New York Post: New England Patriots

[Bleujayone]

The New York Post is to newspapers what KFC is to chicken or Twinkies are to baked goods. It's junk food journalism at best. Anyone who looks at the post as serious journalism needs to lie down and out a damp cloth on their head.

One rule about real journalism is to simply report the news in and of itself- without trying to spin it one way or another. Otherwise it stops being news and simply becomes an opinion. If the Post wanted to publish an opinion in a editorial that would be one thing. But it would pointless for them to publish an editorial every week on the incident since it's considered yesterday's news. Putting a mark on the standings with "caught cheating" is their not so subtle way of doing this.

As has already been mentioned here the NFL has already addressed and dealt with the situation. One reason the penalty was as harsh as it was was not because the "had it in" for the Patriots but rather because as it has already been mentioned before, they were aware of other teams dabbling in this tactic. If a further investigation were to take place and the press caught wind of a more widespread problem, the NFL's image would be further tarnished. Rather than risk that, the NFL brass smartly made the Patriots an example. gave them the maximum penalty (which they deserved) and released a further memo to all teams reminding them of the rules in question. Essentially they were saying, "...we know odds are some of you other teams might be experimenting in this too, but because our image is everything, consider this a very big warning- knock it off. If you doubt our sincerity look at New England."

I don't believe the NFL is particularly amused by the Post's asterisk either, I think they consider the matter closed and really do not want a constant public reminder of this. If the Post really wish to be fair they should put a few other marks on a other teams. How about one for the Or Atlanta Falcons$ "QB convicted of dog fighting", the Cincinnati Bengals% "More arrests than Enron", or Miami Dolphins^ "Suck", Or any number of teams with steroids, or New York Jets# "Coach allegedly knew about his former team's cheating tactic and sat on telling until it benefited him and then whined about it in public, team stinks regardless" And while the idea is obviously silly, it's no sillier than what the Post is already doing. But then, that's just my opinion, it's not like I'm a news organization.

[Eye]

I'll post a pic of what I mean about the "*caught cheating" thing later tonight.

[rams80]

I'll just say this. Roger Goodell, the guy who is trying to establish a reputation as being the iron hand of God when it comes to punishing transgressions, went on National television, and vowed to get to the bottom of this. Later that week, the NFL simply announced that they had received the Patriot's "library" (note the use of that noun) and destroyed it.

What do you think they discovered on those tapes that would prompt such a 180 on this "get to the bottom of it" stance?

Also...it's not like the NFL has the right to search Bellicheat's property. Given how easy it is to copy electronic media today, he probably still has a complete copy of his library lying around in his house.

Everything the Patriots do and have done is tainted until Bellicheat is handed his walking papers. Face it.