The media has finally had its prayers answered and now has some dirt on New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick. Everyone has been talking about Belichick and linking his name to cheating, something which seems to be happening to every star in this modern era of sports, but I believe we have missed the bigger picture here. Commissioner Roger Goodell, ‘the strict disciplinarian to whom all other major sports commissioners should be looking to as a role model,’ blew the punishment.
In the last year Goodell has had his hands full between ‘Pacman’ Jones, Chris Henry, ‘Tank’ Johnson, Mike Vick’s ‘Bad News Kennels’ and the entire Cincinnati Bengal defense spending more time in the penitentiaries of Ohio more often than Paul Brown Stadium, and he handled them well. So I guess the law of averages would state that Goodell was due to drop the ball like a wide open Justin McCareins with the game on the line, but this was an atrocious oversight.
For those of you who haven’t turned on a TV in the last week, Belichick has been accused ‘ for a third time ‘ of videotaping an opposing team’s defensive coordinators as they were signaling their players the play calls. While this is by no means the first time opposing teams have stolen one another’s signals, the arrogance of which Belichick handled this ordeal should have at least gotten him suspended for a playoff game.
Even after being handed a personal half a million dollar fine and costing his team at least one early draft pick in next year’s draft, Belichick refuses to utter the words ‘wrong,’ ‘sorry’ or even ‘mistake.’ The only thing we have him on record as saying is, ‘Well, that’s not how we interpreted the rule to be.’ Oh yeah, Bill, because I’m sure you thought capturing a bootleg copy of the Jets’ season from the sideline was perfectly legal.
Maybe you should have spoken to the AV guys at the stadium to broadcast their game plan on the Gillette Titantron in the back of both end zones.
Consider me old fashioned, but I remember 1919 and hearing of these guys called the Chicago Black Sox, some of the greatest players of their time, being black-balled from baseball forever for throwing a World Series game. Oh, and Pete Rose, the greatest hitter of all time ‘ he’s never even been seriously considered for the Hall of Fame because he might have gambled on games while managing the Cincinnati Reds. So maybe I’m a little biased in my opinion that Bill Belichick should indeed be ‘moving forward’ and ‘moving on’ like he says he is. But not moving on to focusing on the Patriots’ landslide win over the Chargers, but to the unemployment line, forever disbarred from the National Football League.
Maybe if he wore dreadlocks rather than that homeless man’s hoodie, Goodell would have come down on him with the same wrath he’s shown against the players’ questionable actions.