PLAYOFFS?! Don't talk about PLAYOFFS!

[Goldenboko]

Well, the National Nightmare continues...a team that should have been banned from post-season play this year is now a game away from the Super Bowl...

...Why?
Because of "Spygate"? Something that got blown out of proportion, many teams in the NFL do, and is really stupid because if you just watch the team you'll see that the work done by the offensive line, the wide receivers, the QB and the Running backs are what push the offensive, not defensive signs.

But then again, I guess everyone hates winners.

EDIT: Total love the fact Green Bay one, Favre is awesome, I love to see the older guys still showing how its done :o

Not only because of Spygate, but because of how they were punished for it. Here's a few ways I think they probably should have been punished!

• At minimum, the outcome of the Jets game where they were caught reversed
• AFC East Division title, should they mathematically win it (which they did), surrendered to the second-place team (which this season would be the Bills)
• Ban from 2007 Playoffs, regardless of record, division title, or wild card status
• The draft pick they received from San Francisco either stripped or surrendered to another team (they lost their own 1st round draft pick, not San Fran's, who I think finished with 4 wins, and thus, they pick 7th as a result)
• OR, at maximum, automatic 0-16, banned for the season, and all non-division opponents on their schedule awarded a win, with division opponents awarded 2 wins

See, if a team did this on the NCAA level, which is a LOWER tier than the NFL, that team would be surrendering wins, and possibly National Titles. In the Olympics, which is believed to be the highest tier in sports, any form of cheating, drug or otherwise, results in surrendering medals (look at Marion Jones). I don't get how the NFL (or the other major professional sports leagues, for that matter) has LOWER standards than the NCAA, and to me, that is sad! I do not take kindly to cheating at all, even to the most minor of degrees! Cheating is still cheating, and I feel that cheaters should never be rewarded, period! I feel that the NFL has been doing so, as evidenced by the lack of an asterisk by their 2007 season and records associated with it, not to mention the fact that the Commish destroyed the confiscated tapes without even letting the public know the full extent of Spygate. Those destroyed tapes could be a LOT more damning to the Pats than the one they got busted with. Those tapes could have contained evidence that Spygate had been going on for YEARS, thus putting a HUGE stain on the Super Bowls that they won, especially when you consider the fact that the Pats won all three of those Super Bowls by a margin of three points each. Somehow, I think the true extent of Spygate was covered up by the Commissioner.

Thats pure fanatic speak. Even much of the media said The way the Patriots where punish was actually setting an example because the league knew other teams where doing it, but didn't have incriminating evidence.
What you say about the tapes holds just as much ground as Bush saying there where nukes in Iraq :P

From listening to sports analysts, other teams have do this, so you can't take away anything. Its like how you can't take anything away from teams that had players that used steroids, you can't prove other teams had juiced players, but since you can assume it you can't penalize.

But then again, I guess everyone hates winners.

No, we hate cheaters for all and more of the reasons stated in the post previous.

The last I checked, this was still a sport. Sports imply some form of honor system and the ever present "sportsmanlike conduct." Cheating is far from sportsmanlike, in the strictest sense. A fair playing field, where skills and team-play are most important. Anyone can buy a camcorder and record something. Where is the justice in that? Cheating, in the strictest sense, is lying and stealing.

Even before Spygate, if you weren't a fan of the Patriots, you hated them.

Here's a question for you then, should everyone now say at least two of the Yankees seasons are now tainted forever, should be null and void, and the team deserves to be hated because Andy Pettitte, Chuck Noblack (sp?) and Roger Clemens took steriods? Of course not, thats foolish, (although I'm sure there's going to be some fanatics that say yes >.>) thats only part of the team, and you can assume in the steroid era, that other teams had juiced players too.

Then why should Spygate forever condemn The Patriots of this decade?
Buying recording and decoding signs will never win you a game, in fact...

As my own coach Shanahan once was quoted, "If we haven't figured out the other team's defensive signals by halftime, we aren't trying hard enough".

And,
Its probable (not just possible), that other teams have done it.

The reason some fans, (and some analysts), are going to condemn them, is because their bitter. They hated them in the first place, for winning, or otherwise. And this is just an excellent reason to condemn a team.

EDIT: 1:03 on the clock 4th and 5, Indy's in a pickle.