T.O. Still Has the Dropsies

“A perfect pass from Tony Romo” went “right through his hands” forcing a Cowboys punt in the first quarter against the Rams today. T.O. has always had the dropsies. His value, even when he is not in the middle of one of his dysfunctional episodes or rants, is way overestimated. He gives away as much as he contributes. Often, his on-field heroics have been set up by the fact that he played poorly early in the game.

He dropped another one later in the first quarter. I know the Cowboys won. My point is, T.O. is not as valuable as he appears.

Belichick on Belichick: “Some of the things I do are pretty dumb”

“Yes, I think it’s pretty amusing. Some of the things I do are pretty dumb. I appreciate the compliments, but I wouldn’t use that adjective.” –On being referred to as a genius

On film study:
“I think I had an appreciation for it early. A lot of times, guys don’t watch film until they get to college. But I was 10 years old and studying it. Film was important to me.” (24 Oct 2004)

We now know it’s very important to him.

being defending champions
“We’re not defending anything.” (30 Jan 2005)

And that goes for today, too. Mum’s the word.

“If preserving the integrity of the game and presenting it in the right way involves getting lower ratings, then that’s what we’re going to have to accept. If that’s what we have to do to, if that’s the deal, then that’s the deal. This can’t become the XFL.” (19 Nov 2004)

I think he forgot he said this.

Why he doesn’t do his own taping:
“I’m kind of a detail-oriented person, and I don’t mind doing the details. But I found through time that I’m better off not getting involved in those things, so I can do a better job of managing the team. What I found out is that a lot of people do those jobs better than I would have done anyway.” (31 Jan 2002)

Selected quotes from http://www.allthingsbillbelichick.com/.

Patriots Can’t Prove They Won Fairly

What Roger Goodell thought he did by destroying the Patriots’ illegal tapes is exactly the opposite of what he actually did. Goodell thought he made it impossible to prove the Pats cheated in their Super Bowls. Instead, he made it impossible for New England to prove they didn’t. Everyone (rightly) assumes Belicheat’s boys profited from ill-gotten info in their three biggest wins. What the fans need is evidence that they didn’t. Until we see proof Bill’s boys are clean, we should assume they’re not. But they had to do it. Knowing they are guilty without the evidence is just a little bit better than knowing they are guilty with the evidence. There was no way to prove their innocence from the tapes … because they’re not innocent.

Roger Goodell has succeeded in something. He has successfully extended this ethics scandal/integrity crisis to the league office. Now, who’s guarding the hen house?

Evidence In (and Gone): Pats Cheated in Super Bowls

In “Pats’ tapes are gone, but questions remain,” Gregg Easterbrook begins:

Reader Abhijit Kumbare of San Jose, Calif., writes, “It is very fishy that the NFL immediately destroyed all the evidence submitted by the Patriots.” Steve Libenson of New York writes, “Consider what the press reaction would have been if David Stern had collected all the evidence about the ref altering games, then immediately destroyed that evidence without saying what it showed, and did so four days after going on national television and promising to get to the bottom of things.”
Fishy, indeed. On Sunday, Sept. 16, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell went on national TV and promised he would get to the bottom of the Patriots’ sign-stealing. Four days later, the NFL announced all videotapes and other spying materials compiled by the Patriots had been obtained by the league and destroyed. Goodell, who until then had been very upfront in addressing the Beli-Cheat scandal, didn’t go back on television to say what the tapes contained; the commissioner has been in radio silence about the Patriots since the files arrived at the NFL’s Park Avenue headquarters. The league acted in a hurry to dispose of damning documents, but has not revealed what was in the tapes and notes, nor said why there was a rush to get rid of them.

The lack of answers leaves several questions hanging out there. Chief among them: Is it possible the Patriots’ tapes showed some evidence of New England cheating in a Super Bowl?

