It’s amazing to me the attention and outrage expressed against Bill Belichick and the Patriots for Spygate when there’s much more serious cheating going on in the NFL.  I mean, Belichick gets lynched for taping a team to figure out its tendencies.  A practice that I sincerely believe Belichick thought was a grey area in the rules.  Anyways, that’s what coaches are paid to do, analyze film to gauge a team’s tendencies.

In comparison, we have a multitude of other teams tampering with free agency.  For example, the 49er’s were recently penalized a 5th round draft pick for tampering with the Bear’s Lance Briggs in free agency.  The quality of players (or lack thereof) has a much more dramatic affect on the outcome of a game than whether or not a coach can crack an opposing team’s defensive signals.  How about the Patriot’s 2006 season?  Remember the Dion Branch fiasco when the Patriots were basically forced to trade their best receiver away at the beginning of the season?  Where was the outrage, outside of New England, when the Jets tampered with Dion Branch?  The 2006 AFC championship game against the Colts was so close one play could have changed the outcome of the game.  Ya think having Branch would have made a difference?  No, not at all  ;).

It doesn’t stop with free agency tampering.  Numerous teams have also violated the salary cap.  Those same 49ers were penalized $400000 for violating the cap in Steve Young and Brent Jone’s contracts.  The same Steve Young who lambasted Belichick and the Patriots on ESPN.  Its not just the 49ers.  The Broncos were penalized, not once, but twice for salary cap violations.  The first was in regards to John Elway’s contract.  Should the Broncos also have an asterix next to their superbowl victories?  Where was the outrage?   Spectre, where are you?  Oh, I forgot, you’re a senator from Pennsylvania, not one from Georgia or Wisconsin.

All and all, I’m fine with the Patriots getting punished by the commissioner.  What I’m not fine with is the Patriots being treated as a special case by the media and the fans.  I want to see equal outrage against other teams that violate the rules, equal press coverage.  Its only fair that fans in San Francisco, New York, and Denver experience similar humiliation and witch hunts.

I just found out some information that for some reason makes me feel responsible for the Patriots loss. Know who Plaxico (Giant’s wide receiver who caught game winning touchdown) Burress’s QB was in college? BILL BURKE! Yes, this is not a misprint Bill BLEEPIN Burke!!! Check out this article I found on a game Bill Burke and Plaxico played together in college.

Well, it seems Mr. Burke beat Michigan to remain undefeated at the time. Guess who was the Michigan QB? YUP, FREAKIN TOM BRADY!!!! I almost shit my pants.

Know how I found out about this?  Well, I was looking at my blog stats and found that somebody had found my site by searching “Bill Burke vs. Tom Brady”.  I was like WTF would somebody do a search like that?  Lo and behold….

In honor of the Patriots 18-0, one to go, season and Superbowl XLII, I thought I’d reminisce a bit. Tailgating at the AFC championship game last week, my dad and I were trying to come up with the top five, top ten, best Patriots games we’ve ever seen live. Really, when you’ve been a season ticket holder for 15 seasons, most of the games blur into one another. The one’s that actually stand out are the ones that are the best. Here’s my top ten, in ascending order, least favorite to favorite. Remember, these are games I was actually at. This list would be very different if it was a combined games I was at and watched on TV.

#10. September 9th, 2004. Patriots vs. Colts, regular season. 27-24

This was the season opener after the Pats 2nd Super Bowl victory. These games are cool because they have a big, Super Bowl like, ceremony before the game unveiling the banner. The game itself was a little ugly. The best was Vanderjerk missing the tieing field goal at the end of the game.

#9. October 14th, 2001. Patriots vs. Chargers, regular season. 29-26 in overtime

Flutie was San Diego’s starting quarterback. This was the game when you knew we had something special in Tom Brady. The Pats came back from I think a 10 point deficit in the 4th quarter to beat the Chargers in overtime. Adam Vinateri kicked the game ending kick. One of many that season.

#8. January 18th, 2004. Patriots vs. Colts, AFC championship. 24-14

This was the first playoff matchup between the Pats and Colts. Corey Dillon was a beast that day. Brady threw a late 4th quarter interception that made the game a lot closer than it really was. After this game Bill Polian, the Colts GM, complained to the rule committee in the offseason about the physical play of Patriot’s corners and got a rule change. Scumbag. If you can’t win, change the rules. What a putz. I’d much rather break rules that are stupid and be called a cheater than to use personal power to change the rules in my favor. In my mind, this action was far far worse than Cameragate.

