N F L - National Football League

[VinceYoung]

havent liked the titans since eddie george ....

 

 

me thinks green bay will win the NFC ... LT and Rivers injured add Gates ... nice warm up for hoodie's gang

 

Good to know someone here at MTC atleast liked the the Titans before. I like Eddie a lot too. But i'm a fan who follows the team and not the players. The Titans haven't found an RB yet the likes of Eddie George but you should check out the current starting RB Lendale White, aka The Round Mound of First Down.

[gift_of_game]

well, he and the Colts D didn't exactly show up yesterday against the Chargers.

or perhaps they did and hoped that would be enough to send San Diego's 2nd-stringers shivers down their spine.

 

let me clarify that I never questioned whether or not Bob deserved it---he did alright.

no way he could win hardware for his body of work this season if he wasn't that kind of player.

and no doubt a horde of teams would be more than willing to outbid Indy for his services in the off-season had he opted hold out.

 

I was just a bit intrigued by the timing. Could the whole carrot-on-stick concept be at work here?

did he end up shortchanging the Colts by playing below his capabilities since he already got what he worked so damn hard to get?

 

probably not.

 

but that shouldn't prevent me or anyone else from asking.

[bluevodka]

wow PATS still goin clean :thumbsupsmiley:

 

this is the time of the season were you throw away all the stats and play the game as if it's your last. anythin can happen. hopefully PATS can dominate and win the Super Bowl clean.

 

:mtc:

[VinceYoung]

but that shouldn't prevent me or anyone else from asking.

 

No one's preventing anybody from saying anything man. Just saying my own piece.

 

Difference of opinions always makes for a good thread, isn't it.

 

Peace out!!! :cool:

[Flash Sentry]

wow PATS still goin clean :thumbsupsmiley:

 

this is the time of the season were you throw away all the stats and play the game as if it's your last. anythin can happen. hopefully PATS can dominate and win the Super Bowl clean.

 

:mtc:

 

The Pats doing that would be history for the NFL. It would be a record that's hard to match, like them or not.

[gift_of_game]

ayt. points taken.

just wanted to make sure I got myself clear.

[denimhead]

it shld also be on record that the PATS got caught cheating .. just my two cents

 

im not a big lendale white fan ... he looks like one of em flash in the pan backs ...

 

i think the bob sanders deal backfired i think the colts wanted to show their players how they take care of them .. doing the deal after the season would just cost them more they wanted to keep bob sanders, i for one take it as a sign of good faith .. whether he didnt show up or not is another question .. i think dallas clark will hit the FA

 

TO should know better .. theres no crying in football ... dude's mentally unstable .. hes been known to throw his qb's under the bus remember Jeff Gaycia? Donovan "fatty" Mcnabb?

[denimhead]

id say so .....

[Guernica]

so was cheating big enough for the pats have an asterisk in case they win?

If the Cheatriots win the Super Bowl that'll be 19 asterisks

[stormgray]

Just to belabor the point (it's been belabored anyway) and as a Pat fan, let it be said that the Pats broke the rules, but this should not be considered synonymous to cheating. In any sport, there are rules, which are broken all the time yet they aren't called cheating. Why is this point still being harped on anyway?

 

Let's see, in basketball, a foul is considered to be breaking the rules, do we call it cheating? Travelling is against the rules, is it cheating?

 

Recently, during the regular season, some Green Bay players were discovered to be giving monetary "incentives" to their teammates for on-field performance, which violated the NFL "bounty rule." Why wasn't this even remotely considered cheating?

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3128645

 

Anyway, this is just my $0.02. As Guernica said; it's playoff time, let's grab that popcorn and enjoy it. Sadly, though, we won't be able to watch the AFC championship as Solar Sports has apparently only been allowed by the NFL to broadcast the NFC--until the Super Bowl. :thumbsdownsmiley:

[gift_of_game]

I don't even know why you can even compare "committing a foul" or "traveling" to what your Pats did.

This is just wrong on so many levels. It just doesn't hold water.

Why not compare it to making "codigo" for an exam? that would probably stick a little more.

 

Anyhow, what point of "breaking the rules" don't we understand here?

Should we just all get in line and start doing Hoodie's laundry and cheer now, all `coz he and his team pulled off something so special, so awesome, so monumental that a "petty little crime" like this can just slide like it ain't nothing?

Nothing?

 

Actually, that's just what the rest of the world did---that's how the media spun it, how the NFL "managed" it and exactly how a bunch of wealthy old white men want you to think.

 

this little thing went away about as soon as it became public because Goodell chose to protect the league's own interests over such obtuse concepts as "integrity" and "honesty" and "fairness". Those things don't put food on the table or pay the bills anyway.

 

after that big win against the Chargers, it was over and done with.

so much for playing by the rules, if you can win, nothing else matters.

and if you can have yourself a perfect season, no one's going to remember the shady stuff.

at least, not while the Warden runs the table.

 

in basketball terms, that perfect mop-up job wouldn't be unlike Stern making Donaghy disappear even before the Feds got to him.

 

so forgive us if we feel differently and look at all this with a healthy dose of contempt.

 

anyhow, this old piece is from Robert "Scoop" Jackson.

maybe the man can dole out a little more perspective on this thing.

 

 

Played like fools

by Scoop Jackson

September 30, 2007

ESPN

 

So this is the way the game is played.

 

It's called communitarianism. In this case, it's something like synchronized criminology. Or something that the Corleones might do. Or someone with the ultimate political power.

 

Communitarianism is like a family. One that sticks together and makes even those not part of that family abide by the family laws. With communitarianism strange things happen and powerful people play dumb all of a sudden -- they know nothing, have no information, stop speaking or their sentences come out in codes and all answers are abrupt, they refuse to give direct answers to direct questions, they stonewall. In communitarianism objectivity is lost, the relationship between media and subject gets blurred, stories go untold, payoffs are subliminal, excuses become points of reason, evidence evaporates, everyone cooperates.