Fishy yes. Maybe even illegal. No doubt whatsoever: The Pats have cheated at the maximum throughout all their championship runs, including the Super Bowls. The evidence was on the tapes. Which is why a pitiful man, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, had them destroyed. The NFL has gone to H in a handbasket on his watch. “Forget the integrity of the game,” Goodell might have said behind closed doors (or in silent prayer), “just save my job.”

So an unscrupulous villain, Bill Belichick, gets a pass and football gets the shaft.

Fire Goodell.

(More here.)

Are there no honest athletes left?

Colleges are for education.

Today, in “23 Florida State athletes accused of cheating,” the AP reported:

Two athletic department academic assistance employees have resigned and 23 Florida State University athletes were implicated in cheating on tests given over the Internet, school officials said Wednesday.

The athletes represent nine sports and 17 of the students are or have been on scholarship. Officials could not identify the students and could not say which sports are involved because of federal confidentiality restrictions.

University President T.K. Wetherell reported the findings in a letter to the NCAA. He indicated inquires are continuing although an internal investigation failed to find conclusive evidence of a more widespread pattern of cheating.

Cheating on the Internet? How hard can that be? The honor system is dead in big college sports. It’s time that colleges were used for education.

(Read the AP report here.)

Lawrence Taylor = Bill Belichick?

Greg Garber, senior writer for ESPN.com, said this, in “To explain Belichick, go to the tape”:

When details of the signal-stealing emerged a few weeks ago, I thought of something Belichick once told me about Taylor. Despite his bouts with drug use and his sometimes messy personal life, Taylor always gave his best effort — such that it sometimes was — on the field.

“Lawrence completely sells out on every play,” Belichick said. “He doesn’t care about his body — or anyone else’s for that matter. He will do anything it takes to win. Anything.

“The same thing that makes him [an unlikable] human being,” Belichick added in a telling aside, “makes him one of the greatest players who ever lived.”

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I believe the same is true of Bill Belichick.

And forget all those quotes about character.

Vick Digs a Deeper Hole

Oh, man, what is in this guy’s mind? Now we find that, while under court supervision, Vick tested positive for marijuana. Deeper problems with the law, harder for him to ever get back into the NFL. What else have we yet to learn?

At least this increased scrutiny should guarantee he won’t be able to kill or torture any dogs for a while.

The Catalysts of Character Development in Athletes

“Parents, coaches, referees, teammates, and community members … as ‘role models,’ can influence young athletes in positive ways. They, in a sense, can become the foundation for an athletes’ character development.” —Houghton College, Western New York, February 25, 2005

This is a foreign concept to many of the high-profile athletes and coaches in the news today. But it is how it should be. Sports, when played right, should make athletes better people. We are falling far short of this ideal. All five of these categories of people have huge potential to be catalysts for character development in young athletes.

1. Parents: Should be upholding standards of fair play, not berating refs and indulging in fisticuffs.
2. Coaches: Yes, we should expect them to be role models and teach character, not winning at any cost, Mr. B.
3. Referees: Should be good, honest people who do not bait players like recently suspended MLB ump Mike Winters did with Milton Bradley. All referees make mistakes. Let their mistakes not be mistakes of character, but mistaken calls. Let there mistakes be few and, most of all, let them be honest mistakes.
4.Teammates: Young men and women, you have the potential for great good. You don’t need to be selfish poor sports. Rise above it and triumph in the game of life. And most of all, let your character be compelling enough to affect those around you.
5. Community Members: Can make a huge difference in young athletes’ lives … IF they care about the athletes more than the outcomes of the games.

Yankees Fans: the Good and the Bad

“I am a Yankees fan,” a first-grade teacher explains to her class. “Who likes the Yankees?”

Everyone raises a hand except one little girl. “Janie,” the teacher says, surprised. “Why didn’t you raise your hand?”

“I’m not a Yankees fan.”

“Well, if you are not a Yankees fan, then what team do you like?”

“The Red Sox,” Janie answers.

“Why in the world are you a Red Sox fan?”

“Because my mom and dad are Red Sox fans.”

