Let's take a short trip back in time.
It's last Friday in Foxboro. Bill Bellichick has assembled his offensive staff for a meeting. He wants to hear the group's plan of attack for Sunday's game at the Jets.
After an exhaustive report from each position head, outlining every coach's decisions and recommendations Bill takes a deep breath and looks down at impressively marked notebook. After a pause he looks up and glances from face to face around the room. As his gaze moves from coach to coach none can hold his eye. When the last breaks eye-contact under the guise of scribbling a note Bellchick's normally placid face turns to a sneer, then quickly a grimace.
It is as he feared. Despite the contributions of the assembled group, some of the brightest offensive minds in football, they have all, himself included, come to the same conclusion. They cannot beat the Jets.
Silence hangs in the room, replacing the promise of the coming season, one which was heralded by fans, local, and national media as a potentially dominant campaign.
Months of planning, plotting, strategizing, and training have gone by the wayside even before kickoff as the Patriots' staff realizes that it has failed to figure out a way to utilize one of the deepest and fastest wide receiving corps in football, the second best quarterback in the game, and a developing running back to beat a mediocre division rival.
Bellichick says only two words. Words which give every man in the room chills. They are a veritable death sentence for the season and maybe for their careers.
"Call Estrella."
An appeal is voiced from the back of the room, a voice of reason, "Bill... No. We don't need this. Just throw it up to Moss. He's 6'5" with 4.2 speed, he can run by at least 3 defensive backs at a time!"
Bill's response is swift and harsh, "No! I will not leave this game in the hands of one of the greatest quarterback receiver tandems in NFL history! No chance. Your failures have left me with no choice! Why would I want men who have given their lives to football, who work 16 hour days studying film, looking for tendencies to make these types of decisions? My answer is nay I would not! Can't you see our only hope is to rest all of our faith on this young A/V intern's ability to steal and decode signs!"
Another plea, "But Bill, think about it. He's only 26, and has never played a down of football in his life. He's a technician not a coach. He won't even know what he's looking at. Not to mention the fact that once he films the signs he'll only have 15 seconds, maybe 20 to figure out which play they're calling from hundreds of polaroids or a 400 page playbook and relay that information to our staff, who then will maybe have a second or two to figure out the alignments involved and pick a play which suits our advantage and get the call to Tom who will already have had to snap the ball. It can't be done! It's madness!"
A scuffle ensues. Bellichick has called his goons in from the hallways to dispose of this dissenting opinion. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, the speaker will never be seen again, his body replaced by an exact robot replica which will stand on the sidelines as a reminder to all: This is a Dictatorship, not a Democracy!
"Put the plan into motion. Retrieve Estrella from the dungeons and alert him of his duties. Make sure to have plenty of sionide poison at the ready. He will have to be ready to make the ultimate sacrifice for this cause. He is our only hope."
Sounds a bit ridiculous doesn't it?
Well you wouldn't think so if you've turned on a TV or read a newspaper in the last three days. Cameragate has gripped the football world and polarized it into two groups. Patriot fans and everyone else. For the latter, and notably larger group it is almost like a victory parade. Now every fan of a mediocre franchise thinks they can explain why the Patriots have been so wildly successful while their team have not. For the former, well like I said heavy is the head the wears the crown.
The reality, in this case isn't even somewhere in the middle.
Of course what the Patriots did was wrong, in that it violated league rules and a NFL directive sent out by the commission in 2006, but to even suggest that this type of misdemeanor could have 1. Affected the outcome of Sunday's game or 2. Been the principal reason that the Patriots have won three Super Bowls since 2000 is utterly and embarassingly preposterious.
SInce I can't speak about every game in the Bellichick / Brady era where this has been an issue I'll just stick to using this one as an example for now. First and foremost the tapes were confiscated in the first quarter, which by any observers recollections was the most evenly played of the game. After that time the Patriots decimated the Jets, especially in the second half, even without the findings of the illicit tape. Is that sinking in? New England won the game by 24 points, and turned it into a laugher long after their renegade camera James Bond had been kicked out of the stadium. How, those of you who are calling for a forfeit, do you explain the Pats second half success? Luck? Maybe they had another camera?
Let's assume that they did, or that the camera in question was feeding to a recorder somewhere in the Meadowlands that the Jets never found. Why in the blue-fuck would they need Randy Moss to beat triple coverage with his super-human speed if they knew what defense was coming? And why, if they knew what was coming would Brady ever even look in the direction of a receiver flanked by three defensive backs. Do you really think this conversation took place between the booth and Bellichick.
"Hey, ah Bill we just stole some signs for this next play and it seems that they're going to triple cover Randy and leave the middle of the field totally open, you think we oughtta throw another receiver into the slot to fill that void?"
"Nah, you know what, I think, despite our knowledge of their play calling we should just let Randy run by the three defenders for a 50 yard TD. You know, do something nice for the kids, give everyone a reason to go out and buy those number 81 jerseys."
It's just laughable, and every arm-chair Bill Polian is getting his power and royal blue tightie whities up into a bunch because they hated the Patriots before this, and now they feel justified.
Is it a coincidence that the first player to come out vocally against Bellichick and the Pats is the same player who blasted them at the end of last season? Of course not! Tomlinson hates New England, hates their success, and hates most of all that they stole what will probably be his best chance to win a Super Bowl last year. Not exactly an objective opinion, but who cares put it on ESPN 100,000 times a day and print it in every newspaper nationwide. Hell, preach it as though it were gospel while you're at it.
And that's not even the most deplorable display following this incident. The New England fans who are leaping off the bandwagon, including spineless Herald (baseball, stick to that) columnist Tony Massarotti make this an even more aggravating story. Now of course you can't take this too seriously but on an ESPN.com message board today one post said and I quote, "Was a Pats fan 'til today...[insert paragraph of mindless drivel here] Am now a Colts fan."
Are you out of your mind? So on Sunday you liked the Patriots, but after finding out that they tried to steal signs you no longer like them... and oops how convenient for you that you just happened to pick the defending Super Bowl Champs as your new favorite team you bandwagon jumping, DLP buying, Peyton Manning ball-washing pathetic excuse for a fan. Good riddance, New England is better off without you. Just a guess here, you didn't pick that team randomly out of a hat did you?
