Yeah, if this is an 8, I guess cap cheating would be like a 7 or something. But I don't think this is an 8. Where does that leave like bribing officials or filling the football with remote-controlled magnets?

The lyrics are perfect

I'll give it a shot

1-Sending fans to cause noise outside the visiting team's hotel
2-Turning down the temp. in the visitor's locker room in the hope of causing more muscle pulls after halftime
3-Paying/telling the visitor's bus driver to show up later then usual to disallow as much stretching/pregame routine as usual
4-Pumping in artifical crowd noise using the stadium's PA system
5-Making trades/signings with the intent of harming your team now for future gain
6-Stealing an opposing team's playbook
7-Video taping the opposing team to study and memorize their signals
8-Cheating the Salary cap to sign players for more then would legally be allowed
9-Bugging the opposing lockeroom
10-Bribing the officials

Obv. this list has a bit of humor to it, and I will say that there's a large gap between 8 and 9.

Cody

Yeah, I tried to think of ways of cheating that were significantly worse than what the Pats did and I had a hard time. But...I still don't think its that big of a deal. So, what does that mean? Its really hard to cheat at football? I mean, in baseball I could think of lots of worse forms of cheating, but in football, I'm sort of stumped. 8/10 seems ridiculously high for this but I don't know what 5 things should go above it.

This is sorta tangential but it's just another good thing about the NFL. We have its steroid/drug testing program (I don't agree with drugs but whatever) and the difficulty of the teams to cheat. It's pretty hard to cheat in a football game that won't be caught and found out.

Oh the other team had a forign substance on their jerseys, well we'll test all of them

Oh the other RB broke 19 tackles on one play (some came back for seconds), well here, piss in this cup

Now, I will say that stealing radio signals is 8.5 on my list, it's more precise then just stealing hand signals, and more effective. Also, I can't think of much of a way to catch it. Still the NFL is a pretty solid league. Anyone want to accuse Ed Hocculi of taking bribes.

Cody

Almost TOO easy.

I'm not the most knowledgeable person on the NFL salary cap and doubt anyone else in here is, but I really don't think you can even compare these two things. The NFL allows teams to mortgage future cap space for today, and teams like the Redskins and 49ers have paid dearly for it - but it isn't cheating.

Belichick, on the other hand, committed a flagrant violation of league rules and he knows this. What he did is more embarrassing than if his entire team got busted for substance abuse.

I think Goodell is being very lenient with the Pats, and the team's revenue stream won't skip a beat after all this. A lesser organization (e.g., Detroit Lions) would probably suffer major organizational upheaval that would have everything to do with saving face and nothing to do with any penalty Goodell could enforce.

I'm surprised by how many think Goodell is overreacting. The irony here is the Pats actually stand to lose more if they miss the playoffs and sacrifice their 2nd/3rd round picks. That's how much of a joke this punishment is...

You are completely wrong. No team in the NFL would trade would trade the nth pick in the 1st round for the same picks in the 2nd and 3rd. Its not even close.

yeah, that is pretty ridiculous.

this punishment seems quite harsh

i wonder if there is more to the story behind NFL closed doors--perhaps the radio frequency stuff came up

wtf, are u serious?

stealing a playbook should be #10 as i wouldn't even have official bribing on the radar....even if i did, there is no way in hell stealing signs is as bad as stealing a playbook. no even close really.

yeah I was thinking the same thing

no, i am talking about stuff like this , not being a terribly run franchise.

I think video taping is pretty close to "as bad" as salary cap cheating. the Pats penalty was far worse than the penalty the 3 recent teams got for cap cheating.

but, I think the Pats were partially made examples of via this "too large" penalty. Goodell is probably concerned that this particular type of cheating is rampant throughout the league (with the letter, he sent etc) and wants it to stop.

He's probably just like 'wtf, you put a guy that obviously out there? after being caught doing it before? i told you not to cheat and you're just going to blatantly keep on doing it? [censored] you, i say what goes, not the patriots, take this harsh ass penalty for trying to mess with ME'

or something.

This fine on Belichick is enormous. It would be a big fine on A-Rod or Shaq, but Belichick makes Julian Tavarez money.

The fine on the Patriots is a joke. It's quite literally a drop in a bucket.

The loss of the 27-32nd isn't that big a deal but hurts.

This penalty is a little harsh, this is not a penalty against the Patriots, but just a message to the league. Goodell Castro has painted himself into such a corner in the way he handled Pacman and Vick that he now has to go overboard on everything else. Here is why this scandal just happened to fall in this perfect storm of garbage and won't go away.

1. People generally dislike the Pats and don't have a real reason why, now they do.

2. If the accuser was in a media market that doesnt control the national media, this is a non story by Tuesday.

3. If this accusation was made last year, before all the talk about Bonds and before the NBA ref scandal, this is a non story.

4. If Goodell did not come down so hard on Pacman and Vick, he wouldn't have had to make such an example of the whitest demo in the league.

5. If Moonves wasn't shown in Kraft's booth for the duration of the game, there would not be this air of favoritism, true or not, that people think the league have towards the Pats.


This is sort of good for the league as people will be tuning in to Pats games that otherwise don't. Sunday nights game WILL set viewership records.

Agree with the above. This was an easy layup for Goodell. Here he has this team that's absolutely loaded and the favorites to win it all this year. They have 3 SB under their belt in recent history, just missed last year and have an extra 1st round draft pick next year(losing a 1st round pick is usually devasting to an ordinary team, the Pats will hardly be affected). But it has the appearance of being very severe. And everybody but their fans hate them.

So it was a good spot for him to really make an example and he did. I way undersestimated how severely they would be punished but in hindsight it's a no brainer.

As a Pats fan I'm not happy about it, but Belicheck was arrogant and flaunted the league so now he/we have to pay the price. But Belicheck ultimately pays the biggest price because now instead of going down in history as this genius great coach, to a lot of people he is just going to be that guy that cheated.

I made an analogy earlier to Richard Nixon and Belichick's legacy will be kind of like Nixon's except he doesn't have to resign.

Edit to add: I'll bet the league hated the fact that the Patriots had an extra 1st round pick next year as they favor having parity. I was blind not to see them taking away that extra pick.

btw, it's laughable that King/Banks/Clayton are all coming out and saying that the punishment wasn't enough. all week these guys were reporting that the punishment would be "multiple draft picks, possibly including a 1st day pick" and "a fine and/or suspension".

and what was the penalty? a 1st rounder and the largest fine they could give. this is equivalent (or more!!) than what they were reporting all week, and these guys didn't have a problem with it then, but now all of a sudden "it's not enough". lol.

Off with their heads! Take away the SBs. .

man.. Belichick is going to be such a nit for the next 16 weeks.

The fact that this was repeated means the punishment was just, if not even lenient.

I am certain teams would start getting in line if all they had to give up was a first round draft pick and 250K to win a super bowl. Think about how important it would be to know the other teams defensive plays if only for a few key plays during each game. I think the penalty was way too light.

Interesting stat (that might already be in this thread):

10 teams last year voted against allowing the middle linebacker to have a radio in his helmet for calling in defensive plays. The Patriots were one of those teams. Of the other 9, all nine also had head coaches with a heavy defensive background.

hmmm - that's funny, there's no suspension for belichick. really, that's more of a penalty than belichick losing 500k, which no one cares about except bill - and he's got plenty of sweatshirts anyway.