John Harbaugh: Patriots' titles have asterisks, are stained

Originally posted by danimal:

Originally posted by baltien:
Dude, you're looking at this as an all-or-nothing proposition, which doesn't make sense. Yes, that Pats were definitely talented during those years, and they still are. No one is denying that. And sure, they could have beat all of those teams anyway. That's definitely possible. And it's also possible that despite them being a very talented team, they were looking for an additional advantage to further increase their chances of winning. Not hard to figure out.

Just because I or other NFL coaches may not know immediately what those reasons are, that doesn't mean none exist. I'm not Coach Belichick, so I can't answer for him. And despite your rebuttals, you still didn't answer what is a very simple question:

Why would they do it if there was no benefit?

Are we to believe the Pats just woke up one day and decided to pointlessly videotape other teams? And those tapes were so "worthless" they just had to be destroyed before an independent review could take place?

I think you're smarter than that.

I did answer. I think Belichick is a thorough student of the game. Maybe there was a long term benefit to be gained in studying for long term trends. Maybe he just wanted to be sure there was no way to get around the signal safeguards....maybe he wanted to borrow there techniques in fortifying his own safe guards. There are plenty of reasons to do it, I think this is a case of Belichick just being more thorough and intelligent and is being punished because of that.

I think it is also something to factor in that as far as we can tell Belichick was assigning very minor resources to this.

As for the asterisk thing I just think the whole concept is lame. I do absolutely view it as a All or Nothing proposition. Either stricken something from the records or leave it the f**k alone.

The reason it needs to be all or nothing is because then it becomes unfair to focus on certain championships, records or eras.

If you put an asterisk on the Pats then you better put an Asterisk on the Saints. Better put an Asterisk on the Niners of the 80's with their illegal methods of compensating players and always getting the best FA's this way. Eddie D is a felon and his charges were sports and gambling related so asterisk for all those Niner championships.

Asterisk ALL the baseball champions of the steroid era.

How about in the 60's when the pain cream was illegal, asterisk those teams too.

Damn right I am being all or nothing, you are not being all or nothing enough. If you can't define why an asterisk is called for then that opens the gates to call into question everybody.

The term "if you are not cheating you are not trying" I think fits perfectly here. It basically means if you are not constantly testing the boundaries you are not competing. But they all are competing, and they all are testing the boundaries

Ah, no.

That term is used to mean pushing the boundaries. There was nothing "pushing" about what the Pats did. It was a complete violation of the rules. There wasn't a grey area.

Originally posted by susweel:
I agree with John the Pats titles are stained because of the spygate. The genious Belicheat has not won a super bowl after they stopped taping team practices.


Ravens coach John Harbaugh believes the Spygate scandal permanently taints the Patriots, saying the three titles the team won under coach Bill Belichick have to be called into question because the team broke NFL rules by taping opposing coaches' signals.

In an interview on Baltimore radio station 97.9 FM, Harbaugh was asked about the Saints bounty scandal. But instead of talking about the Saints, Harbaugh focused his answer on the Patriots.

"In the end, everything is brought before the light of day," Harbaugh said. "Even the thing in New England, no matter whether those things had any impact on whether they won their championships or not, they got asterisks now, it's been stained. So to me, it's never worth it. You've got to figure out ways to use the rules to your advantage."

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/05/01/john-harbaugh-patriots-titles-have-asterisks-are-stained/

Harbaugh is right on the money. Really, those championships should have been taken away from them. All those Superbowl victories were close and they absolutley lose those games without Spygate, but they probably aren't even in the Superbowl to begin with without Spygate. They ran a lot of hurry up for a reason. They knew the defensive signals and which would tell them what coverage the team was in after hurrying up. It's a HUGE advantage. Why this was swept under the rug and covered up by Goodell is an absolute shame. He just got rid of all the evidence and moved on like no big deal. Goodell should have lost his job for that and those superbowls the Patriost 'won' should be rewarded to their opponents. This is worse than the Bounty gate as bounty gate has been apart of football to some degree throughout its history. Bountygate was still bad obviously, but it had no effect on the Saints winning games. They had to be much more severe on the saints in terms of punishment because it looks much worse to the public than does the 'simple little no big deal cheating' of Spygate.

Originally posted by SportsFan:

Originally posted by danimal:

Originally posted by baltien:
Dude, you're looking at this as an all-or-nothing proposition, which doesn't make sense. Yes, that Pats were definitely talented during those years, and they still are. No one is denying that. And sure, they could have beat all of those teams anyway. That's definitely possible. And it's also possible that despite them being a very talented team, they were looking for an additional advantage to further increase their chances of winning. Not hard to figure out.

