Members of the Steelers and Eagles are starting to wonder aloud if the Patriots cheated to gain an advantage over them too. In a recent article posted on YAHOO! Sports, Eagles defensive backs Sheldon Brown and Brian Dawkins noted that the Patriots seemed to know every time they were going to blitz in the 2005 Super Bowl.
Brown said he noticed a difference in New England’s playcalling in the second quarter. After the Patriots gained only 45 yards in the first quarter, they had 286 over the next three.
My first reaction to this was that the Eagles are making another excuse why they lost (i.e. Donovan McNabb was sick). However, do they have a legitimate gripe? Isn’t Bill Belicheat and New England often hailed as making the best halftime adjustments? Maybe they have been cheating and the three Super Bowl victories are nothing more than a farce. It would help explain why the Pats seem to be the only team that gets away with an obvious lack of superior talent, yet still consistently win.
There are two things that stop me from wanting NE stripped of all its successes over the decade, however. One, is like McNabb said in the article, just because you have the answers to the test, doesn’t mean that translates into execution. And two, I want to believe that a team like the Patriots can win the way they do – by first building the perfect system and then implementing the players. I want to believe that Belicheat really is a genus and this is the way it’s supposed to be done (not the cheating of course, but the winning without high draft picks and what not).
I think Ole Bill is guilty of pushing the line just a little too far. I think stiffer penalties are warranted, but I like the way our coach (Packers) went at it. Basically, he said, “Yeah, they might have had an edge, but they kicked our asses six ways from Sunday last year. Stealing signs just doesn’t account for that,”
If they were going far enough against the rules to totally invalidate the dynasty, I would think somewhere along the line, somebody within the team would have stood up and said, “Dude, this is f’ed up!”
Maybe I’m just being ignorant here – feel free to point it out if you think so. I wonder just how much of an advantage this would really be over good film study,solid scouting and game planning and the sorts of things veteran QBs do to get defenses to tip their hands at the line. Would it really be worth the risk of getting caught?
Yeah, they threw a lot of screen passes against the Eagles – as much as JJ blitzes, wouldn’t you throw a lot of screens? Hell, you’d be right about 50% of the time even if you just went random with it.
Just some noodles flying at the wall on a Friday night.
I don’t think you’re being ignorant Jeff. Just like you, I’d like to think that a full week of practice, scheme preparation and execution on Sunday is the way a good team wins and stealing the opponents’ defensive schemes isn’t much of a factor.
But we don’t know how useful that information would be and that’s part of the problem. If at halftime, Belichick goes to his offensive players and says, “When I give you the rock n’ roll sign, the Jets are going to send their outside linebackers on blitzes and it’s going to open up the seams and post corner routes”, that would obviously be a huge advantage to throughout the rest of the game.
I guess everyone could go back and forth on this all day. I agree with you Jeff about Johnson blitzing 99.9% of the time and that one would think a screen pass would defuse his calls. However, are we naive to think that other teams wouldn’t employ the screen pass more than when they play the Eagles? The Patriots are the only team to have figured this is the best way to attack Philly’s blitzes? Once again, the lack of facts is going to be why this issue will get debated for the foreseeable future…
You are naive if you beleive for a moment that these Teams won’t do anything they can to gain an advantage over another Team.
I’m not going to debate right from wrong, that is for the autorities but they have been doing it for years, the players steal signs, the Teams hire lip readers and the last I heard they all watch each others films 800 times.
I do think that the Jets should be given the win though.
Take the game away in Football. It’s a short season and that will get your attention fast. They can always trade up……and the fines are paid by millionairs? What the
hell good is that?
No one is interested in cleaning up sports……becuase if they were they would take away games. This is what matters…fines and suspensions won’t do it.
Same thing with baseball…Use steroids, loose 5 games……..
Teams sports must include Team punishment …….it’s not that hard, if you wanted to do it
I was right all along…Brady ain’t worth a damn!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EU1O-hGxgg