Cheating in Professional Sports

[Skyblade]

I am not a follower of professional sports: They hold almost no interest for me, and I vastly prefer playing my video games. Nevertheless, I can hardly help but notice the massive cheating scandals that are sweeping the world of professional sports. However, reviewing the various media footage, I realize that there is at least one sport which remains untouched by these activities: Hockey. Being one of the few professional sports I enjoy watching at all, I am rather pleased that it has managed to keep clean thus far. This of course led me to wonder why it remained unaffected by the growing cheating spree (realizing the possibility that hockey may simply have avoided being caught or noticed yet). One possible explanation that occured to me (though by no means the only one), is the lockout year. Professional sports are no longer sports. The game is no longer the focus, it's all about the money. Hockey players demanded more money, and staged a lockout that resulted in the near criminal skipping of a year of the Stanley Cup. They learned that they were being paid to play a game, and that if the were unwilling to play, people would find entertainment elsewhere. The humility such a discovery would make on the players is of course strictly temporary, but it would explain why Hockey is one of the few sports that is not having to explain why its teams are cheating to the media. It's a lesson, that I feel would benefit all professional sports: They are being payed to play a game. They are entertainers, not supermen who are immune to the laws. The sport is what is important. When competitors cheat, there is no competition anymore.

Feel free to post your own opinions of the causes and effects of the current cheating frenzy.

[edczxcvbnm]

The cause of the cheating frenzy is because everyone wants to win and they have always done it by any means possible. Look back in the NFL to when the Bears and the Packers were just getting started up. The Packers got someone that the Bears wanted but that person was not of the correct age or was still in high school. At the time this was against league rules and yet everyone was doing it. Papa Bear Halas got the Packers kicked out of the league that year despite the fact this was common practice across the league including the Bears doing.

Anything to win and gain an advantage.

As for what I think of the drugs? I think that the leagues need to come down extra hard on players, coaches and owners. They need a better system than random drug testing. Today's drugs are getting better at getting around the tests and new drugs keep hitting that have no way to detect sometimes.

[theundeadhero]

The current scandal with the Cardinal taking a certain HGH bothers me. He was prescribed it in 2004 for injuries, a time when that particular HGH was still legal. It became illegal afterwards in 2005 and now everyones all like oh no he took illegal stuff. WTF?

[edczxcvbnm]

The Patriots cheating scandal makes me happy. I hate them so much!

[Kirobaito]

Well, Bill Belichick got fined $500,000, the Patriots were fined $250,000, and if they make the playoffs they'll lose their first round pick next year (2nd and 3rd if they don't). I'd say that's a good punishment. Lay down the hammer on them. No telling how long they've been doing (and getting away with) this.

[Del Murder]

Well it is a game, and though millions of dollars are involved they are still just cheating in a game. But when drugs are involved it's a different story. I'm with ed that drug policies need to be stricter.

I'm sure people cheat in hockey, it's just that hockey isn't very popular so no one really cares.

I'm still not clear on what the Patriots did exactly.

[Mo-Nercy]

There's been cheating in Formula One too. Supposedly. Long story short, Ferrari engineer sends blueprints to a McLaren engineer. The governing body of F1, the FIA turns to McLaren and punishes the entire team for "spying". McLaren is now booted from the Constructors Championship (after leading it) and also is forced to pay a schmick fine of $100 million.

I have some pretty strong opinions regarding this, but I'll avoid it since it's not really related to the topic...

On that note, back to it. xD. Cheating in professional sports. BAD.

[Jess]

I don't approve of cheating in any circumstances, so in sport my views are exactly the same.

[edczxcvbnm]

McLaren is now booted from the Constructors Championship (after leading it) and also is forced to pay a schmick fine of $100 million.

Now THAT is a penalty. Make everyone one 100% fear it to the point of not even attempting it but have them put measures in place to prevent possible cheating.

Patriots got off light. If I was the commish.