#7. January 10th, 2004. Patriots vs. Titans, divisional playoff. 17-14

The game was kinda boring. What was memorable was the temperature. This was a night game in January. The temperature was 0 F degrees (that’s very negative for all you Celsius guys). We tailgated before the game in T-Shirts. What?!?! T-Shirts? Well, my dad brought a propane heater which we put under a canopy. We tied a hug plastic tarp around the canopy to keep the heat in. What was funny was that when you were standing it was incredibly toasty. I was wearing a T-shirt. But, if you sat down, you froze your ass off. During the game, I remember this guy sitting next to me bring 2 beers to his seat. Halfway through his first beer, it became frozen. The other one was frozen as well. What a waste of $15 for the dude. I stayed with hot chocolate that game. Stayed pretty warm until about the end of the 4th quarter. The lesson of this game, as a fan, was survival.

#6. November 13, 1994. Patriots vs. Vikings, regular season. 26-20 in overtime

The Patriots were 3-6 on that date and it looked like yet another year of no playoffs with a losing season. The Patriots, under Drew Bledsoe came back from a deficit to beat the Vikings at home in overtime. In this game, Bledsoe threw an NFL record for passes and completions. The Pats went on to win their next 6 games to launch themselves into the playoffs.

#5. September 9th, 2002. Patriots vs. Steelers, regular season. 30-14

This was the season opener after the Patriots 1st Super Bowl victory. This game was incredible for two reasons. One, they had a huge ceremony before the game showing a video made by the players on the big screen. When they unfurled the Pats 1st Superbowl banner, the place went nuts. I have never-ever heard Gillette stadium be that loud and this was *BEFORE* the game! You just knew there was no way the Patriots were going to lose that game. The second reason? Well, if you remember, the Pats had beaten the Steelers in the AFC championship game. The Steelers talked a lot of smack after that game saying that they lost to an inferior team, that the Pats were lucky, that if they played again, the Steelers would definitely win. (BTW, this is what half the teams said about the Pats all year long after they lost to them). The Pats absolutely destroyed the Steelers in that game. Throughout the game, to get the fans psyched up (like they needed it at all), the would put Kordell Stewart’s press conference on the big screen where he talked smack about the Pats. Kordell was heckled throughout the game. Cool stuff.

#4. December 21st, 1996. Patriots at Giants,. 23-22

This game was not at Foxboro, but in NYC at the Meadowlands. It was the last game of the 1996 season. The Patriots needed a win to clinche a 1st round bye. IIRC, the Pats were down 22-3 (or something) going into the 4th quarter of that game. Dave Megget ran back a punt return. The pivotal play was the Pats last score to go ahead. Ben Coates received a Drew Bledsoe pass at about the 2-3 yard line of the Giants. Coates was met by 2-3 Giants defenders, but would not go down. Pushing, driving a mass of players came together like a Rugby scrum until Coates was pushed into the endzone. I went nuts. I had endzone seats that game in the same endzone Coates scored. I was wearing my old Pats jacket and was receiving constant flack from Giants fans the entire game. When Coates I was jumping, screaming and yelling with joy with tears in my eyes, hugging one of my friends. When I finally stopped rejoicing I looked around me to see the whole section staring at me angrily. It was a special moment.

#3. January 5th, 1997. Patriots vs. Steelers, divisional playoff game. 28-3

This game was the year the Pats went to Superbowl XXXI. It was a very very strange day. We had gotten a bunch of snow the week before. That day, however, the temperature was very warm. 50’s or 60’s or something, IIRC? It was very cloudy, and intensely foggy. In the opening game ceremonies, they had fireworks to go along with the national anthem. It was so foggy that combined with the smoke from the fireworks, you could see nothing. I have endzone seats and the fog was so bad you couldn’t see past mid-field. There were two plays that were memorable to me. The 1st was the 1st offensive snap by the Pats. Drew Bledsoe threw a bomb to Terry Glenn and the route was on. The 2nd play was a 70 yard touchdown run by Curtis Martin. I remember him breaking threw the defensive line and sprinting down the field. He disappeared into the fog at about the 50 yard line. My dad and I didn’t know he scored until we heard the cheers of the fans and the scoreboard change.

