Remember, Remember...

Originally Posted on January 30, 2008

Cheaters Never Prosper… unless they cheat at Football.

With the cold whipping through the Midwest more harshly than it has all year here in Chicago, I can't help thinking that it's a proverbial slap in the face by mother nature, trying to rouse us from our apathetic acceptance of our collective defeats. The three teams closest, geographically, to my heart, the 2006 NFL champion Indianapolis Colts, the 1985 NFL champion Chicago Bears, and the 1997 NFL champion Green Bay Packers, have all fallen this year to the black plague of the league. And in light of the coming game this Sunday, I thought it would a good thing if we heeded mother nature's rattling call, and looked at some facts that may help stir some of us who don't know out of our defeatist attitude, and make those of us who have forgotten remember what makes this game great, and what makes it terrible.

On Sunday September 9^th, 2007 the New England Patriots under coach Bill Belichick, faced the New York Jets under coach Eric Mangini at Giants Stadium. The game was a solid defeat by the Patriots at 38 to 14, and their first of the regular season. At this game NFL security officials confiscated a camera and videotape from Patriots video assistant Matt Estrella on the New England sidelines when it was suspected he was recording the Jets' defensive signals. The visual evidence confirmed the suspicion.

Several days later NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell fined Bill Belichick $500,000 -- the biggest fine ever for an NFL coach -- and the team $250,000 after determining New England violated league rules by videotaping defensive signals from Jets coaches. The Patriots also will have to forfeit either a first-round draft choice or second- and third-round picks.

Jets coach Eric Mangini, the youngest coach in Jets history, is reported to be the one who helped tip off NFL Security to the video taping. This makes sense since he has been working closely with Bill Belichick since he started with the NFL. Both graduated from Wesleyan University and the two were brothers in the Chi Psi Fraternity. Mangini began his career as a ball boy with Cleveland at the age of 23, and later became an intern in the Brown's public relations department. He worked 18 hours a day in the PR department, and at night he made copies of stats in the copy room. Bill Belichick, at the time the Head Coach of the Cleveland Browns, found him there, and liked him so much that he asked the general manager if they had another job for him. Mangini was given the smallest coaching job in the Browns, putting film together for the coordinators. He moved where Belichick moved, and prior to coaching the New York Jets, Mangini worked for the New England Patriots under Head Coach Belichick, first as their defensive backs coach (2000-2004), and later as their defensive coordinator (2005).

Mangini came to that game on September 9^th armed with keen knowledge of the Patriots surveillance methods -- and finally decided to act.

These are the facts. The Patriots were cheating at this game, and they were caught. They were fined, and that was the end of it. No one seems to talk about it anymore. Everyone is awed by their seemingly unstoppable march to an undefeated season. However, let's take these facts, and extrapolate for the sake of argument. The New England Patriots have only won 3 Superbowls in their history, and they've only been to 5. It's worth noting that the 2 Superbowls they lost were the '85 season to the Chicago Bears, and the '97 season to the Green Bay Packers. The 3 they won were in 2001, '03, and '04, all while Bill Belichick was the Head Coach, and Eric Mangini was working as the Defensive Backs Coach. It doesn't take a huge leap to imagine that if Mangini knew that Belichick was violating league rules, he gained that knowledge while working with Belichick in the seasons when the Patriots were winning Superbowls.

Now it's easy in this day and age of player misconduct and personal fines to constantly want to find one person to focus blame on. More often then not there are trainers and coaches, and even loved ones who are aware of a players steroid or drug use, or animal abuse even. However, in this case it is even more widespread. We are speaking of the executive decision by a Head Coach, but also the acknowledgement and compliance with that decision by all assistant coaches, and certainly key players on the team. In effect, we are speaking of a rot that spread through an entire organization. A rot that has gone fairly unchecked, and unpunished for most of this season, and has certainly been growing for years now.

Who should we punish? How should they be punished? The crime committed is not one of murder, or terrorism. The crime was the violation of a league rule. What does it really matter? It only gives them the advantage offensively over every team they face since they have had the opportunity to map their opponents call signals over the course of several years and tailor their game strategy to that. An advantage that no other team has, and that there are rules specifically in place to prevent. How do you punish someone appropriately for corrupting a sport so successfully? How do you reconcile the praise that should be due a team with an undefeated season, and the shame that they have brought to a sport you love, and live and die with?

There will always be a taint on this season, no matter the outcome of Sunday's game. And because of that, we can reasonably cast doubt backwards for almost a decade in the history of this team, and in the records of every team they have faced.

Someone recently said to me "how can you not want the Patriots to win the Superbowl? It would be so humiliating for them to come so far undefeated and then to loose in Superbowl." It would be. And maybe that's the best punishment all the Colts fans, and Bears fans, and Packers fans, and Eagles fans, and Panthers fans, and Rams fans, and fans of the sport, and the love of the game, can hope for.

Go Giants.

-Brad Norris

(Born in Indy. Lives in Chicago.)

January 30, 2007