“That’s no reason to be a Red Sox fan,” the teacher replies, annoyed. “You don’t always have to be just like your parents. What if your mom and dad were morons? What would you be then?”

“A Yankees fan.”

This joke has been around for a long time in various versions. This version was recently on rd.com. I generally don’t like to pass on old, stale jokes, but this one gives me the opportunity to say something about Yankees fans.

If they are from New York, I can respect that. But I do not respect any Yankees fan who is not from New York (or doesn’t have another good reason to root for the money-hungry boys). I respect fans who are loyal to their teams, teams that are from the areas where they live, or teams that they have a stake in, like Army or Navy for military men, or like the Baltimore Ravens for a friend of mine who doesn’t live in Baltimore but has a relative who plays for them. But people who root for winners just because they’re winners? Those aren’t fans, they’re just viewers.

I respect fans who are not fair weather fans … fans who stick with their teams through thick and thin. Or even just thin, like my friend who is about the only Arizona Cardinals fan to be found outside Arizona. He’s followed them since they were in St. Louis. And he’s stuck with them. That’s a real fan.

People who root for winners just because they’re winners … forget it. Watch Wheel of Fortune instead.

Fair Play

Knute Rockne, a truly great coach … a greater coach than Bill Belichick (except to Tom Brady), said this:

“Win or lose, do it fairly.”

Knute, where are you when we need you?

Incompetent Refs, Part 1

Refs and the Last-Second Field Goal

A week ago the Oakland Raiders lost a game when a good field goal was called back because a feeble referee attempt to call time out came too late and too quietly. Janikowski doinked the next one and the refs gave the game to an undeserving Bronco team. Yesterday, the refs evened it out with a similar shameful act that let the Raiders have one back at the expense of the Cleveland Browns.

This is shameful. No matter what the rules are about letting the ref know you want a time-out at the last second, the referee is honor bound to stop the play before the snap. It’s unfair to make any kicker kick the same field goal twice. That first kick takes something out of them; the second kick is always harder.

The rule either needs to be changed or we need to get better refs. There is too much at stake in this multi-billion dollar industry to let incompetent referees continue to reverse the rightful outcome of games.

Sports Reveal Character

“Sports do not build character. They reveal it.” —John Wooden (or journalist Haywood Hale Broun; not sure who said it first)

This is true at least when the bad guys get caught … like taping their opponents’ signals or something. Yes, that revealed a certain kind of character.

New England to Become “Stonewallers”

After the New England Patriots name was changed to the Dodgers to accomodate Bill Belichick’s adept sidestepping of open and honest interchange, West Coast fans put up such a hue and cry that the name has been changed again.

“No way we want our proud and honest team associated with that disreputable franchise over in New England,” said L.A. Dodger fan Hector Sanders, especially emphasizing the word “honest.” “They just can’t call themselves the Dodgers!”

Enough pressure in the form of irate fans, plus the threat of a lawsuit from the Dodgers, caused the retreat.

The teams new name, at least as long as Belichick is the coach, will be the New England Stonewallers.

Belichick Out to Humiliate

“The Patriots didn’t need to cheat against the Jets. They would have slaughtered them anyway.” This is a defense a lot of Patriot fans have been driven back to since Patriotgate. They are right. This is one of the things that makes this even worse. There have been coaches in the NFL (they’re known as “good sports”), like Bill Walsh, who refuse to run up the score on a hapless opponent who is already clearly defeated. Belichick, not being a “good sport,” is not in that category. What Patriotgate shows the world is that Belichick does not just want to win, he wants to humiliate the teams he knows he’s going to beat. He is trying to cement his own reputation as a great coach by unethically running up the score on lowly teams, much like big NCAA schools have done with lowly ones, at least until Appalachian State.

Bill Belichick is not a good sport … he is not a good coach … he is a talented coach. It will only be justice if he receives some of the humiliation he has been attempting to rain down on second-rate teams.

