I don’t think the NFL is trying to “sweep this under the rug”. They feel as though they have addressed and researched what the Pats did. They then punished them (whether or not the punishment fit the crime is an entirely different conversation) and the NFL commish and his office SHOULD be moving on.

Arlen Specter and his “investigation” are a joke. The guy is a 76 year old congressmen who has been openly criticized and even mocked by other members of congress over his calls for a house investigation similiar to Mitchell’s steroid investigation. The steroid issue and the Pats cheating is SO DIFFERENT that I feel like I am taking crazy pills when I hear the two compared. Comparing Specter to a pitbull is laughable. Congress wouldn’t be able to find out anything new even if Specter had his way, which he won’t because NOBODY in congress agrees with him at all.

Steroids are a broad issue that have an effect on the whole country. High school students using steriods has become an epidemic and needs to be addressed even more than it currently is. Various players from every team were taking steroids for who knows how long and the investigation uncovered a number of things that the general public was largely unaware of.

The Pats and NO OTHER TEAMS were taping signals and breaking a specific rule. There is no way of knowing how well NE was able to break other teams signals and how much info they were stealing during games. THE PATS DIDNT KNOW EVERY PLAY THAT THE OTHER TEAM WAS CALLING. Playbooks are so long and complex and feature a number of different variations that a team would be unable to decode the signals enough to know what plays were being called. My guess is that the Pats knowledge of the other teams signals had no effect at all on over 90% of the plays. They probably knew when a team was running left or right a couple of times a game. They maybe knew when a specific position would be blitzing a couple of plays a game. There is no way to find out what impact that advantage had on the games and there is no possible way to change what happened. The Pats won 17 straight games after they stopped cheating. We will never know how much taping the signals helped them, but i can tell you it certainly didn’t look like not taping the signals really hurt them.

I think the US breaking Japan’s naval codes is a shaky analogy to spygate. The US breaking Japanese Naval codes obviously gave them a much bigger advantage than the Pats ever had.

The NFL hasn’t lost any credibility. Ratings and ticket sales were up last season. They will go up again this season. Nobody is going to stop watching or following football because of spygate. Corporate sponsers aren’t going to disappear and the NFL will make more money this year than they ever have before.

If any other team would have done what the Pats did they would have received a nearly identical punishment.

what about this situation makes it look the league is trying to “sweep this under the rug” or “bury this issue”?

where is this favortism?

why does everyone think the NFL has lost integrity or credibility?

what does BALCO have to do with spygate?

“I think Bush ethics have infected the NFL” – ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
i feel sick now.

Bush ethics? Come on, dude… this is a politics-free zone.

I’m with kaisertown on this one – the NFL dealt with the issue, and while I personally think they could have and should have done more, I’m OK with them not furthering the punishment at this point. That’s all I’m ever going to say about cheating.

Kaiser – keuka used BALCO as an example of how Senator Specter can keep issues alive; he’ll do with Spygate what he did with steroids in baseball. That’s all he was saying.

Keuka – I’m with you to the extent that I’m really frustrated that the Pats cheated and are still hailed for their 16-0 season. There really is no way of telling just how much intellectual property they’ve illegally gathered from other teams and how much benefit they have gotten out of it. I’m not ready to argue that the Bills might have won more matchups against the Pats had they NOT cheated, but the frustration is there all the same.

But to your point on Bush ethics infecting the NFL, I think that’s unfair (both to Bush and the NFL). Keep in mind that the NFL is a business made up of profit-driven franchises. Like some big businesses, it sometimes has to deal directly with politicians. But in the end, it is just a business trying to earn its share of the sports industry. If the NFL is trying to sweep anything under the table, I would call it “Corporate Damage Control” and not liken it to political corruption.

I don’t necessarily think the NFL is trying to sweep anything under the rug, but if anyone is guilty of brushing off Spygate, it’s the mainstream sports media.

Early on when Spygate was first made public, I detected knee-jerk outrage from fans and the sports media alike. It didn’t take long before the media were changing the tune and acting like it wasn’t really a big deal. In fact, by the end of the season, they were worshiping Belichick’s sweatshirt.

But even for the media, it all comes down to business. Showing the NFL as shady or a favorite team as cheaters wouldn’t help the individual media outlets that make money off of NFL TV ratings.

In the end, I’m not angry with the NFL or the media. I’m just plain frustrated that a team as good as New England, which we have to play twice a year, has cheated to make themselves that much more unbeatable.

But if any good has come out of Spygate for Bills fans, its that it makes it easier to look at this division rival as the bad guy, and Buffalo as a heroic underdog. When the Bills do finally beat New England again, victory will be very, very sweet.

I wish it would just go away.

Goodell f’ed up and should have laid the iron hammer on the Pats, but he didn’t, and now it’s probably too late for anything else to be done. I just wish it would go away now. I’m sick of hearing about it and it continues to make me sick how the Pats and Belicheck have pretty much gotten away with it all. Let’s hope everyone moves on soon…

...that the initial penalty (the fine and the loss of the pick) was solely for the detected infraction against the Jets. Bob Costas certainly did. If the NFL now knows that this has been going on since at least 2000, then what the Patriots deserve is an NFL equivalent of the NCAA’s “death penalty.”

1) The Patriots are stripped of their titles and the championship in those years officially goes “unawarded”
2) The Patriots lose a #1 and #2 draft choice for every year they were in violation of the rule (not counting the incident where they were already punished). I believe that would mean that they would lose picks from the 2009-2014 drafts.
3) The team is given a one-time fine of $25 million.
4) The team loses their share of television revenue for one full season.
5) The team cannot be involved in any “featured” game where they have sole television coverage and no other game such as MNF, SNF or a Thursday game for a period of six years. They cannot be the “featured” television game on Sunday broadcasts for a period of six years.
6) Bill Belichick is given a lifetime ban from participation in the NFL on any level whatsoever, to include attendance at NFL games. Any Patriot staffer who was involved in the production and distribution of the tapes is given a six year ban.

I think that is punishment that will fit the crime for seven years of cheating and is one that will ensure that the NFL takes such offenses very seriously.