Obviously Marshall Faulk is still butthurt over Spygate too. http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap1000000133034/article/marshall-faulk-rams-were-cheated-out-of-super-bowl "Am I over the loss? Yeah, I'm over the loss," Faulk, now an NFL Network analyst, told Tom Curran of Comcast SportsNet New England. "But I'll never be over being cheated out of the Super Bowl. That's a different story. I can understand losing a Super Bowl, that's fine ... "But how things happened and what took place. Obviously, the commissioner gets to handle things how he wants to handle them, but if they wanted us to shut up about what happened, show us the tapes. Don't burn 'em." NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell destroyed tapes of the Patriots videotaping sideline calls from the 2006 regular season and 2007 preseason. Goodell said at the time there was absolutely no truth to the accusation that the Patriots videotaped the Rams' walkthrough before the Super Bowl. Fellow NFL Network analyst Willie McGinest doesn't buy into the accusation. "If ... we had any extra information, then that game wouldn't have been as dramatic as it was, coming down to a field goal," McGinest said on WBZ-FM in Boston on Wednesday. "Trust me. It would have been a blowout."
While I can see where you're coming from here, all I can think of is David Tyree's helmet catch, Asante Samuel dropping a game-ending INT, the perfect throw-and-catch with Manning and Manningham... The Patriots' failure to win a Super Bowl since 2007 has more to do with water finding its level than anything else. Brady started his career 10-0 in the playoffs. There's a reason that's a record and that it just doesn't happen. Things eventually average out. The Patriots won their three Super Bowls by nine points, and with a TON of luck along the way. They've lost two by a combined seven points and have not gotten the bounces, for the most part, in those games. That's football though. Personally I wish Belichick had said more about it at the time. I wish he'd answered questions instead of being his usual standoffish, detached self. When you don't respond to questions like that you invite speculation to the fullest. But he did not. And it's given every NFL fan who hates the Patriots a gift that will keep on giving, probably for all-time.
Hoepfully when the ture Spygate whistleblowers bring their story out, they can keep Belichick AND Brady out of the hall. It will be fun to watch the Patstards demonize them for compromising a pure thing for money and fame. Hahaha. Fucking Patstards.
When I first saw the headline coming through the wires this morning, yes, I thought it was probably Faulk just being butt-hurt, but then I read what he was actually saying (not in this shortened article) and it seemed legitimate. He talked about how they practiced red zone and 3rd down plays that week that they hadn't ran all season long and yet the Pats knew where they were going to be. He said it wasn't just a case of them beating them to the spot, they knew where to go. Normal game film can give you that but since they hadn't shown anything like those plays all season it seemed really odd. There's credibility there considering the Patriots history and the details he described. Quick, snippets like this makes it seem like he's just butt hutt though. It's pretty obvious that they were doing something all along. Mangini was on the staff, how else would he know about this kind of stuff when he went to NY. Also, Belichick was always a shady fuck dating back to his time with the Giants. Telling his DBs to grab,hold, do whatever all game because they "can't call pass interference every play".. That's how he was able to contain San Fran and Buffalo's high powered passing attacks. That's shady anyway you look at it. He's a fucking smuck.
Do you think he'll have it written on a napkin? We don't know that for fact, obviously today we say he's surefire but of course when Clemens won his 7th Cy Young we said the same thing and today he'll be lucky to get 50% of the vote. More things always come out after the fact and there will be 5 years of information on spygate to come out before the Chicken is eligable. Honestly I don't think he'd really care but it would definately effect Brady if spygate prevented him from getting in.
I saw more than those two plays. I saw a NE O that was substantially worse in the SB than they were during the regular season. What I saw for the first time was with 2 weeks to prepare and without any edge they didn't reach their level they played substantially below their level. I saw something else, Brady who was near perfect in the SB wins possibly because of an edge was far below perfect without that edge. I agree with you there is a reason. Where we disagree is on the reason for it averaging out.
I wouldn't say Brady was near-perfect in the three SB runs. In 2001 he was basically managing the game, save the Snow Bowl and the last drive of the SB. In 2003 he played a great SB but had a critical pick in the red zone that could have lost the game for them. And in 2004, it was a good, balanced Patriots' offense, and a Philly team that played like they were just happy to make it past the conference title game. (Remember how slow they were playing with so little time left? To this day I still don't understand what they were doing.) You're in an advantageous position with your argument because no player in the current era is going to win every single playoff game they're ever in. The Patriots are .500 since Spygate in the playoffs and have advanced to two Super Bowls in those six seasons. I'm not sure that qualifies as slam-dunk, home-run evidence that Spygate was the reason for their earlier success. I suppose it can certainly be viewed that way, if one is inclined to do that. I'm just not sure if my admitted lack of objectivity is influencing the thought process here.
Nothing wrong with taking the position that winning the SB is like flipping a Penney. Sometimes it comes up heads and sometimes it comes up tails. Do you really think BB operates on that methodology? If he did, why all the preparation? The fact is he did tape and he did put it into his preparation. He thought he was getting an edge. In theory you may well be right, didn't matter. In practice BB didn't do it to keep the playing field level. He did it so that heads would come up more than tails on the coin flip.
Oh there HAD to be an advantage to it, to some extent. Maybe it was long-term, learning trends and assigning consistencies to specific coordinators and head coaches. "With (insert name)'s defenses... this type of signal generally indicates a blitz." Maybe it was all aimed at making coaches pay if they were too careless or too lazy about changing up their signals. The one thing I don't really buy is that any video was actually used in-game. There would have to be a team of skilled people, at least three or four, running the camera, synching up the video to game film as it's happening, deciphering the hand signals relative to the defensive play-call, and then relaying all of that information back down to the Patriots' offense while they're on the field. So the process would have had to be: Note the defensive formation. (4-3? Nickel? Etc.) Watch the defensive coordinator or assistant make the hand signal. Reference prior signals/plays to match them up. And keeping in mind that there are dozens of plays (at least) per formation to sort through. Choose and call down a play advantageous to the Patriots' offense for the defense being called. Audible as needed. All within the 40 seconds the offense has on the play clock. Which seems nearly impossible to me. (And keep in mind, the rule the Patriots broke is where the guy with the camera was positioned. Belichick could have gotten the same results from a guy sitting in the stands with a pair of binoculars and a notebook, so it seems like it'd be extremely foolish of himto brazenly have the guy film from the sideline. Which it was, lol...) So again, I'm not trying to absolve the Patriots here, I'm really not. I realize that would be a waste of time and effort. Just trying to say, I'm not sure that the evidence really points to an advantage so significant that it could take a mediocre team and make them good, or a good team and make them great.