Just because I or other NFL coaches may not know immediately what those reasons are, that doesn't mean none exist. I'm not Coach Belichick, so I can't answer for him. And despite your rebuttals, you still didn't answer what is a very simple question:

Why would they do it if there was no benefit?

Are we to believe the Pats just woke up one day and decided to pointlessly videotape other teams? And those tapes were so "worthless" they just had to be destroyed before an independent review could take place?

I think you're smarter than that.

I did answer. I think Belichick is a thorough student of the game. Maybe there was a long term benefit to be gained in studying for long term trends. Maybe he just wanted to be sure there was no way to get around the signal safeguards....maybe he wanted to borrow there techniques in fortifying his own safe guards. There are plenty of reasons to do it, I think this is a case of Belichick just being more thorough and intelligent and is being punished because of that.

I think it is also something to factor in that as far as we can tell Belichick was assigning very minor resources to this.

As for the asterisk thing I just think the whole concept is lame. I do absolutely view it as a All or Nothing proposition. Either stricken something from the records or leave it the f**k alone.

The reason it needs to be all or nothing is because then it becomes unfair to focus on certain championships, records or eras.

If you put an asterisk on the Pats then you better put an Asterisk on the Saints. Better put an Asterisk on the Niners of the 80's with their illegal methods of compensating players and always getting the best FA's this way. Eddie D is a felon and his charges were sports and gambling related so asterisk for all those Niner championships.

Asterisk ALL the baseball champions of the steroid era.

How about in the 60's when the pain cream was illegal, asterisk those teams too.

Damn right I am being all or nothing, you are not being all or nothing enough. If you can't define why an asterisk is called for then that opens the gates to call into question everybody.

The term "if you are not cheating you are not trying" I think fits perfectly here. It basically means if you are not constantly testing the boundaries you are not competing. But they all are competing, and they all are testing the boundaries

Ah, no.

That term is used to mean pushing the boundaries. There was nothing "pushing" about what the Pats did. It was a complete violation of the rules. There wasn't a grey area.

Exactly, there was no gray area at all. They knew what they were doing was wrong and was not permitted. They did it because they believed they could get away with it and it gave them a great advantage.

Originally posted by baltien:

Originally posted by danimal:
Yet NOBODY on your side can ever explain exactly how it would have provided an advantage Especially nobody has EVER countered the fact that all teams use jargon, rotatings signals, deceptive signals and code, as safeguards against visual or audio eavesdropping.

And I and others have given a reason on why they did it. A, Belichick is very thorough, and yes maybe he was looking to pick up on a tendency or maybe he wanted to see how well the other teams use the above safeguards, and improve his own safeguards.

People on my side of the argument give answers, all your side does is pose questions

Hard to explain anything when the evidence was destroyed. Though I'm sure I'll hear a very (ill)logical reason why that happened. To you and others that share your opinion, I ask:

If video taping another team's walkthroughs and/or defensive signals provides no benefit then why would a team REPEATEDLY do so? And only stop AFTER being caught?

Again, it was done for a reason. Just because we don't immediately know those reasons doesn't absolve them of any wrongdoing.

Yes it is pretty simple. If there was no benefit, they wouldn't have done it for nearly a decade. That's all that you need to know. They cheated, plain and simple. Knowing the other teams defensive signals is pretty damn important,lol. Why do you think the Patriots did hurry up offense so often?

Originally posted by baltien:

Originally posted by lamontb:
did he just say they made those videotapes b/c Belichick is a student of the game and he was being thorough. Come on now. That's right there with the dog ate my homework.

+1. It defies logic to think that someone KNOWINGLY did something wrong for YEARS that provided them no benefit whatsoever.

LOL. sounds like he needs to get his head out of the sand

danimal, the reason why I'm not providing a detail by detail, blow by blow account for how this would be advantage is because #1 I think its obvious it would provide SOME advantage. If you think there is a chance it provides ZERO advantage, theres no point in even discussing it.

Secondly, I'm not gonna do a time dump of debating this topic. Don't really care enough. But IMO Bellicheck's career is tainted, any person caught cheating IMO has a tainted career.

Originally posted by SunDevilNiner79:
danimal, the reason why I'm not providing a detail by detail, blow by blow account for how this would be advantage is because #1 I think its obvious it would provide SOME advantage. If you think there is a chance it provides ZERO advantage, theres no point in even discussing it.

Secondly, I'm not gonna do a time dump of debating this topic. Don't really care enough. But IMO Bellicheck's career is tainted, any person caught cheating IMO has a tainted career.

this X 100. same thing a steroid use sure dude got all these records and won these championships but hes still got a tainted career.

