Let's Talk About the Cheaters (AKA Patriots Week)

[SHOWTIME]

Nothing would make me more happy to get on track with a huge win against the most fraudulent organization in the NFL in their own building. Need Pacheco, Smith, Tranquill, and Cook back soon. Also, need Bolton to play his usual snap count.

Could be the last time Reid and Belichick faceoff. Time to put Belichick out of his misery and send him into retirement.

Chiefs - 30

Spygaters - 3

[Hawg73]

Originally Posted by SHOWTIME

Wrong. Please explain to me the following:

1. Why did the Pats illegally videotape their opponents for 7 straight years, which just happened to coincide with the rise of Tom Brady? And no it wasn't about the location of the camera - you are not allowed to video tape defensive signals period. You could film pretty much anything else.

2. Why did the Pats tell their camera guys to dress up in "Kraft Productions" or NFL films t-shirts to hide what they were doing?

3. Why did the Pats illegally film over 40 games during this period?

4. If Belichick were so innocent and misinterpreted the rules, why didn't he stop in 2006 when the league said what he was doing was in violation of the rules? I'm guessing it's because it gave the Pats a significant advantage. Otherwise he'd be a colossal idiot for continuing to do something illegal that wasn't helping the team.

I have more questions for you, which I know you won't be able to answer. But I'll save that for later.

Sorry to destroy your whole world.

I've run across my share of "Patritos am cheaterz!!!" crackpots, but you are really pretty far out there. There is simply no point with trying to reason with your lunatic "facts", so I won't waste my time refuting your "research", but it was highly entertaining to skim through.

The real reason that the two Gates became a big deal was the same exact thing that happened in Salem, Mass. back in the day when farmers got sick of their crops failing, which was actually due to a long stretch of weird weather and decided the answer was to murder 18 plus people because Satan had taken them over.

Eventually, people figured out that was a load of crap and I can only hope that history will show that "cheating" i.e., squishy footballs and filming signals in the same way that has been standard practice for anybody trying to win games, is a kind of a similar "mistake" minus all the murders. We've only had two that I know of.

Nobody could (or wanted to) believe that we worked and studied and drilled on situations and a hundred other LEGIT reasons why we won so much, so they wigged out and decided that it was IMPOSSIZIBLE, so.......ergo......Belichick is Satan. Deciding that those two flaps were the main reason why we were so good for so long is delusional, but people seem to love their delusions, so have at it, my friend. Clutch them tight and let the bitterness flow freely. Maybe it helps you in some unknowable way.

Your guys have been the best team in football for the last 5 years. Not perfect, but easily the best since the Pats were driving people nuts. You've got a guy that is the best and smartest QB I've ever seen and all you guys do is gripe and bitch every time you lose a couple of games. "Ohhhh our receivers drop the ball and Patrick isn't what he used to be wahwahwah." You guys have gone from comical to hysterical in 5 short years.

I used to bitch about Brady sometimes, but then I got 3 years worth of Mac Jones and that set me straight. Enjoy Mahomes as long as you can, because that is one dude whose flaws are few. And all humans have them.

I don't think it's real likely, due to your current much-improved pass rush, and better team, but I'd love to see us steal a win just to see the hissy fits here about how hard you suck. Your fan base is almost as spoiled as were were pre-Patrick and that's saying a lot.

The sun doesn't shine on one dog's ass all the time. Get a grip and root for your f$%*k!@g team. This site was a lot more fun when you were getting your asses kicked all the time.

In closing, I'd like to be sitting there with your record and a month or so left and some of you people need to appreciate the chance to flip the script.

[stevegroganfan]

What Jimmy Johnson said on Spygate is fairly balanced commentary...from Wikipedia.

"After footage from the actual tape was aired on Fox NFL Sunday on September 16, former Dallas Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson claimed, "This is exactly how I was told to do it 18 years ago by a Kansas City Chiefs scout. I tried it, but I didn't think it helped us." Johnson also said, "Bill Belichick was wrong because he videotaped signals after a memo was sent out to all of the teams saying not to do it. But what irritates me is hearing some reactions from players and coaches. These players don't know what their coaches are doing. And some of the coaches have selective amnesia because I know for a fact there were various teams doing this. That's why the memo was sent to everybody. That doesn't make [Belichick] right, but a lot of teams are doing this.

