The Rams tape story was irrelevant to the big picture, and (as Winston has noted here on this board) was probably floated by someone in the Pats organization to flush out Walsh. More importantly, Walsh has demonstrated that the Pats cheated since 2000, Belly knew he was breaking the rules and did it anyway, and that Belly lied to the Commish and the NFL as a whole when he said he "misinterpreted" the rules. I'm satisfied, emotionally or otherwise. The Pats* legacy is tainted in the eyes of NFL fans. With 50k votes recorded, here's the results from the key ESPN Sports Nation poll question: 4) How would you classify videotaping an opponents' signals in football? 60.3% Cheating 39.7% Gamesmanship
umm there was proof you guys cheated in the afc championship. but i guess cheating in the game that gets you to the championship makes you a champion somehow?
Eddy.. I was talking about his "Flutie" story, pure speculation .. The writer even says "second hand" ..
i could care a less about the flutie story cuz even if true flutie would never say a thing so itll remain another rumor around the facts. which the nfl had plenty of evidence and destroyed it and act like nothing happened. take 1 1st rd pick from a team with two and fine billionaires chump change. thats a slap on the wrist, further more it looks like walsh had more or other copies and used it to get money from the pats knowing the league wants to save face and end the media coverage. therefore the only main story you hear the league standing by is "well the super bowl rams tape doesnt exist" ok even if that didnt what about the rest of the evidence that was destroyed and the proof of other games. to me this isnt a matter of if it happened its now official its a matter of how will the league twist the story to cover their own ass or will they take a stand and make a further example? i wont be expecting that second option. so let the whitewashing begin.
I'm glad I remembered it and brought it up. Still, if he should ever be called to the carpet... Flutie Flakes Out. For sure. And that cereal sucks.
What's the opinion of 50,000 ESPN.com users supposed to suggest, other than that the majority view of them considered it to be cheating?
I think everyone agrees that: taking steroids is cheating and having an referee found to be totally corrupt is extremely disturbing and damaging to public apearence. The ref situation hasn't stopped any revenue from streaming into the NBA, and god knows it hasn't hurt the MLB or NFL to be infested with PED use.
1. That 60% of NFL fans think that the Pats cheated. 2. Only the Massholes living in Chowdland (and Nebraska and Bradyland, Michigan), think that the Pats' titles were won fairly.
Wow I never realized how accurately the opinions of 50,000 people who happen to be on epsn.com at a random point during the day translates into a clear picture of the collective opinion of NFL fans. edit: this isn't the say that the majority of the country doesn't necessarily view the accomplishments as tainted, but rather that the results of an espn.com sportsnation poll don't even approach being scientific.
Neither of those issues can be directly attributed to a dynasty team's overall success. (by this, I mean during the tenure of the dynasty) Why do you think the NFL was so scared of a Rams walkthrough tape? And why do you think all owners want this put behind them? The Super Bowl is not a portion of their product, it IS their product. Plus, neither of the other sports rakes in the cash with a proprietary broadcasting deal like the NFL has.
1) Knowing now that the walkthrough tape doesn't exist, I think it's safe to say the NFL knew all along that it didn't 2) Neither of those sports rake in as much cash? How about the NFL? The NFL gets a pass on steroids, and I don't understand why. Read the steroid policy closely and you will see many loopholes.
We don't know that it didn't exist, just that it was never produced. You want to believe that it didn't exist, so I'm sure that works for you. I agree about the steroids, baseball is under a microscope and the NFL gets by with their half-assed enforcement.
I suppose we can't ever know that something doesn't exist because that doesn't really make sense, but considering that the evidence was so insubstantial that the Herald has issued an apology for ever printing that there was a walkthrough tape, I'd consider it a safe bet that it never happened.
