The Patriots and Cheating

So right now a big item in the news is Senator Arlen Specter speaking with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell about the Patriots' "Spygate" scandal. For those of you who aren't familiar, the gist of it is that the Patriots illegally videotaped their opponents in order to gain insight into what plays they were running or what signals they used to communicate during football games. This is a violation of NFL rules.

Anyway, Specter said Goodell confirmed that Belichick had been videotaping since 2000. This of course coincides with the Patriots first Super Bowl victory. Since then they have won 2 additional titles. Of course this casts a shadow of doubt over the Patriots' success in the 2000s. The question is posed 'Are the Patriots 3 Super Bowl wins' tainted by this videotaping activity?

I'm not a Patriots fan and I do have some anti-Patriots bias just based on the fact that I hate them for beating the Steelers several times in the playoffs but I'm going to try and be objective as possible.

Here are two main points that need clarification:
- What is the full explanation of the 'no videotaping' rule?
- When did videotaping the other team become illegal?

I don't know the answers to the above two questions so I'm going to make some assumptions to work with. Let's assume 'no videotaping' is absolute. Under no circumstance are you (a staff member or player of a NFL team) permitted to videotape another team. This means you can't videotape them practicing, in the locker room, during a game, doing a walkthrough or at any instance where the team is convened. Even if you are a spectator you may not videotape the team because you are a member of another team's staff.

If the rule really is absolute it would be amazing because Bill Belichick who many call a 'genius' has repeatedly stated he 'misinterpreted' the rule. If it's as simple as 'no videotaping other teams, period.' how could you misinterpret that?

Let's assume this no videotaping rule has been effect since 1999.

Note: if the videotaping rule was not in effect until 2007 then it is absolutely irrelevant that the Patriots taped opponents from 2000-2006. If there was no rule prohibiting it there was nothing illegal about them engaging in the behavior.

But for our case we'll assume the rule was in effect before the Patriots began taping.

A lot of Patriots fans or defenders use similar rebuttals or excuses to justify the videotaping so I'll list some common ones and give my response to them.

- Everyone else was doing it.
If it was against the rules the fact that other people broke the rule does not change the fact that you broke the rule to begin with. It does not lessen the extent to which you broke the rule. The number of people breaking the rule only reflects either the inability for the rule to be enforced or the lack of respect for the rule.

It wasn't that big of an advantage for the Patriots to tape their opponents -or- The Patriots would have beat them anyway, they stink.
The Patriots were caught for their taping of the lowly New York Jets. Would they have beaten the Jets without the taping, most likely, however this is irrelevant. Just because victory is assured doesn't mean you can circumvent the rules of fair play. The quality of the opponent has nothing to do with the acceptability of breaking a rule. About the advantage - there's really no way to determine if taping provided an advantage or not but once again that point is irrelevant. If you taped the team and immediately burned the evidence you still broke the rule! It doesn't matter if you gained any useful knowledge.

Think of it like this. You have a vocabulary test where you have to give the definition of 10 words. You get stuck on a word so you pull out your cheat sheet...damn, your word isn't on the cheat sheet! It was useless! So does that mean it didn't count as cheating since it didn't help you? I rest my case.

Senators should be worrying about more important issues than cheating in football.
You know, you're probably right. Football in the grand scheme of things isn't that important. But once again, this is a deflection, not a validation. You broke the rule regardless of the whistleblower's work priorities.

You can say the same thing about the police. They probably would best spend their time preventing murders and rapes instead of writing you speeding tickets. However, this fact doesn't change the fact that you were driving 87 in a 65 zone.

You guys are just Patriot haters, you are just jealous!
I admit I hate the Patriots, but what I feel about the team doesn't affect its behaviors. The Patriots made a conscious effort to break the rule without the influence of any of us fans. Frankly, I'm not so jealous of a team that broke league rules during its period of great success. I have no way of knowing how much of the success was due to earnest efforts and how much was gained through unscrupulous methods.

Here's one I hear about the Steelers:
The Steelers in the 70s used steroids.
That may be true, but the question is...was it illegal back then? I don't believe it was so as I stated earlier in this post - it's a total non-issue.

So I've done a lot of blathering and it really comes down to a fairly black-or-white issue.

Let's state it like this.

Rule X: You may not do Y.

You did Y. Therefore you broke Rule X.

Simple as that.