I don't at all see how video taping something that you can see without special equipment is cheating. If they just have someone in the coaches box with binoculars watching the sideline they accomplish the same thing. Fox video tapes the sidelines of every game, if we get the feed off the Fox camera, is that cheating?

Soon, 40 year old doods taking pictures of cheerleaders will be considered cheating. Wait, I think that was Bring It On, or something.

If it's really that serious and a threat to the integrity of competition, don't you at least suspend Coach Hobo for a game or two?

It should have been a first round draft pick regardless of whether they make the playoffs or not.

I think New England should get the death penalty, like SMU got a few years back.

No actually, I like the other death penalty better. Start with Belichick.

That was actually a very catchy song.

So am I to understand that Wilbon wants this to end with a tri-pod to the face, like it did for Bob Crane?

Yet another OJ story

[news.yahoo.com]

I guess in Roger's eyes, an assistant coach taking some HgH for his diabetes related impotence is a bigger threat to the integrity of the game than a high profile head coach blatantly and repeatedly cheating after being specifically warned about it.

He's tough on those big, bad football players but when it comes down to it, Ol' Rog is nothing but a shill for management.

Oh, and Dick Joke.

Hey, great! There's a "stalk" option and a "flag" option now! This is a great idea! Yeah!

Yeah, I should have every right to stand under a stair case and videotape upskirt. What? I do?

Still sleazy.

I think Simmons should have his right hand cut off...oh wait, this isn't Pats article isn't about Simmons?

Gotta love this Yahoo McNews sports headline:

Eagles try and recall anything fishy about Super Bowl loss to Patriots

Not only does it sound like an Onion headline, but that's some jacked up grammar right there.

I think Belichick is intercepting Nibbles' signs to the interwebs and re-routing them.

@PeteJäyhawk™: I am so stealing your defensive formation signs from now on.

maybe if mcnabb wasnt throwing up the last 7 minutes of the super bowl his team may have actually won.

@Donald_Igwebuike: I'm now following you. Just to let you know.

@PeteJäyhawk™: I like how the "reply" button is buried in there so I will continually hit the stalk button on accident.

@PeteJäyhawk™: I fear for Andrea's safety...

Eagles recall smell of vomit and vrable catching a td from super bowl loss to Patriots

on the contrary, i think this story IS going away soon...

@Bad Barbecue: I don't wear a lot of skirts, and when I do, I don't take the stairs. Who am I kidding, I never take the stairs, fucking gravity.

I won't accept any legal analysis unless it's from Bob Loblaw's Law Blog.

@Donald_Igwebuike: It's not bad because of the huge advantage, it's bad because it's against the rules. The difference you described is one between gaining an edge within the rules, and going outside them. One is called coaching, the other is called cheating.

Follow Commenter? What the deuce?

If [insert commenter name] jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you follow them?

Ohhhhh....a guy on a "blog" say he was treated fairly. I'll withhold my opinion until Jay Marriotti and Woody Paige give me their fair and balanced views, thank you very much.

@Bad Barbecue:
I'm trying to follow numerous commenters, but they keep going through yellow lights.

@ArkansasFred: Very Neil Diamond-eque.

You know all this talk of cheating and intercepting defensive signals - I just don't know how that really affects the game that much. I'm sure most coaching staffs try to outwit the opposing team and take notes of trends, hand signs, etc. Even if you know what the other team is doing, talent can still negate that. It's just like Tecmo Bowl!!!

@mannybeingmanny: I bet Belicheck has that on tape.

I now have a remove commenter button? holy shit. I missed the ceremony but I am now God of this site. I must have lost a bet to Iracane.

@Botswana Meat Commission FC: It's almost as if i wrote that headline.

@Nationalcoholic: I understand the difference between cheating and bending the rules, but I have heard this compared directly to steroid/HGH use. If you take the black/white view of cheating, then offensive linemen should be suspended 4 games when they are called for holding.

@mannybeingmanny: Well, that's totally because Belicheck put soap in his Chunky Soup. That's how low he'll sink. But to be fair, then McNabb didn't have to pull that bombing run over Bologna.

@Nationalcoholic: I can remove you? YES!

@Sex-Panther: me too, Sex Panther. Me too.

The DOT can be criticized for many things in many cities. But they do know to do construction on major highways at night.

Just sayin'.