Originally posted by danimal:

Originally posted by baltien:

Originally posted by danimal:
Yet NOBODY on your side can ever explain exactly how it would have provided an advantage Especially nobody has EVER countered the fact that all teams use jargon, rotatings signals, deceptive signals and code, as safeguards against visual or audio eavesdropping.

And I and others have given a reason on why they did it. A, Belichick is very thorough, and yes maybe he was looking to pick up on a tendency or maybe he wanted to see how well the other teams use the above safeguards, and improve his own safeguards.

People on my side of the argument give answers, all your side does is pose questions

Hard to explain anything when the evidence was destroyed. Though I'm sure I'll hear a very (ill)logical reason why that happened. Again, to you and others that share your opinion, I ask:

If video taping another team's walkthroughs and/or defensive signals provides no benefit then why would a team REPEATEDLY do so? And only stop AFTER being caught?

Again, it was done for a reason. Just because we don't immediately know those reasons doesn't absolve them of any wrongdoing.

I already gave a supposition in response to the bolded, what is your response to that?

As to the destroyed tapes so now we will never know logic....LMAO. People use your brains. Was this a taping of a secret meeting? No. All the Rams present on that day can easily tell the world exactly what they did and exactly how the Pats could have exploited.

Just assume the Pats have taped every single opponents team walk through and sideline for the game for every game for many many years. Why not just assume that. Just assume they captured EVERYTTHING. OK, pretty safe assumption and now the tapes don't matter.

Simply ask any of the hundreds of NFL coaches what they did or didn't do that would have given the Belichick an marked advantage? Cricketsville on this front. Instead they act dumb, well gee even though I have been a coach for 20 years I just couldn't say that I know what happened in that walk through....derp derp.

You come off like you have some special insight that most can't comprehend which of course is ridiculous. However, to answer your question, video taken over a period of years against the same opponent were going to show the tendencies of that coaching staff, the small nuances that the staff was trying to stress to their players in preparation, and may allow a club to determine for certainty what specific signals meant.

If you can't see how those small bits I came up with off the top of my head wouldn't give an unfair advantage, especially if the opposing teams operated in good faith trusting they weren't being observed and certainly not taped, well then I have some comments I'll reserve.

However like I said, that was off the top of my head, if given proper thought I am sure I could come up with a laundry list of unique advantages gained from the way the Pats cheated that not all other teams had access to cause they didn't cheat.

If it wasn't a big deal, if they did nothing wrong, they wouldn't have been punished. Their championships won by the slimmest or margins absolutely have an * imo as it is completely reasonable to believe that the knowledge gained by their cheating would result in 3pts a game. Knowing 1 signal to stop a 3rd and short conversion, or knowing whats likely to come in a goal line situation turning a TD into a FG. Funny how their defense got old and ineffective riiight about the time they were forced to stop cheating huh?

it's cool. Patriots Suck. Niners Rule. I get it it now. Damn thanks for helping me see the light

Originally posted by DaDivaRecieva15:
f**k John Harbaugh

wat, why?

Anyone kind of annoyed when Tedy Bruschi says on ESPN Bill Belichick belongs with the all time greats... Says only two names and Bill Walsh isn't one of them...

Originally posted by SunDevilNiner79:

Originally posted by danimal:
What kind of illogical BS is that? How can an action's impact or lack thereof be non relevant in tainting an accomplishment?

If it had no impact then the accomplishment is not tainted at all.
If it had an impact then it did taint it.

You can't have it both ways and be noncommittal on whether there was an impact yet state it does automatically taint the accomplishment.

I happen to believe it had zero impact, thus I don't view their accomplishment as tainted at all. They won 3 of 4 Super Bowls and dominated the league. If the other 31 teams need to cling to something to allow themselves to believe that is not exactly what happened then so be it.

49er fans should be especially aware of this. Do you even grasp that there was a large argument that the Niners did NOT dominate the 80's because they cheated

I dont think thats his point. I think his point was, we will never really know how much of an impact cheating had. There is no way to know. What we do know is they haven't won the SB since, which credits the idea it did have some impact.

Thus, sure they are the SB winners, but its tainted.

What about all the games leading up to the superbowl... They were, before and after spygate, and still are a dominant team. From the looks of last year, they didn't need tape to get to the Superbowl

Knowing just a little bit more the opposition does help especially in the game of football where just a few plays may determine the outcome of the game. The fact that the Patriots won their SBs with very close scores should serve as food for thought.

i remember we got caught cheating (Lance Briggs).

but no one made a big deal because we s*cked.

Originally posted by Jcool:
Anyone kind of annoyed when Tedy Bruschi says on ESPN Bill Belichick belongs with the all time greats... Says only two names and Bill Walsh isn't one of them...

Yup i saw that and was annoyed too. Fack belicheat and his goones...