#2. January 16h, 2005. Patriots vs. Colts, divisional playoff game. 20-3

Another game where the national media picked the Colts to defeat the Patriots. With less than one minute to go in the game, the Colts were driving down the field to try to salvage some dignity after being held to 3 points the entire game. Not one person in the stands had left on this cold January day. Gillete was actually the 2nd loudest I have ever heard it. Bruschi was going crazy. Usually, linebackers are lined up in position before the snap. Bruschi was running sideline to sideline jumping and flapping his arms to get the fans even more riled up. Nobody wanted the Colts to score even one more point. They didn’t. Rodney Harrison intercepted a Manning pass in the endzone to really finish the game.

#1. January 19th, 2002. Patriots vs. Raiders, divisional playoff game. 16-13 in overtime

This is a classic I wish they would replay in its entirety on NFL Network. This game was at night in the Patriots Superbowl XXXVI run during a N’oreaster. (Severe New England blizzard). This was the most intense tailgating experience we had ever had. This guy Jason we tailgated with brought lobster and fried up an entire turkey. Delicious! The snow was coming down hard the entire game. When the famous Tuck Rule happened where it looked like Brady had fumbled, but really didn’t, my whole section had gathered up their things and starting walking up the stairs to leave the stadium. We couldn’t believe it could end like that. But wait! It didn’t. Review from the booth! The rest was history. Much like the fog game, (but not even as close as bad), it was hard to see things past the 50 yard line. Vinateri’s 45 yard tieing field goal to send the game into overtime was a kick I did not see. The snow was coming down too hard. Had to listen for the roar of the fans to know had scored. I was lucky enough to have the game winning kick in our endzone. Took us forever to get out of the parking lots that night, but nobody cared.

What? No Superbowls in this list? Yeah, unfortunately I’ve never been to a Superbowl. You are not guaranteed seats as a season ticket holder. Instead you are placed in a lottery. In the 5 Superbowls the Pats have been to in the last 15 years, I have yet to win it (including this year). What? I didn’t scalp tickets? Go to stubhub.com or a similar site and see how much they cost. Anyways, I’m not bitter. I have a lot of great memories. I hope to see the Pats set NFL history with the first perfect 19-0 season.

RALEIGH, N.C.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Red Hat (NYSE: RHT - News), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that their JBoss division which they acquired for $350 million dollars back in June, 2006, will undergo a complete rebranding of their product line. JBoss will be rebranded to JMoss. The move is expected to skyrocket sales and take the old JBoss product line to an undefeated presence in the middleware market.

“Having boss as your brand is one thing. I like being the boss, but having Moss be the cornerstone of your brand turns a great team into an unbeatable one,” said Matthew Szulik, CEO of Red Hat. “The executive team, being Massachusetts natives, are all behind such a move,” said Paul Cormier, Executive VP of Engineering, “One of our engineers, Bill Burke, came up with the idea while watching our local football team embarrass an overrated opponent over the weekend. I thought it fit, so I passed the idea along to Matthew.” When Sacha Labourey, CTO of the JMoss division, heard that the rebranding was inspired by Masschusett’s american football team he said, “Us Europeans realize that american football is the best sport in the world and that soccer is for girly men, so I’m 100% behind the rebranding.”

About Red Hat, Inc.

Red Hat, the world’s leading open source solutions provider, is headquartered in Raleigh, NC with over 50 satellite offices spanning the globe. CIOs have ranked Red Hat first for value in Enterprise Software for four consecutive years in the CIO Insight Magazine Vendor Value study. Red Hat provides high-quality, affordable technology with its operating system platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, together with applications, management and Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) solutions, including the JMoss Enterprise Middleware Suite. Red Hat also offers support, training and consulting services to its customers worldwide. Learn more: http://www.redhat.com.

Edited 12/11: I can’t believe I have to say this, but a couple of people thought this entry was real.  GUYS, its just for fun!