- Coach Suspended for the rest of this season
- Max Fine for Coach
- Max Fine for team which would also go against their salary cap next year.
- Loss of all 1st-4th round draft picks
- Game against Jets last week over turned in favor of the Jets due to cheating

I feel like the patriots got a slap on the wrist. Especially given that they were specifically warned not to do this sort of thing. Gotta come down much harder. They already have multiple draft picks in the first and third round so this doesn't really hurt them at all.

[escobert]

The Patriots cheating scandal makes me happy. I hate them so much!

srsly.

[El Bandito]

McLaren is now booted from the Constructors Championship (after leading it) and also is forced to pay a schmick fine of $100 million.

Now THAT is a penalty. Make everyone one 100% fear it to the point of not even attempting it but have them put measures in place to prevent possible cheating.

Patriots got off light. If I was the commish.

- Coach Suspended for the rest of this season
- Max Fine for Coach
- Max Fine for team which would also go against their salary cap next year.
- Loss of all 1st-4th round draft picks
- Game against Jets last week over turned in favor of the Jets due to cheating

I feel like the patriots got a slap on the wrist. Especially given that they were specifically warned not to do this sort of thing. Gotta come down much harder. They already have multiple draft picks in the first and third round so this doesn't really hurt them at all.

That's absolutely ridiculous. You're kidding yourself if you think other teams aren't doing something similar. Hell even my coach Mike Shanahan has been quoted as saying something along the lines of "Oh yeah, we have a guy with binoculars on our sideline. If all goes well, we should have their defensive signals figured out by halftime." The Pats just got caught in a stipulation where they actually broke a rule in the rulebook. I'm not saying what they did was right, but that's already the most money ever fined to a single person in the NFL and the loss of a 1st when (not if) they make the playoffs is big for a team that's known for building off the draft. If both first round picks were taken then the Patriots would've got Joe Staley for nothing in return.

Also, you have to realize the NFLPA won't let Goodell take out two first round draft picks. That's two less players not paying bigger unions dues since they're not getting first round money.

The only way to judge if this punishment was harsh enough is to see how the league reacts. A precedent of punishment is now set and I highly doubt any other team will want to get caught and have their picks taken away.

I'm not trying to call you out or anything, but when you say:

The Patriots cheating scandal makes me happy. I hate them so much!

...it's hard to consider your opinion non-biased.

[edczxcvbnm]

McLaren is now booted from the Constructors Championship (after leading it) and also is forced to pay a schmick fine of $100 million.

Now THAT is a penalty. Make everyone one 100% fear it to the point of not even attempting it but have them put measures in place to prevent possible cheating.

Patriots got off light. If I was the commish.

- Coach Suspended for the rest of this season
- Max Fine for Coach
- Max Fine for team which would also go against their salary cap next year.
- Loss of all 1st-4th round draft picks
- Game against Jets last week over turned in favor of the Jets due to cheating

I feel like the patriots got a slap on the wrist. Especially given that they were specifically warned not to do this sort of thing. Gotta come down much harder. They already have multiple draft picks in the first and third round so this doesn't really hurt them at all.

That's absolutely ridiculous. You're kidding yourself if you think other teams aren't doing something similar. Hell even my coach Mike Shanahan has been quoted as saying something along the lines of "Oh yeah, we have a guy with binoculars on our sideline. If all goes well, we should have their defensive signals figured out by halftime." The Pats just got caught in a stipulation where they actually broke a rule in the rulebook. I'm not saying what they did was right, but that's already the most money ever fined to a single person in the NFL and the loss of a 1st when (not if) they make the playoffs is big for a team that's known for building off the draft. If both first round picks were taken then the Patriots would've got Joe Staley for nothing in return.

Also, you have to realize the NFLPA won't let Goodell take out two first round draft picks. That's two less players not paying bigger unions dues since they're not getting first round money.

The only way to judge if this punishment was harsh enough is to see how the league reacts. A precedent of punishment is now set and I highly doubt any other team will want to get caught and have their picks taken away.

I'm not trying to call you out or anything, but when you say:

The Patriots cheating scandal makes me happy. I hate them so much!