So some other teams were doing what the Patriots were doing before the league memo sent out to all teams. The Patriots didn't win a SB during the 2006 season which is the one season in which one could say they were "cheating" (knowingly or unknowingly). They paid a steep price for that in losing a first round pick.

[ThyKingdomCome15]

We ended those unlovable POS and loved every second of it. Now they suck.

[SHOWTIME]

Originally Posted by Hawg73

I've run across my share of "Patritos am cheaterz!!!" crackpots, but you are really pretty far out there. There is simply no point with trying to reason with your lunatic "facts", so I won't waste my time refuting your "research", but it was highly entertaining to skim through.

Try reading Seth Wickersham and Don Van Natta's piece about Spygate on ESPN that came out in 2015, you know, right around the time your QB was destroying his cell phone a few days before he was scheduled to meet with Goodell.

Originally Posted by Hawg73

The real reason that the two Gates became a big deal was the same exact thing that happened in Salem, Mass. back in the day when farmers got sick of their crops failing, which was actually due to a long stretch of weird weather and decided the answer was to murder 18 plus people because Satan had taken them over.

Eventually, people figured out that was a load of crap and I can only hope that history will show that "cheating" i.e., squishy footballs and filming signals in the same way that has been standard practice for anybody trying to win games, is a kind of a similar "mistake" minus all the murders. We've only had two that I know of.

So you accuse me of having far fetched theories and are now comparing this to the Salem witch trials?

Originally Posted by Hawg73

Nobody could (or wanted to) believe that we worked and studied and drilled on situations and a hundred other LEGIT reasons why we won so much, so they wigged out and decided that it was IMPOSSIZIBLE, so.......ergo......Belichick is Satan. Deciding that those two flaps were the main reason why we were so good for so long is delusional, but people seem to love their delusions, so have at it, my friend. Clutch them tight and let the bitterness flow freely. Maybe it helps you in some unknowable way.

You still haven't explained to me why Belichick even bothered to videotape the Pats opponents for 7 straight years if it wasn't a big deal.

[SHOWTIME]

Originally Posted by stevegroganfan

What Jimmy Johnson said on Spygate is fairly balanced commentary...from Wikipedia.

"After footage from the actual tape was aired on Fox NFL Sunday on September 16, former Dallas Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson claimed, "This is exactly how I was told to do it 18 years ago by a Kansas City Chiefs scout. I tried it, but I didn't think it helped us." Johnson also said, "Bill Belichick was wrong because he videotaped signals after a memo was sent out to all of the teams saying not to do it. But what irritates me is hearing some reactions from players and coaches. These players don't know what their coaches are doing. And some of the coaches have selective amnesia because I know for a fact there were various teams doing this. That's why the memo was sent to everybody. That doesn't make [Belichick] right, but a lot of teams are doing this.

A lot of teams doing it doesn't make it non-cheating. Besides, those other teams didn't have a genius like Ernie Adams reviewing illegally obtained film and spending the entire week figuring out opponents signals. Did I fail to mention that the Pats would then sign players recently cut from upcoming opponents to help interpret those signals? Yeah, it was a massive cheating ring, and BIll thought he could get away with it by simply saying he "misinterpreted the rules." And Jimmy Johnson trying it and GIVING UP is proof that Belichick found a way to make it work.

Originally Posted by stevegroganfan

So some other teams were doing what the Patriots were doing before the league memo sent out to all teams. The Patriots didn't win a SB during the 2006 season which is the one season in which one could say they were "cheating" (knowingly or unknowingly). They paid a steep price for that in losing a first round pick.

Good for them. Like I said, those other teams didn't have Ernie Adams. And the 2006 memo was not a new rule (as a lot of Pats fans like to explain). It was reminder of the rule already in place not to video tape opponents signals. So the league was actually doing the Pats and Belichick a huge favor in 2006 by warning them. But of course since the Spygating was helping the Pats, Belichick kept doing it. Otherwise he'd be a colossal idiot.

Here's what Roger Goodell had to say:

“This episode represents a calculated and deliberate attempt to avoid longstanding rules designed to encourage fair play and promote honest competition on the playing field,” Commissioner Roger Goodell wrote in a letter to the Patriots. Goodell protected the Pats by not opening up an independent investigation. Instead, he spent 3-4 days on it and then issued a ruling. In contrast, he spent millions of dollars for an investigation that took months in Deflategate.

