how could Belichick expect to get away with it against the Jets, whose head coach, Eric Mangini, was a longtime Pats defensive coach and thus had to be privy to any such operation. Did Mangini drop a dime on the Pats?
More important: Is this an isolated incident? Are the Pats the only team engaged in this kind of scurrilous behavior? Spying is an aspect of NFL competition that has warranted scant attention from fans and sportswriters alike. We’ve seen the coaches on the sidelines shielding their faces and trying to cloak their signals—I don’t believe I’ve ever seen Seattle coach Mike Holmgren’s mouth—but regarded it largely as a byproduct of the obsessive behavior that is the coaching norm. Now it appears they may not have been sufficiently paranoid. Clearly Belichick has no intention of shedding any light on the matter. He gave the classic modern apology—I call it “the Giambi”—in which he says he’s sorry, but never reveals what he’s sorry for.
In baseball stealing signals has always been considered a part of the game, with a certain roguish charm. But it’s never been much of issue in football. Still, when the theft goes hi-tech the charm, as in much of modern life, goes out the window. Yet it’s sometimes difficult to parse that fine line between cheating and gamesmanship. (Once upon a time, tennis star Monica Seles was accused of grunting to distract and rattle opponents; today the nongrunters are the exceptions.) And sometimes the perception from opposite sides reveals the divide as far more of a gulf than a fine line. Here’s a small spying sampler from the sports world:
Back in Foxboro, this is the second major cheating scandal involving the Patriots already this month. A week before the opening game of the season, defensive back Rodney Harrison was suspended for four games after admitting that he used human growth hormone. For all the unseemliness, the Patriots would appear to be talented enough to win without any hidden weapons. And their players are experienced enough to put aside these considerable distractions.
They will certainly need to do just that, because the Pats will have their hands full Sunday night, with the San Diego Chargers looking for payback for last season’s upset loss to New England in the playoffs. Is it possible that Belichick couldn’t stand all the love and prosperity surrounding the New England franchise? During their Super Bowl runs the Pats seemed to thrive on a Belichick-inspired mantra of “nobody respects us.” Now he’ll have no trouble reviving that message.
