Memo to New England Patriots haters: It's time to drop the whole "Spygate" thing

July 2, 1:41 AMNew England Patriots ExaminerSean Crowe

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I’m breaking a promise I made to myself when I took this job back in October. I’m writing a Spygate article.

I promise, this will be the only one. When I’m done with this article, unless the Patriots are caught videotaping something else illegally, the word “Spygate” will never appear in an article of mine again. Ever.

So why am I drudging up this ridiculously overblown controversy? Because I’m annoyed. And the target of my annoyance is the NFL, specifically the commissioner’s office.

There’s a contingent of NFL fans, albeit a relatively vocal minority, who just cannot get over the whole Spygate thing. You’ll find them on message boards (like this one), in the comments sections of any articles that mention the Patriots (like this one), and every once in a while you’ll bump into one of them in a bar.

They firmly believe that everything the Patriots have done since Belichick took the head coaching job in 2000 is tainted.

They believe this because the commissioner’s office never came clean about what they confiscated from the Patriots, what the rest of the NFL felt the Patriots could have gained from the videotape, and how many other teams were under suspicion of videotaping signals.

A couple of things need to be made clear. The Patriots were punished harshly not because they committed some insane infraction that destroyed the sanctity of an NFL football game, but because they were caught doing it in the first NFL game after the commissioner sent a letter to all teams telling them not to do it.

Their actions were a slap in the face to the commissioner, who we now know doesn’t take too kindly to people not following his rules. He had to make an example of the Patriots, and he did.

Had the videotaping been what some fans of other teams have made it out to be, the NFL would have come down much harder on Belichick himself.

Harder meaning suspension, and likely a long one.

But there was no suspension. The reason is twofold.

1) Most people in the NFL feel that the Patriots wouldn’t have gained much from the videotaped signals. Most teams switch up signals if they play a team more than once in a season because, regardless of videotape, most teams have a guy specifically in charge of trying to steal signals.

2) There’s significant evidence that more teams in the NFL were videotaping. Many more.

Mike Florio discussed Spygate on ProFootballTalk.com back on February 23rd, 2008 (the link directly to the article doesn’t work, presumably because of the switch to NBCSports…so you’ll have to take my word for it):

Regardless of whether the Patriots did or didn’t videotape the Rams’ walk-through practice prior to Super Bowl XXXVI, it’s not the first time that such allegations have been raised.

As Jason Cole of Yahoo! Sports wrote in the days following the discovery that the Pats were taping defensive coaching signals during a Week One game against the Jets, the Broncos were suspected at one time of secretly videotaping Chargers practices.

Wrote Cole: “The San Diego Chargers increased their security several years ago at a hill overlooking the practice field at the team facility during weeks when they played the Denver Broncos. Why? It turns out Broncos coach Mike Shanahan had been hiring spies to videotape the Chargers practices. The NFL had been aware of it for several years (at least one NFL official had seen one of the tapes), but didn’t step in because it was considered a team issue.”

Such stories tend to support the rumor that Patriots coach Bill Belichick included with the materials surrendered to the league extensive evidence of cheating by other teams.

Further bolstering the belief that the Pats weren’t the only team doing what they were caught doing are the comments of former Cowboys and Dolphins coach Jimmy Johnson. The Boston Herald has posted the transcript of a WFAN interview that we first mentioned on September 29, during which Johnson said that the videotaping of defensive coaching signals was a widespread practice.

“I did it with video and so did a lot of other teams in the league,” Johnson said on September 28. “Just to make sure that you could study it and take your time, because you’re going to play the other team the second time around. But a lot of coaches did it, this was commonplace.”

And this kind stuff is nothing new. Way back in 1967, Lee Grosscup wrote an item for Sport magazine that delved into the issue of spying in football.

The bigger issue with what the Patriots did against the Jets is that the Pats continued to do something that the league had specifically told teams not to do, and that the Jets decided to make a sufficiently big deal about it that it set off a media firestorm.

The staggering penalty applied to the Patriots ($250,000 fine and loss of a first-round pick) and coach Bill Belichick ($500,000 fine) created the impression that this really was a big deal, regardless of the fact that it had been going on for an extended period of time.

