Patriots Go To Court
The New England Patriots are in even more hot water thanks to Belichick’s illegal taping.
A lawsuit filed Friday by a former St. Louis Rams player and others seeks millions of dollars in damages from the alleged taping of Rams practices by the New England Patriots before the 2002 Super Bowl.
The Patriots won the game 20-17 in the Superdome.
The $100 million suit, filed on behalf of former Rams player Willie Gary in U.S. District Court in New Orleans, names the Patriots, team owner Robert Kraft and head coach Bill Belichick.
Now the question is “Could the Rams have won that Superbowl?” Possibly. Would that have garnered Mr. Gary a $100 mil in royalty payments- assuming he actually did get those advertising contracts he no doubt thinks all Superbowl winners get. Do they even offer those to relatively unknown names? I’ve never heard of Willie Gary before today, so I’m assuming (because of that and only that) that he’s not as successful/popular as one of the Manning brothers, for instance. No? I’m more mainstream now, so I should have heard of him. Right?
Also, Senator Arlen Specter isn’t very happy with the flimsy explanation given by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell about why the tapes and notes on the investigation into Belichick’s activities have been destroyed.
“There were a great many questions answered by Commissioner Goodell,” Specter, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters after the meeting. “I found a lot of questions unanswerable because of the tapes and notes had been destroyed.”
Goodell said Belichick told him he believed the taping was legal; Goodell said he did not concur.
“He said that’s always been his interpretation since he’s been the head coach,” the commissioner said. “We are going to agree to disagree on the facts.”
Specter, from Pennsylvania, wants to talk to other league officials about what exactly was taped and which games may have been compromised.
“We have a right to have honest football games,” he said.
Belichick thought the taping was legal? Really? Then why didn’t he tell the other teams he was taping them. Oh, right. Duh. That’s just a bunch of garbage fed to the fans because they’re really that stupid. I forgot.
But the interesting part of Goodell’s testimony?
Goodell also told Specter that that he doesn’t regret destroying the Spygate tapes or the notes.
“I think it was the right thing to do,” Goodell said.
Still, Specter wants to know why penalties were imposed on Belichick before the full extent of the wrongdoing was known and the tapes destroyed in a two-week span. Asked if he thinks there was a coverup, Specter demurred.
“There was an enormous amount of haste,” Specter said.
He scoffed at the reasons Goodell gave for destroying the tapes and notes, particularly about trying to keep them out of competitors’ hands and because Belichick had admitted to the taping.
He thought it was the right thing to do? Destroy evidence in a potential criminal case? Or, in this case, a civil suit? Uh-oh.
The fact is they didn’t want the NFL’s secrets to get out into the public. But they did. Now they’re trying to keep the important facts out of the public eye. Goodell and Belichick, in my opinion, are both guilty of cheating. The NFL has lost an enormous amount of respect and trust because of this and they’re inevitably going to lose money as the less rabid fans throw up their hands in despair and just walk away.
I used to be a die-hard football fan. I loved it. But I hated the playoffs. I knew that no matter how good my team was, they’d lose. They’d do something incredibly stupid, that they’ve not done since the playoffs last year and they wouldn’t advance. Or my team would advance miraculously, no matter how bad they played all year. I felt like the playoffs and the Superbowl were bought and paid for. I didn’t trust them and I fell out of love with football (I fell out of love with basketball for similar reasons). Considering everything that has emerged and is continuing to emerge regarding the all-powerful Patriots, I know I was right.
The fans don’t matter anymore.
Of course, my theory revolves around the amount of money big bettors are making on the games. So the big bettors pay the coaches to make sure they win. I blame that completely on Hollywood. They’ve jaded me.
An alternate theory is the fact that teams are quick to fire their coaches for losing seasons, no matter whose fault the losses were. A coach’s job security is lying at the feet of his players. His players don’t like him, they don’t play, it’s the coach’s fault. Nevermind that the players are the ones that should be penalized in these instances.
For the love of the game? No. Not anymore.
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