New England Patriots

Less than two years have gone by, and I’m still amazed that the NFL and the press have managed to keep people from asking more questions about the Patriots’ cheating ways. Although the NFL has done its best to sweep this incident under the carpet, some of you may remember that the Patriots got caught with a videographer on the NY Jets sidelines during the opening game of the 2007 football season. Apparently, the Patriots would film the coaches of the opposing team during the first half of games in an attempt to steal the coaches signals. By halftime, they were able to decipher which plays the coaches were calling, which would then help them during the second half. Strangely, the NFL did NOT force the Patriots to forfeit the game in which they were caught red-handed, despite being caught blatantly violating NFL rules. The Patriots’ defense? The cheating didn’t help them that much. Which of course, begs the question, why do it? And the follow-up? How long have you been cheating? The Patriots were coming off of a 5 year period with unprecedented success, winning 3 Super Bowls in 5 seasons (I think … too lazy to look this up right now).

I think that the NFL realized that a cheating scandal involving the Patriots was a serious risk to their product. In addition, the press tends to make a lot of money off of sports coverage, and had some serious motivation to help the NFL with their cover-up.