And by hitting the Pats so hard, the league backed itself into a corner. If the videotaping of defensive coaching signals compels such a harsh sanction, evidence that such things have been occurring on a widespread basis would potentially shake public confidence in the sport.

But at a time when folks are chasing (as we think they should) the question of whether the Patriots cheated in connection with Super Bowl XXXVI or any other postseason game since 2001, we think that resources and effort also should be devoted to exploring whether and to what extent there has been cheating by other teams.

Maybe that’s why teams like the Steelers and Eagles aren’t willing to blame spying on losses to the Pats in the 2004 AFC title game and Super Bowl XXXIX, respectively. Maybe the problem in both cases isn’t that either of the teams within Senator Arlen Specter’s territory were the victims of skullduggery. Maybe the problem is that they didn’t take enough steps to prevent themselves from being victimized by practices that were an open secret prior to Week One of the 2007 regular season.

SportingNews.com talked about Jimmy Johnson’s comments, and they also had a few interesting nuggets from Mike Ditka as well:

As expected, the Patriots spy scandal was a hot topic during the various Week 2 pregame shows. And much of the discussion centered on the notion that cheating is part of the game. For example, FOX's Jimmy Johnson admitted to videotaping coaching signals during his time with the Cowboys, and that he was told about the technique by a Chiefs scout 18 years ago. Johnson also confessed to having interns rifle through the press box trash in search of notes that might have been discarded by opposing coaches. Also, ESPN's Mike Ditka spoke of George Halas bugging locker rooms and George Allen videotaping practices.

In reality, what the Patriots really did and what they were harshly punnished for was crap directly on the new commissioner’s head. The only people not in on the "spying" secret prior to Mangini turning into a mafia-style rat in September of 2007 was, apparently, the fans.

So before fans of other NFL teams start throwing stones, keep in mind that not only is there a good chance your team was doing the same thing in some form or fashion, but I can probably find other separate examples of your own team cheating.

The Cowboys? Jimmy Johnson admitted illegally videotaping other team's signals.

The Broncos? See the ProFootballTalk.com article above. Also, there was that "winning a Super Bowl while cheating on the salary cap" thing.

The Jets? “The newspaper, sighting " league sources familiar with the situation", says the Jets were caught using taping during a game in Foxborough last season. Here's the difference though: The Patriots apparently didn't report it to the NFL and instead just had the offending employee removed.”(From wbztv.com)

The Giants? Belichick learned everything he knows about being a head coach from Bill Parcells (at least, that's what Bill Parcells would like people to think), whom he worked under in New York while the Giants were winning two Super Bowls in the 80s. Hmmm...wonder if they were videotaping signals back then?

The Steelers? Terry Bradshaw (among others) admitted that steroid use was common-place on their 70s Super Bowl teams. More recently, they had a team doctor caught up in a steriod distribution investigation.

The point here is this: If you look hard enough, you’ll find a reason to call almost every team and every former champion illegitimate.

A few other facts that have been distorted over the last couple of years:

1) Nobody believes the Patriots could have used the videotape during games. There’s no way they could get the camera guy into the locker room, break down the tape, relay the information to the coaching staff, and then relay the information to Tom Brady (who would have to know, since he would be the one who would have to change the play based on the signals he saw) during HALFTIME.

I mean, seriously, how long do you think halftime is?

2) Teams change their signals from game to game, especially when they’re playing the same team twice in a season.

3) Memo to Hines Ward: Offensive signals are sent via a microphone in the quarterback’s helmet. So if the Patriots’ defense always seemed like they knew what was coming, it was because your offense is so insanely predictable. It was DEFENSIVE signals they videotaped.

4) In 2001, the Patriots played the Steelers for the first time in the Belichick era in the AFC Championship game. Unless you believe that he was taping signals while working under Parcells in New York and brought the tapes with him to New England, Spygate had nothing to do with winning the AFC Championship game in January of 2002.

5) Same thing goes for the Raiders. And if videotaping signals is so important, how did the Raiders spank the Patriots when they met again in the 2002 season? Maybe the Raiders videotaped New England's sidelines...

If you disagree, please feel free to either email me your thoughts or put them in the comments below.

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Questions? Comments? Insults? You can email them to Sean Crowe at scrowe@gmail.com.

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