You Pats fans have to put two and two together.

[Mr_Tomahawk]

Ready to move on.

Let's go **** their head holes!

[Hawg73]

Originally Posted by SHOWTIME

A lot of teams doing it doesn't make it non-cheating. Besides, those other teams didn't have a genius like Ernie Adams reviewing illegally obtained film and spending the entire week figuring out opponents signals.

Ernie was one of the great cheaters of all time. No question about it. You might be a total whackjob, but I'll at least give you style points for knowing who he is, because a lot of Patriots fans don't.

Our record since he retired is 13-19, so that's more evidence for your True Detective vision board.

Check out this quote from Bill when his retirement was announced:

“Ernie’s had such a big impact on our success here with the Patriots in so many different way. From his organization with Scott [Pioli] in the personnel department and the grading scale and so forth to strategic coaching, situationally, game-planning, team building, personnel acquisition and so forth. I should also mention that Ernie was considered the Lawrence Taylor of stealing signals. He was our version of a double-knot spy. Video, audio or lip-reading -- it didn't matter to Big Ern. He was really great at all three phases. We're really going to miss him, but.....'next cheater up' is one of the core concepts of the Patriot Way, so we'll see how it goes without him.

[crayzkirk]

All I know is that the old saying of cheaters never prosper is absolutely a lie.

I know lots of people who cheated in school and it sure didn't hurt them at all. People
cheat in business to get ahead and the whole point of NASCAR is to see how much you can get away with.

Perhaps the Patriot fan is right and everyone is just envious/jealous.

My question is: would a reasonable person believe that someone would go through all of the time and energy to collect this information if it weren't valuable? Stealing company secrets has long been a standard practice of business. You profit by letting someone else do the work and the penalty is always less than what was achieved.

Just ask China or any large business that steals someone else's property.

[stevegroganfan]

Originally Posted by crayzkirk

All I know is that the old saying of cheaters never prosper is absolutely a lie.

I know lots of people who cheated in school and it sure didn't hurt them at all. People
cheat in business to get ahead and the whole point of NASCAR is to see how much you can get away with.

Perhaps the Patriot fan is right and everyone is just envious/jealous.

My question is: would a reasonable person believe that someone would go through all of the time and energy to collect this information if it weren't valuable? Stealing company secrets has long been a standard practice of business. You profit by letting someone else do the work and the penalty is always less than what was achieved.

Just ask China or any large business that steals someone else's property.

Belichick had a lowly paid peon that he barely even knew do the videotaping so he was hardly wasting his own time. Belichick is only slightly exaggerating when he says the information on signals was available to 80,000 people on game day. It can be gathered and has been gathered by many teams in the past including the Kansas City Chiefs. Jimmy Johnson is on record as stating that the Chiefs organization taught him how to steal signals. I doubt the Chiefs invented the stealing of football signals but they obviously did it as well for Johnson to be trained in it.

It barely helps according to most coaches (Johnson, Mangini, etc) but what the Patriots advantage in doing this was simply collecting the information a little easier. Instead of spending 2X time collecting the information, it may have been 1X. The Patriots spending less money as an organization to get a reasonable amount of signals/play tendencies allows them to spend more money as an organization elsewhere in football operations. Not sure when it changed but at a certain point, Robert Kraft began to pay Belichick X amount of dollars and then Belichick used some of those funds to pay the people in football operations. I was surprised to hear this but that is what has been reported by New England media.

Jimmy Johnson says he stopped trying to steal signals not because he was morally opposed to doing so but he just didn't find it that helpful.

If this was really so effective and the Patriots were frauds with the first 3 SB appearances/wins, they wouldn't have gone 16-0 during regular season after it stopped and made another 6 Super Bowls winning 3. This was despite NE losing multiple first round picks and Aaron Hernandez to jail.

Every NFL team over the past 40+ years probably has multiple players taking PEDs including steroids and HGH. The Patriots are not an exception with a few players being caught with some form of undisclosed PEDs and neither are the Chiefs or any other NFL team. We have no clue which team has the most users like the Oakland A's may or may not have had in baseball but whoever has the most PED users has a much bigger advantage than the Patriots ever had since once again NFL teams have been stealing signals for a long time.

Even when an NFL team basically knows which plays are being run, they don't necessarily even win when they have the superior team. See Buffalo losing to New England in the wind game. Run nearly every play by New England which didn't surprise me at all and the Bills still lost. If you can't tackle, fumble or line off sides, knowing an extra signal or two in a game probably won't save you.

