More Spygate News...
The New England Patriots' pattern of illicitly videotaping the signals of opposing NFL coaches began in Coach Bill Belichick's first preseason with the team in 2000, a former Patriots player said. The information was put to use in that year's regular-season opener against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Belichick's debut as New England's coach the New York Times reported.
The secret taping of signals, which is against league rules, continued at least through three championship seasons to the 2007 season opener against the Jets, when the Patriots were caught and subsequently sanctioned by the league. As coaches and executives gathered here Thursday for the NFL scouting combine, many saying they were satisfied with the league's investigation and ready to move on, new details were emerging about the history of the Patriots' videotaping. According to several executives in the league, the season opener against the Jets was not the first time the Patriots had been spotted taping another team's defensive coaches at Giants Stadium. In the final preseason game of 2006, the Patriots were caught taping a Giants defensive assistant giving signals, the executives said. Source: New York Times
In other news, Patriots cornerback Asante Samuel plans to test the free agent market after failing to sign a long-term deal with the Patriots.
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The allegation most assiduously avoided by the Patriots and the NFL was the one regarding the Patriots use of an alternative radio frequency (as opposed to the one specified by the NFL) to communicate between the coaches and the quarterback. As Deep Throat instructed journalists to “follow the money” open up the Watergate investigation, “following the radio frequency” might be the same in Spygate.
The NFL pre-assigns a private frequency to each team so that the other team cannot hear the communications, but more importantly because they want to monitor such team communications for any other evidence of cheating or unauthorized use of the radio system (eg, only one player, the QB, is permitted to have a receiver in their helmet).
The possibility (unsubstantiated, but heavily rumored and traced to individuals close to the Patriot organization, including Doug Flutie) that the Patriots were communicating on another frequency (unavailable to the NFL) was key to the concealment of their scheme for stealing the other teams defensive signals AND communicating them to their QB. The conspiracy of silence around this allegation, after it was reported several times (including Chris Mortensen of ESPN) raises suspicion that the NFL was covering up what was really happening. They were in a perfect position to substantiate and follow up on this potential violation of NFL rules in many games, yet it seems as if the Patriots use of their own frequency was dismissed as a technical snafu or misunderstanding. Also note that the NFL's radio frequency was supposedly disabled 15 seconds prior to the the start of each play to prevent last second communications. Who knows if one of the reasons the Pats tampered with frequencies was to circumvent this limitation. After all, if signals were intercepted, those last 15 seconds would be necessary to react and complete the communications loop back to the QB.
[Oh yeah, and why hasn't their been any public comment on Dan LaBatard's (Miami Herald) allegation that Doug Flutie expressed surprised to a number of friends that the radio transmissions to Brady with defensive sets and data continued on his own headset right up to the time the ball was snapped.]
Of course, we really don't know that any of this happened. Yet the radio communication angle really needs to be explored much more deeply and TRANSPARENTLY. It makes the videotaping violations all the more egregious, since the electronics gave the coaches much greater leverage to benefit from their cheating. I have to smile when I see the naivete of many of the silly comments that "Everyone was taping or stealing signals". Maybe everyone was stealing signals, but everyone wasn't tampering with radio frequencies. It was exactly that violation that would have allowed the Patriots to benefit from the defensive signals in a unique and much more dishonest way.
The other interesting point in all of this were the alleged problems with jammed radio frequencies in games involving the Patriots. I wouldn't assume that the Patriots were so blatant in their cheating that they actually tried to interfere with the other team QB communications. Some of the radio problems were reported to affect the Patriots as well. However, what if the signal jamming was done to cover up the Patriots use of another frequency? What if they responded to any question of another frequency by saying THEIR OWN and the other teams radios were down and that is why they took it upon themselves to use another band. Perhaps the NFL dismissed the jamming allegations (which were raised far before the Spygate story ever broke) prematurely, giving them another reason for their defensiveness and possible coverup.
Before anyone accuses me of dreaming up Spy vs. Spy scenarios, let's also hear a little more about Bill's prep school buddy Ernie Adams. Why doesn't the Boston press, Belichick or Kraft ever really talk about the guy? Why do players smile, then say they don't know what he does? If you read the extensive ESPN.com piece on him (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=adams ), you will see that such surreptitious behavior has been part of the "Patriot Way" for years.
Until the radio angle is fully explored and aired, the public will have no real confidence in what has happened and Senator Spector will be dragged into the coverup himself. There are eerie parallels between this matter and the baseball steroids scandal where league officials conspire silently with the real offenders in protecting the IMAGE of the game. Somewhere in the process, the INTEGRITY of the game is forgotten and left unprotected.
It's not the questions that are wrong, it's the fact that there have been very few answers. This could be easily put to bed if Robert Kraft were to initiate a full and complete REAL press conference with Roger Goodell. Hey, even bring in Doug Flutie to dispel the rumors involving him; he has a lot of street cred with fans. Instead, he sends out Cheatin' Bill to conduct one of his classic cameo press appearances with very little Q&A. Really, did anyone think Bill's carefully parsed words would make this go away?
In the meantime, Robart Kraft has been eerily silent and Goodell has destroyed the tapes. Please spare me the attack comments and get upset with Kraft and Belichick, where the real blame lies. (No pun intended.) No one really needs to see this proved in court. After all, it's a silly little game and we just want to know what happened and feel better about the hometown team.
PS- We really do miss Will McDonough in this town!
all i can say is wow.
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