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ESPN: "Spygate to Deflategate: Inside what split the NFL and Patriots apart"

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Spinluck

Member
Gonna be great when they are irrelevant and the fanbase dies.

All that will be left is posers trying to convince us that Tammy was better than JoeMo.
 
This is funny because Bob Kraft personally apologized to all the NFL owners back in 2008 for the cheating by his head coach at an emergency owners' meeting.

And then Bill Belichick, at the same meeting, apologized and said they DID IT because they misinterpreted the NFL rules and thought it was legal.

Now all of a sudden it never happened?

Freaking liars.

All those Superbowls and MVP awards for the Patriots should be vacated. They are just total garbage.

They admitted recording game day signals, not practices. They are reiterating that they did not record practices.
 

ThisGuy

Member
Seriously what are you babbling about? Are you having an aneurysm? Pervy eyes? Seriously what the fucking fuck?

I don't understand your problem with my initial post if you're not defending the pats cheating. I'm just messing with you any ways. Rick and morty references and other thread topic references.

Don't get me wrong, I think the pats are shit though. I've lost bets over those bottom feeders.
 

Dragon

Banned
It's pretty obvious that most all the Pats fans here plus those inexplicably supporting the Patriots haven't read the article.

If anything it makes Goodell and the NFL worse because of how they handled everything. The Pats stuff we all knew about.

But right it's just a hit piece NFL ordered against the Pats even if it makes them look terrible. Oh and even though the journalist is well respected, it reads like a child wrote it! But of course!

Did you guys even read it and see who wrote it?

And lol people reacting like the NFL has it out for the Pats or that they only investigated the Pats cause of ESPN's initial report. For as crazy as they call people who claim the Pats cheated, it's hilarious the hoops, mental gymnastics, and conspiracy theories Pats fans jump through.

Read the Mike Martz portion and tell me that isn't shady as hell.

A lot of the stuff you've written here, doesn't seem to have actually happened. Kinda like Deflategate :).

Gonna be great when they are irrelevant and the fanbase dies.

All that will be left is posers trying to convince us that Tammy was better than JoeMo.

Joe Montana was replaced by a Tampa Bay QB. He sucked :).
 
True story. Being a Pats fan in the 70's and 80's was really difficult. Oooof... I still miss Grogan sometimes.

Aye, I was thankfully born in 1984, so I really didn't come to an age of being able to understand anything until Bledsoe's second season. I've been pretty blessed if you consider that in the last 20 years of actually being able to reasonably follow the sport of football, my favorite team has only had 2 losing seasons... 1995 (6-10) and 2000 (5-11). It's amazing.

The Steelers are the only other franchise to be as successful in the same stretch.
 
True story. Being a Pats fan in the 70's and 80's was really difficult. Oooof... I still miss Grogan sometimes.
I had season ticket access when Hugh Millen was QB. Ouch! We've had our bad times. Let us enjoy these 15 years and close this thread! =D
Think I'm getting too old for this. Let's just give everyone a Lombardi after each season.
 

snacknuts

we all knew her
People not only defending this behavior, but taking delight in people being legitimately angry about it, are just as bad as these cheating dirtbags.
 

ParityBit

Member
This is funny because Bob Kraft personally apologized to all the NFL owners back in 2008 for the cheating by his head coach at an emergency owners' meeting.

And then Bill Belichick, at the same meeting, apologized and said they DID IT because they misinterpreted the NFL rules and thought it was legal.

Now all of a sudden it never happened?

Freaking liars.

All those Superbowls and MVP awards for the Patriots should be vacated. They are just total garbage.

If Pat's fans had any freaking souls, they would stop blindly following that creep Head Coach and demand his resignation.

Because all he's done is taint that franchise with lies, deception and poor sportsmanship and he's got Bob Kraft constantly running damage control for him.

Kraft himself is a impotent moron, but he does listen to the people who make him rich - aka the season ticket holders. So come on Pat's fans, show some self-respect and get rid of the cheating stigma you keep defending.

Actually ... they say they never filmed a walk though or practice. Which is true (never been proven otherwise). They filmed in game signals (as other teams had done also), and it was from the sideline which up until that year was legal. They did not follow the "cease" order from the NFL and that is what got them in hot water.

Lol is that a serious reply? So the Patriots are now claiming Spygate never happened.

This team needs to be banned from the nfl.

Reading comprehension for the win..... or in your case, the loss.
 
People need to stop using the term "salt". It's getting embarrassing, and it's almost exclusively used by people who know their argument is weak.
 

Dragon

Banned
People need to stop using the term "salt". It's getting embarrassing, and it's almost exclusively used by people who know their argument is weak.

Jesse-Pinkman-Breaking-Bad-Drinking-Water.gif
 
Lol is that a serious reply? So the Patriots are now claiming Spygate never happened.

This team needs to be banned from the nfl.

Nah, the Pat statement is that most of the first half of the article (what I've read so far) is based on Matt Walsh's claims, which the Boston Herald paid him for in early 2008. Walsh's story, which The Herald and ESPN had reported on significantly, fell apart under scrutiny, and the Herald was forced to retract the story and issued an apology to the Patriots. Much of this article, at least up to "WITHIN DAYS, SPECTER " (which is where I'm at) seems based on the information that Walsh had provided the Boston Herald in 2008, and then also unnamed, uncited, anonymous sources.