Its funny reading all these articles on, if you had the 1st pick in the draft and Manning and Brady were available, who would you pick? The answer becomes obvious if you think about it. How many times has Manning melted down in playoff games vs. Brady?

Manning:

• 2003 AFC Championship game. 3 Interceptions by Ty Law. Need I say more?
• 2004 AFC Divisional game. 3 points? Even after you got the competition committee to change the rules? You suck Manning.
• 1st half 2006 AFC Champinship game. Asante Samuel picks off Manning for a touchdown. Looked confused the entire half. Yeah, he had a great 2nd half, but how much of that was a patriots defense lacking its 2 starting safeties and a team that had the flu going around?

Brady:

• 2005 AFC Divisional against Denver. One loss for a team that didn’t have the talent to do a 3-peat.

Everybody always wondered: what if Brady had the same receivers Manning did? Now we know. Considering only one receiver from 2006 is active from the Pats, Jabar Gaffney, and is a 4th stringer, also considering the Pats #1 receiver has been active on the Redskins a total of 1 game all year, just shows you how good Brady is. and how much better he makes everybody else around him is just astounding.

Then there are the off-the-field intangibles. Manning is in a million commercials. Brady has done only a few, but even then he has had teammates with him to share the limelight (and I assume, the cash). Manning whines like a baby whenever he makes a mistake in a game. Sometimes even blaiming players other than himself. You won’t see Brady doing that. Finally, who can like somebody that is part of an organization that whines to the competition committee to get the rules changed because you got beat so bad in the AFC Championship game?

Really, I can’t wait for tomorrow’s Colts-Pats match up. Good vs. Evil as some people in the media would like to portray it. Hopefully I won’t have to eat any crow over this email.

Edited after game:  See?  Now Peyton knows how it feels to have no receivers and lose by 4 points in a playoff-like game to a team you should have beaten.

Does anybody else think its fishy that 24 hours after the Boston Globe reported that the Patriots had cooperated with the NFL, given all tapes and notes, that the tapes had been destroyed, and case closed by the league office, there is no mention of the story on espn.com or cnnsi.com’s web site?  I mean, usually these guys are on top of every story within seconds of it being released.  Maybe ESPN doesn’t want to report it because of this 5 day old bullshit story by Greg Easterbunnybrook saying Belichick won’t last the season is one of their highlighted stories. 

No, I think the media doesn’t want the story to end.  Controversy sells, good positive news doesn’t.  That’s another thing I should have warned the patriots of in my last pats blog, the media will never ever have something good to say about you again.  And will focus on the negative, because it drives traffic to their sites or sells papers.

Ok, after a day to reflect and read all the articles and see all the commentary, I think this whole thing is being blown way out of proportion.  I take Bill Belichick’s latest comment pretty literally and I’m surprised nobody is dissecting it more in the press.  Even the Boston press this morning seems to have ignored Bill’s post-penalty comments.

As the Commissioner acknowledged, our use of sideline video had no impact on the outcome of last week’s game. We have never used sideline video to obtain a competitive advantage while the game was in progress.

Part of my job as head coach is to ensure that our football operations are conducted in compliance of the league rules and all accepted interpretations of them. My interpretation of a rule in the Constitution and Bylaws was incorrect.

Everybody asks the question, why did Bill Belichick do this petty stuff when he already had a dominant team?  Maybe the answer isn’t so diabolical as members of the press seem to like to paint a picture of.  Maybe its as simple as he tapes the signals to review  after the game and that he didn’t believe this was a violation.

Its funny seeing opponents come out of the woodwork asking if their games were tainted with this.  Hines Ward questioning the 2001 and 2004 AFC championship games against the Steelers.  Let’s review those.  In 2001, the Patriots scored a total of 3 offensive points in the 2nd half of the game.  Huge advantage huh?  In 2004, the game was already over by the second half before any analysis of play calling could have been dissected.  Then you have members of the press comparing this to Nixon and Watergate.

