Follow up…for those who don’t know

More on the Patriots.

Read this response:

To me the punishment is a bit harsh. Let me explain…

The ‘cheating’ aspect is widely regarded to be related to ’stealing signals’.
It is totally legal to steal signals, as evidenced by Mike Shanahan’s comments and the facts laid out here.
It is illegal to video tape from the sidelines, etc., and taping defensive coaches is explicitly stated as illegal in the memo that went to all teams on Sept 6th.
The Patriots are guilty of using video to tape defensive coaches.
Those are the facts. They are guilty of video taping defensive coaches. That’s the offense, not the cheating part, because that is widely accepted as common practice.

I believe Commissioner Goodell had a responsibility to state exactly what the Patriots did do and are being punished for, and kill the rampant speculation that they were cheating by stealing signals. I also believe that he had a responsibility to make his ruling as soon as possible, and he did fairly well getting it out by Thursday, though it seems like it took forever because this was being played out in the media…
… continued from before:

The other problem I have with this is that it got out in the media at all during the investigation process. It hurt the NFL that one of the most popularly recognized and decorated teams in recent history had its name dragged through the mud while Goodell investigated the incident. The cause of the leak should be tracked down (can you spell J-E-T-S?) and they should be fined heavily.

After saying all that, I do believe the Pats commited a violation of league rules (though I can’t for the life of me understand how an intelligent man like Belichick let this happen, when it was a clearly forbidden act) and deserved to be punished. I just think that the heavy fines, and very heavy draft pick toll are not worthy punishments for the act of taping, or perhaps the commish got caught up in the witch hunt and forgot that the Pats weren’t ‘cheating’ by ’stealing signals’…