For those who don't remember, Matt Walsh was the employee let go by the Patriots in 2003 who then wanted to sell his story in 2008. He also claimed to have all of these things, like secret tapes and information, that he did not have and that... when reviewed, weren't anything unusual.
 
Guys, guys, is OK! It was scripted that way, in the end the Patriots will come as villains or heroes, either way they will received they reward or comeuppance.

Right now I think this story arc is aimed to make a low-level team come from behind and save the day.
 
Patriots under Belichick:

1. Videotaping opposing teams signals, practices and walkthroughs
2. Stealing play sheets from opposing team's lockerooms and even from their hotel rooms
3. Bugging locker rooms
4. Deflating footballs
5. Jobbing the eligible receiver rule
6. Getting the NFL to give them a new rule (tuck) to justify Brady's fumble that launched his bogus career.

But the Patriots deny it all, so it's OK!
 
DragonSworne, just to write this out so that you might understand...

In this post, you ask "lol,. did the Patriots just say that Spygate never happened?"

Lol is that a serious reply? So the Patriots are now claiming Spygate never happened.

This team needs to be banned from the nfl.

And somebody replied that, no, actually what the Patriots are referring to is information that came out after Spygate, in 2008, involving a guy named Matt Walsh, and that his information was largely discredited (both ESPN and the Herald apologized for running misinformation from Walsh earlier).

So this reply:

He says she says. The last people I'll take as creditable on the matter of spygate are the Patriots.

Makes no sense.

You need to follow your own questions.

If you look closely you can see an * etched into each ring.

THose are just camera flashes because Brady is so boss
 

TheFatOne

Member
Patriots under Belichick:

1. Videotaping opposing teams signals, practices and walkthroughs
2. Stealing play sheets from opposing team's lockerooms and even from their hotel rooms
3. Bugging locker rooms
4. Deflating footballs
5. Jobbing the eligible receiver rule
6. Getting the NFL to give them a new rule (tuck) to justify Brady's fumble that launched his bogus career.

But the Patriots deny it all, so it's OK!

Pats never taped practices, bugged locker rooms or stolen play sheets. It's going to take a little more than whispers from anonymous sources to make me believe otherwise. Only things Pats have been guilty of is taping signals, and deflating balls. The latter of which I'm not 100% sure they did.
 

Dragon

Banned
Patriots under Belichick:

1. Videotaping opposing teams signals, practices and walkthroughs
2. Stealing play sheets from opposing team's lockerooms and even from their hotel rooms
3. Bugging locker rooms
4. Deflating footballs
5. Jobbing the eligible receiver rule
6. Getting the NFL to give them a new rule (tuck) to justify Brady's fumble that launched his bogus career.

But the Patriots deny it all, so it's OK!

The things in bold haven't been proven. The Tuck Rule existed well before 2001 and the eligible receiver was more gamesmanship than anything else.
 
Patriots under Belichick:

1. Videotaping opposing teams signals, practices and walkthroughs
2. Stealing play sheets from opposing team's lockerooms and even from their hotel rooms
3. Bugging locker rooms
4. Deflating footballs
5. Jobbing the eligible receiver rule
6. Getting the NFL to give them a new rule (tuck) to justify Brady's fumble that launched his bogus career.

But the Patriots deny it all, so it's OK!

Well let's see here.

1. Videotaping opposing teams signals, yes, Patriots never denied it... Belichick and Kraft apologized for it and the team & coach received the maximum punishment in the NFL for it. Videotaking practices and walkthroughs? Never happened, this very ESPN article says as much:

"Were there any live electronics during the walk-through?"

"It's certainly possible," Walsh said. "But I have no evidence."

So unless you have a better source than what this article is based off of, then no.

2. Stealing playsheets. Unnamed, uncited, anonymous rumor.

3. Bugging locker rooms. Unnamed, uncited, anonymous rumor.

4. Deflating footballs. Organization took punishment for alleged deflation in a single game, but no evidence that players knew about it held up under scrutiny.

5. Jobbing the eligible receiver rule. This ones a weird one because this was not against the rules, Belichick owned it, and it shows that other coaches and refs were unable to account for unique playcalls. Yale and Harvard wanted to ban the forward pass the first time it was used in a game as well.

6. The Tuck rule. The Patriots had nothing to do with the tuck rule being created, and the rule had been called against them earlier in 2001 in the same game that Bledsoe got hurt:

The tuck rule was called in Week 2 of an NFL regular season match-up on September 23, 2001, between the New England Patriots and the New York Jets.[3] In the waning minutes of the second quarter, Patriots' defensive end Anthony Pleasant apparently forced Jets quarterback Vinny Testaverde to fumble the ball. Patriots' defensive end Richard Seymour made a recovery.[4] The call was overturned upon review and ruled an incomplete with the tuck rule cited. The Jets would go on to tie the game with a field goal on that drive and then eventually win in overtime.