Patriots’ Coaches “On the Ball”

A smattering of quotes from Patriots players, all recorded before Patriotgate:

“Our coaches are amazing. They always seem to know what the other team is going to do. They’re so good, it’s almost like they’ve got a video feed right on the other team’s sideline.”

“We owe every one of our scores to our coaching staff. They way they give us information at the last split second … it’s absolutely uncanny.”

“It’s like Coach Belichick is eating their lunch. There has never been a coach so smart. What instincts! He knows what they’re going to call almost as soon as the opposing team does.”

New NFL Awards to Debut: The Hoodies

A new series of NFL awards will debut at the end of this season, according to Bart Bradichick, senior vice president for NFL malfeasance. “The Hoodies will be dynamite,” he said, noting that to win one a player must be on a winning team which has gained some kind of unfair advantage. Players will not be incriminated; acceptance speeches will all be prefaced by the remarks, “If I did it….”

Belichick: “Nice Guys Finish Last”

An unconfirmed reports asserts that Bill Belichick has called into question the genesis of the saying “Nice guys finish last.”

“They say some guy named Durocher said it first,” he is reported to have said. “But even if he did, I’m the one who gave real meaning to the words.”

Some have called the hearsay report into question.

Lombardi Trophy to Become Belichick Trophy

(at least if Brady gets his way)

Brady on Belicheat: “The best head coach in the history of the NFL”

When Tom Brady was asked on camera about Bill Belichick’s role in Patriotgate, he replied, “We don’t believe what anyone says. … He’s probably the best head coach in the history of the NFL.” Move over Bill Walsh and Vince Lombardi. Think of it, no more Lombardi Trophy. From henceforth it will be the Belichick Trophy, and it will especially honor those who find surreptitious ways to get an “edge” on their opponents.

Look at it from Brady’s perspective. He’s got a head coach behind him who will stop at nothing to give him maximum advantage.

He’ll leave no cheat uncheated. You’d be appreciative, too … unless you had ethics.

T.O. Does Something Right

I’m no fan of that supreme narcissist Terrell Owens, but T.O. was fined for doing something right this time. Thestar.com reported:

After seeing the videotape of Terrell Owens’ latest touchdown celebration, the National Football League office wasn’t laughing.

Owens said yesterday he was fined “a good chunk of money” – which he later defined as thousands of dollars – for a celebration that included him using the goal post and football to poke fun at the New England Patriots’ spying scandal during Dallas’ 37-20 victory over Miami on Sunday.

A league spokesman said the fine was $7,500 (U.S.).

“It wasn’t even the fact I used the goal post as a prop,” Owens said. “They said I used the ball.”

(Read the whole report here.)

Owens highjinks long ago ceased to be funny, but this one should have garnered a hearty “amen” from anyone who’s concerned about the integrity of professional football. The NFL wants this to go away because it calls into question the end results of previous games and seasons. A multi-billion dollar enterprise is suddenly seen as polluted and false. All those close games our teams lost … were they being cheated? How many more skeletons are in the New England closet? And which other teams are involved in similar misconduct? The integrity of the whole NFL is at stake.

So, for once, more power to T.O. Let’s keep shining the light on criminal wrongdoing … and let’s find it all.

Bill Belichick to Release New Book: “If I Did It”

Taking a cue from fellow NFLer O.J. Simpson, Bill Belichick has decided to end his silence on the exact nature and extent of his cheating. Embarrassed when the franchise changed the name of his team to the Dodgers, reflective of his adept dodging of any and all questions regarding his malfeasance, Belichick has agreed to end his silence on two conditions: (1) That he be able to write the information rather than face the music, and (2) that he be able to pretend he didn’t do it by using the word “if.”

Thus was born the second recent volume titled If I Did It.

In other news, a new investigation has been opened up to look into new allegations of wrong-doing with regard to “The Tuck.” Our sources tell us that it is possible that an unprecedented ruling could eventuate forcing the Patriot/Dodgers to forfeit entire seasons, a la prior high-profile NCAA rulings. But the likelihood of this is remote.