...it's hard to consider your opinion non-biased.

I agree that I am very bias and I don't deny that my punishment is beyond harsh. I think I went over board on the draft picks being taken away but I stand by everything else I said. They broke the rules after they were warned of this. They have had run ins with this in the past. They deliberately broke the rules knowing that it is considered cheating. Coach should be suspended the whole season. I feel he challenged the integrity of the sport. Players are getting suspended for stuff totally unrelated to football and all he gets is a fine. WEAK!

Even weaker when you consider what happened to McLaren for spying. Now THAT is a punishment and the ultimate deterrent. Not saying the NFL has to go that far but compared to that the Patriots got a slap on the wrist.

[Bloodline666]

I've been told "through the grapevine" that Eric Mangini, the most likely suspect to have snitched on Belichick, was once an accomplice in this whole spying thing. I think the Pats have been doing this ever since Bledsuck was the starting QB and the Tuna was the Head Coach; Belichick was on the Tuna's coaching staff not only with the G'aints back in the 80s, but also with the Pats in 1996, so I have reason to believe that Parcells knew of the espionage that was going on from his coaching staff. I've also heard that Belichick's been doing this while he was the head coach of the Cleveland Browns.

Belichick's supposed history of sideline spying aside, the Pats, as a team, still fall short of the record for most consecutive years of cheating by a single NFL team. That record belongs to the Oakland Raiders, which was done during the late 60s, throughout the 70s, and in the early 80s (in a nutshell, the first decade and a half of Al Davis owning the Raiders). The Holy Roller, Fred Biletnikoff's abuse of Stickum, Lester Hayes one-upping Biletnikoff with Stickum (which led to the NFL's subsequent ban on the sticky stuff), etc. And the cheating fit perfectly with the bad boy image the Raiders had, which made them all the more notorious throughout the league. Hell, they were so notorious for cheating that the Jets were once paranoid that the next helicopter they saw flying over their practice field was, in fact, a Raiders spy (a fear the Cowboys had about the Redskins during that same time peroid). Hell, the Silver and Black were even accused of watering down the field when they were about to play a team known for its speed. So if you want to see the team that best epitomizes cheating in sports, look no further than the Oakland Raiders (unfortunately, they could use some cheating nowadays).

As for the signal spying, that actually might have been prevented this off-season by a proposal that would allow Defensive Coordinators to send verbal messages to a designated defensive player in the same manner that quarterbacks receive their play calls; by way of a radio unit built into their helmets. That proposal was voted down in the Competition Committee's meeting. Make no mistake about it; that very same proposal will come back next off-season, and will be voted in the NFL rule book, possibly carrying the name of "The Bill Belichick Rule."

[Tavrobel]

The Patriots cheating scandal makes me happy. I hate them so much!

I approve of this post. I also agree that they got it off easy.

[Bloodline666]

The Patriots cheating scandal makes me happy. I hate them so much!

I approve of this post. I also agree that they got it off easy.

If you're thinking about right now, yeah, they got off easy. But the effects of this punishment will probably carry greater long-term consequences. I don't think a coach's suspension, be it the head coach or an assistant coach/coordinator/position coach, would affect the team in any way. However, the a first-round draft pick is equivalent to a pot of gold. Yes, they would've had two first-round draft picks next year had this not happened (they got one from San Fran in a draft-day trade). However, as El Bandito pointed out earlier, if the Patroits lost BOTH of their first round draft choices, then the NFLPA would fight through hell and high water to block it. Whether this punishment was stiff or lenient, only time will tell.

On a related note, Roger Goodell has stated earlier today in a pre-game interview that if he finds any information about this incident that he does NOT know, then he reserves the right to stiffen the penalty. Goodell was told by Belichick that it was merely a misinterpretation of the rule. If Goodell obtains any evidence of more of this crap going on, even beyond the video taped footage, then Belichick is screwed...look what happened to Michael Vick when he was found to have lied to the Commissioner.