Patriots must have had A LOT of foresight to encourage the NFL to call a rule against then in Week 2, just so that the league would eventually call it in their favor half a year later in the playoffs.
 

Troy

Banned
Patriots under Belichick:

1. Videotaping opposing teams signals, practices and walkthroughs
2. Stealing play sheets from opposing team's lockerooms and even from their hotel rooms
3. Bugging locker rooms
4. Deflating footballs
5. Jobbing the eligible receiver rule
6. Getting the NFL to give them a new rule (tuck) to justify Brady's fumble that launched his bogus career.

But the Patriots deny it all, so it's OK!

7. Won 4 Super Bowls
8. Made you cry
 

oatmeal

Banned
Love how the Bills/Dolphins are not sophisticated enough to change their signals, allowing the Pats (and only the Pats, no one else) to beat them mercifully.
 

bionic77

Member
The things in bold haven't been proven. The Tuck Rule existed well before 2001 and the eligible receiver was more gamesmanship than anything else.
Its not always easy to actually prove when someone is cheating or breaking the rules without their compliance or admission, neither of which the Pats are willing to provide.

Keep holding onto the faith though Dragon!

Because the reputation is forever ruined and all of their accomplishments are now forever tainted. It must really kill Pats fans inside that they think they have the best team, coach and qb of all time and that it is never going to be officially recognized outside of New England. Anytime you bring up the Pats in the company of any respectable people the first thing they are going to do is discount all of they achievement and label them as cheaters.

I feel bad for you. I really do. You are going through the same thing that Lance Armstrongs mother went though.

:(
 
Love how the Bills/Dolphins are not sophisticated enough to change their signals, allowing the Pats (and only the Pats, no one else) to beat them mercifully.

Yeah that and Pittsburgh. Seems insane that these teams wouldn't change their signals at all. I mean, Bills and Dolphins you can kind of expect. Mike Malarkey, Gregg Williams, and Dick Jauron are 3 of the worst head coaches that you can come up with in that era. But Cower and Tomlin are good coaches.

9. Killed a man

Most anti-Patriots stuff is pretty laughable and easy to shrug off, but this bugs me because it's just so ignorant. Bob Kraft testified against Aaron Hernandez and his testimony sent Hernandez to jail. In an age when organizations are protecting their players amidst domestic violence and legal disputes, this is one case where the organization took a stand and actually went to court on behalf of the prosecution to put a dirt bag behind bars.

Its not always easy to actually prove when someone is cheating or breaking the rules without their compliance or admission, neither of which the Pats are willing to provide.

Keep holding onto the faith though Dragon!

Because the reputation is forever ruined and all of their accomplishments are now forever tainted. It must really kill Pats fans inside that they think they have the best team, coach and qb of all time and that it is never going to be officially recognized outside of New England. Anytime you bring up the Pats in the company of any respectable people the first thing they are going to do is discount all of they achievement and label them as cheaters.

I feel bad for you. I really do. You are going through the same thing that Lance Armstrongs mother went though.

:(

Don't lose sleep over us, it's really not as hard to be a New England sports fan as you think. I mean, the traffic during all of the championship parades is really annoying when you have to commute into the city, but it's something we've just learn to deal with over the last 15 years... as terrible as it is.
 

Troy

Banned
The things in bold haven't been proven. The Tuck Rule existed well before 2001 and the eligible receiver was more gamesmanship than anything else.

The Pats lost a game that same season due to the Tuck Rule, but the whiners like to pretend that never happened.
 

bionic77

Member
Yeah that and Pittsburgh. Seems insane that these teams wouldn't change their signals at all. I mean, Bills and Dolphins you can kind of expect. Mike Malarkey, Gregg Williams, and Dick Jauron are 3 of the worst head coaches that you can come up with in that era. But Cower and Tomlin are good coaches.
:lol

You truly know nothing.

Cowher by the way was a fantastic Monday to Saturday coach (something Tomlin can't claim) and was amazing at coaching players up, but he was horrible on game day until he finally threw off the shackles of Marty Ball in 2005 and went for broke.

Tomlin can't even cheat properly. I pray that one day he will remember and know that Heinz field is the most difficult field to kick field goals on. He has lost at least 6 games off the top of my head by going for incredibly difficult field goals that had like a less than 10% chance of being successful and giving the other team the short field which they promptly used to beat us at the last second. He still has not learned that lesson....
 

oatmeal

Banned
Would anything convince any of you patriots fans your team did some shady shit in the past decade?

Evidence.

(EDIT)
Deflategate made me wonder a bit, until the Wells Report was thoroughly debunked and later shit all over. It's clear that the NFL came up with an outcome and then worked backwards from there.
 
A single team completely compromised the integrity of the nation's biggest sport for over a decade and went virtually unpunished. You don't think that is deserving of extra attention?
Let it go, takes too much energy to whine and hate. Are you ready for some football!? or do you now despize the Patriots and the NFL to the point where you can't enjoy NFL football anymore so you would rather hate? ESPN will milk this until no end because they know there will always be a story to be made for people like you. There is no new info just reguritated stuff we already heard about.
 
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