 

So when the news came in that "the NFL has received and destroyed all materials it requested from the New England Patriots concerning videotaping of opponents' sidelines," the public sign that the NFL was a true communitarian society became clearer. So unapologetic, so quietly blatant, so coded, so don't snitch.

 

Let the communitarianism begin!

 

It's all a memory. The important stories are Green Bay's 3-0 start, the Cowboys' statement against the Bears, the Chargers missing Marty Schottenheimer. Sometimes the greatest deception of a people comes from information that no longer exists. Where's the proof that this ever happened? What exactly did happen and to what degree if we have no proof of its existence? There was so little made of "videogate" that years from now, when looking back at the NFL's history, this moment in time will not resonate. Search for the magnitude of the story, you will find small items; search for evidence of a crime, you'll find nothing.

 

Outside of Gregg Easterbrook's TMQ column this week that was so precise on the subject, it's amazing how these events -- something that can be considered a national sports cover-up -- can happen in this day of public outcries of conspiracy and scandal and the media's lust to expose these stories. And virtually everyone is cool with it. The movie "Michael Clayton" has nothing on this.

 

No big deal, so what, no one got hurt, everyone does it, let's keep it quiet, let's keep doing stories on Brett Favre. Act like none of this happened. Like we've all been visited by the Men in Black. And because it is now impossible for Bernard Goldberg or any other investigative reporter to get concrete evidence of the extent of the Patriots' cheating, the country gets to sit back and act as if none of this ever happened. The rug this has been swept under was lying atop a slab of concrete where a hole to hell was being dug and the construction workers were just waiting for commissioner Roger Goodell's word to pour the cement. Story dead. Six feet under.

 

Now we know this is the way the game is played.

 

Last week, the league said: "The Patriots have fully cooperated and complied with the requirements of the commissioner's decision. All tapes, documents and other records relating to this matter were turned over to the league office and destroyed, and the Patriots have certified in writing that no copies or other records exist."

 

A cover story presented to the public as "no news," tucked away in the third paragraph on the "notes" section on page 11 in the sports section of USA Today. And that's how communitarianism is built, NFL-style. It keeps reporters from grilling the commissioner with questions, keeps the story buried in major sports publications, keeps reporters on other assignments. There will be no Ken Starr here.

 

"Communitarian thinking," as stated by Philip Patterson and Lee Wilkins, "allows ethical discussion to include values such as altruism and benevolence on an equal footing with questions of truth telling and loyalty."

 

Truth telling and loyalty. Cute. Truth is, there is no justification for destroying evidence of a situation that should have led to further investigation. There is no justification for the adolescent and apathetic one week the NFL spent investigating the Patriots' improprieties. And regardless of the intraprotective defense heard around the NFL, that "everyone does it," that excuse still holds Mary-Kate weight on the ethics of what we believed was the sport closest to being on the up-and-up with its fans. At least give credit to MLB and the NBA for facing their corrupt activities with some form of decorum and honesty.

 

Truth is, loyalty here is internal. The NFL cares little about the people who fill the seats of the $300 million stadiums or make the Super Bowl the most-watched annual event in America's pop culture. Truth is, our culture and the culture of the NFL are different. Although it seems the media is part of the NFL's communitarian network, NFL fans are not, even though we are sold on the NFL community.

 

As a presidential aide said in 2004 when explaining to journalists the power of the current administration, "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you are studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to study what we do."

 

Sound familia?

 

Frank Rich might have it wrong: The NFL's latest "Patriot Act" may be the greatest story ever sold.

Edited January 15, 2008 by gift_of_game

[stormgray]

True, what the Pats did was wrong--it violated the rules--but sums were levied and paid. That should be payment enough. And, tell me this...what about all those steroids users? Do we put asterisks next to the teams they played and the wins that they received and the championships their teams were able to get? If Roger Clemens is proven to be roid user, do we just automatically asterisk the Yanks championships that he participated in? Jason Giambi is an admitted roid user. Do we asterisk the Yanks' League titles on the years that he played in?

[Guernica]

True, what the Pats did was wrong--it violated the rules--but sums were levied and paid. That should be payment enough. And, tell me this...what about all those steroids users? Do we put asterisks next to the teams they played and the wins that they received and the championships their teams were able to get? If Roger Clemens is proven to be roid user, do we just automatically asterisk the Yanks championships that he participated in? Jason Giambi is an admitted roid user. Do we asterisk the Yanks' League titles on the years that he played in?

Heck, half of the 2000 World Series Ninnies team are suspected steroid users. Let's put an asterisk on that too, shall we?

 

Roider Clemens insists he was injected with B-12 vitamin supplement. That's funny because when i purchased my B-12 vitamins it didn't come with a syringe

Edited January 15, 2008 by Guernica

[gift_of_game]

^

Why not?

What exactly do you find wrong in that?

should gaudy records, individual awards and championships really be more important than the aforementioned obtuse concepts (fair play, integrity, honesty etc.)?

are you aware that a lot of high school athletes are juicing up just to make it happen?

 

People caught doping/cheating/lying should get what they deserve.

if anything, their records and achievements shouldn't be "asterisked" at all---they should be expunged.

 

===

as for the Pats, they got off easy.

and no, I don't think it's enough.

but it's no big secret that Goodell owes a huge debt of gratitude to Bob Kraft so that's that.

[denimhead]

the roiders were accused ... the hoodie got caught with evidence, and even the hoodie admitted it to the commish .. the roiders still get the benefit of "innocent until proven guilty" ... and yes if thy are proven users during their championship years put an asterisk next to their names