Once you begin to stalk, can you ever stop?

@Lady Andrea: I wanted you to know that I did not hit "follow commenter" to follow you. It was purely coincidental and has nothing to do with the fact that I am RIGHT BEHIND YOU! seriously, look behind you.

@sjc: and Bill totally forced the eagles into keeping the great freddie mitchell.

The only people that retain the right to feel robbed are the 2001 Raiders. And this is coming from a Broncos fan.

Hey now the patriot players have a no respect card to play this year... No one respects us because they think our coaches cheated. I feel bad for the "classy" LDT this weekend.

Belichick's punishment should be that he has to wear a spiffy suit on the sidelines like Jack Del Rio. A lifetime ban on "homeless person" ponchos!

Where are the boundaries for Flagging a comment on Deadspin? Good God this is going to get ugly.

you know... all this talk about the patriots have to cheat to win, teams bringing up past games that the pats must have cheated in, pats can't win without being devious and sneaky and all that...

you know what that all means...

THE PATRIOTS GET NO RESPECT!!!

(i am now fully convinced that belichick orchestrated this whole thing on purpose to gin up the no respect thing that was lacking this year.)

Why is nobody following me????

"Flag: Report inappropriate comment"

Nothing good can possibly come of this.

Better punishment for Coach B? You must now wear a three piece suit for the remainder of the season. Probably hurt him more.

What's half a mil/don't they know my name is Bill?

Belichick/to get at them trophy's I'll gladly peel a check.

- Future rhyme from Lil' Wayne

@G Voll the Mole:

Answering rhetorical joke questions - well, hell - I can do that.

According to Dr. Michael Stone - stalking is caused by part of the brain that is broken. Most Evil was about stalking and stalkers last night. (Most of the stalkers got a 6 on the scale of evil.) I'll crawl back into my morbid obsession nerd-hole now.

@J-No: I almost clicked on it by accident like 3 times now. Poor Rob.

If you have Insider on WWL, Jeremy Green makes basically the same point I did the other day when this whole thing broke: this isn't "cheating" so much as an illegal form of scouting.

Also, I think most people (i.e. pretty much everyone) are missing why Goodell came down so hard here. It's got nothing to do with the "integrity" of the game, or cheating -- it's all about preventing a technological cold war in scouting/game day analysis in the NFL. All of these dubious signal-stealing tactics have been around for ages, and have been practiced by virtually every team. The perceived "cheating" here could have been fixed with defensive radio helmets, just like the QB radios. But the league teams, as a collective, rejected that -- because they cost a lot of money.

What Goodell wants -- and has -- to avoid is a situation where some teams -- the Jets/Giants, Cowboys, Pats, Bears, etc. -- can gain a competitive advantage due to their relative wealth; an advantage the Bills, Packers, et al. can't because they're smaller-market, lower-revenue teams. That's basically what the Pats were doing here: they were scouting their opponent using technology (which is basically using money) in a way that could be done (competely legally) the "old fashioned" way with binoculars and notepads, but which is much more effective and efficient when done with that technology.

Goodell is, by this penalty, basically telling the wealthy teams "If we don't specifically say you can use something that isn't readily available and non-costly for all teams, we're going to smack you down hard." I think this is an issue of much bigger importance for the NFL long-term than whatever the Pats were doing, and it's being lost in the stampede by the media to shit all over the Pats. (Which probably has a lot to do with the media hating BB in particular, because he keeps a tight house and doesn't feed them juicy stories.)

... and I pray Nibbles, LLC (the corporate entity that manages comments) doesn't eat that post I made.

Also, I'm almost as big of an Eagles fan as I am a Pats fan. Donovan: you lost the Super Bowl because you were the lesser team, and because you stunk in the first half. If the "cheating" benefitted the Pats, it would have benefitted them in the second half, when you ran roughshod over them. Sorry, bro -- we lost fair and square.

@mannybeingmanny: Bill actually played the Orbital Mind Control Lasers card, enabling him to take over both the Republican Party and the Fiendish Fluoridators.

/inwo

But....Jim Haslett did HGH in the middle of a play during a Steelers game. And he killed a guy. With a ninja star.

Click to follow yourself. It'll, like, blow your mind, man.

@Lady Andrea:
I thought we were all playing a giant game of capture the flag and I hit it on everyone. I guess I didn't win.