And NFL players/teams are not really that dumb. If they truly are suspicious that defenders/offenses know their play calls, they can change them up and trick whoever may be stealing a signal.

[stevegroganfan]

Originally Posted by SHOWTIME

A lot of teams doing it doesn't make it non-cheating. Besides, those other teams didn't have a genius like Ernie Adams reviewing illegally obtained film and spending the entire week figuring out opponents signals. Did I fail to mention that the Pats would then sign players recently cut from upcoming opponents to help interpret those signals? Yeah, it was a massive cheating ring, and BIll thought he could get away with it by simply saying he "misinterpreted the rules." And Jimmy Johnson trying it and GIVING UP is proof that Belichick found a way to make it work.



Good for them. Like I said, those other teams didn't have Ernie Adams. And the 2006 memo was not a new rule (as a lot of Pats fans like to explain). It was reminder of the rule already in place not to video tape opponents signals. So the league was actually doing the Pats and Belichick a huge favor in 2006 by warning them. But of course since the Spygating was helping the Pats, Belichick kept doing it. Otherwise he'd be a colossal idiot.

Here's what Roger Goodell had to say:

“This episode represents a calculated and deliberate attempt to avoid longstanding rules designed to encourage fair play and promote honest competition on the playing field,” Commissioner Roger Goodell wrote in a letter to the Patriots. Goodell protected the Pats by not opening up an independent investigation. Instead, he spent 3-4 days on it and then issued a ruling. In contrast, he spent millions of dollars for an investigation that took months in Deflategate.

You Pats fans have to put two and two together.

Adams is a football historian and a bright guy by most accounts but the Patriots only "rocket scientist" failed as coach of Detroit Lions.

Football is a sport like baseball where stealing signals was an accepted part of the game.

The reason less time was spent in the second investigation was since Belichick gave Goodell all of the tapes and didn't dispute what the NY Jets said the Patriots were doing. Belichick only stated that what he did, he thought was legal under NFL rules so the "facts" of what the Patriots did were not in dispute at all.

On the other hand, in Deflategate Brady and the Patriots and some independent scientists disputed the balls were deflated by a Patriot employee before the game. The Patriots/Brady were contesting facts the NFL presented in the case and most scientists who looked into it literally said the Patriots were right. The NFL didn't have a clue/the honesty to admit that the deflated footballs were consistent with the Ideal Gas Law. But given how NFL laws are written, Goodell is pretty much a dictator in disputes like this and Brady finally dropped his appeals to the courts since he realized the whole process was rigged against him and not about whether a Patriots employee actually deflated the footballs.

Brady was willing to answer questions and did. He got penalized for destroying his phone which he had done for years on a periodic basis since as a famous person, he wanted to maintain his privacy. In the days of everything leaking, I wouldn't want Roger Goodell and his minions or anyone else looking through my entire phone. It is not like I have anything to hide but its still creepy to give your phone out to 3rd parties.

[Hammock Parties]

so the chiefs came in on tuesday apparently....andy giving them extra work

[Hammock Parties]

The #Chiefs say LB Leo Chenal and S Mike Edwards are sick. LT Donovan Smith (neck) and RB Isiah Pacheco (shoulder) are still working their way back.

All four players won't practice Wednesday ahead of the Patriots game on Sunday.

[Hammock Parties]

So we should have Tranquill back and Chenal will be fine.

We're going to butt**** NE.

[Megatron96]

NE defense quietly having a really good year. Especially vs. the run. Could be a problem for KC, as Andy is going to have to lean into the run game since the WR corps is junk, and our starting RB for this game is probably going to be CEH.


Bill is obviously going to take away Travis. And I would be shocked if he doesn't take away Rice. Going to be tough sledding if someone else doesn't step up. Gray, McKinnon, Toney . . . someone. Anyone.


Only thing I know for sure is that's it's going to be a low-scoring game, and that a defensive score probably wins it.


Bet the under.

[Wisconsin_Chief]

Originally Posted by Hammock Parties

so the chiefs came in on tuesday apparently....andy giving them extra work

Good, they goddamn need it.

If we lose this game, shit is going to really hit the fan. The time for dicking around with pop stars and filming commercials is over. Time to nut up and play Kansas City Chief football.