All this eerily reminded me of the JBoss astroturfing incident.  We had many of the usual detractors coming out of the woodwork condemning us for the evil actions we had inflicted on the Java community.  You had people also comparing our actions to Nixon and Watergate.  Yes, this incident was blown out of proportion as well, basically because of our previous arrogance and inability to let any slight against us go unchallenged.  Belichick has similar arrogance and inability to let grudges go.  Both incidents were also terribly inconsequential and even irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.  Does it change all the hard work Belichick or JBoss did to achieve their successes.  No, it shouldn’t.  Does it taint your accomplishments in the eyes of others?  Sure it does, but what ends up happening is you continue the fight not to bask in the glory others place upon you, but instead for your own personal feeling of self worth.

So, what’s in store for Belichick’s legacy?  My guess is that in the near to far future, you’ll have individuals that see an opportunity to boost their own careers or settle old grudges by simply out right lieing about new allegations when the Patriots continue to have new success.  Their proof for these made-up accusations will be, “they’ve done something bad before, so this must be true.”

So, what will Belichick do about it?  Will he be a pussy and retire after this season?  Or will  he stick around for another 10 years and win another 3 superbowls? I hope he doesn’t let this scandal ruin the love he has for the game or kill his deep desire to win and win big.  I hope he doesn’t let others define his own personal perception of himself.

Well, if you’re a fan of the NFL you’ve probably heard about CameraGate. Another hero of mine taken down by cheating. So, I’m really conflicted within. A few weeks ago when I found out about the Harrison HGH scandal, I demanded the Patriots release him. Now that Belichick has been caught for cheating, should I be demanding he be fired by Kraft? Or should I rescind my Harrison request? This ESPN article gives a different perspective on things, especially the Zach Thomas story of him analyzing audio tape obtained from a mike on a defensive player to learn Brady’s audibles. (Pats lost that game 21-0). Another thing the ESPN article talked about was how the home team was allowed to have extra cameras on the sideline:

Home teams often place video cameras on the sideline to record the opposing team’s signals. The cameras are placed on the sideline under the guise that they provide extra game tape for the home team’s coaches. When road teams attempt to get credentials for their sideline cameramen, the applications are usually rejected.

Maybe Belichick’s rationalization is that this is an unfair advantage of the home team and that he should be allowed the same advantages. All this leaves me to believe that this has been blow way out of proportion. I hope we hear a good explanation from Belichick. We probably won’t though given how tight-lipped he is.

Now how about Rodney? Given the type of guy he is in the community and the team leader he is. I guess I have to forgive. Especially if I have to rationalize for Belichick’s actions.

The news that Rodney Harrison of the New England Patriots was suspended for using HGH really shook me.  Harrison was my favorite player on the Pats. My heart is broken.  One report I heard said that he had been using it the past 2 years to recover from the serious knee and shoulder injuries he had sustained.  Although Harrison took the suspension like a man and admitted to wrong doing (he didn’t have to do this), a more honorable action would have been to just plain retire.

The bigger question is, how will the Patriots organization react to this?  If the Patriots do not release Harrison, Belichick and Kraft will also be tainted. You can’t proclaim yourself the model franchise in the NFL and accept such behavior. I’m a 15 year season ticket holder. I want the Patriots to win another superbowl, but not at the expense of the franchise’s image.   As it is, the 2003 and 2004 championships are going to have an asterix next to them.

As you can see in the “About Me” section of this blog, this is my 15th season as a Patriots season ticket holder.  Last night was the Patriots pre-season home opener against the Tennessee Titans.  I have to tell you, in the past 14 years, last night was probably the best preseason game I have ever been to.  The thing is, somebody forgot to tell Rodney Harrison and the Pats defense that this was a preseason game.  Rodney was all over the field, with a nice pass deflection and a huge hit and sack on Vince Young. It was one of those hits that left the crowd going “oooooo”, “ohhhhhh”, “ouch”.  Poor Vince got nailed again and sacked hard by 38 year old Junior Seau.  A different series, the Titans got down the Patriots 2 yard line.  It felt like a playoff game, the crowd was screaming, the pats defense was pumped and stopped the Titans on downs 1-3.  The Titans decided to go for it on 4th down.  Vince Young rolled right, and looked like he had a clear path to the endzone.  How do I know this?  Well, my seats happened to be right in front of the action 15 rows back.  Just as Vince was about to dive into the endzone, a wall of patriots came out of nowhere and completely leveled him.  From my perspective, it almost looked like he was snapped in half backward.  I just can’t believe he got up from that play.  I was sure he was seriously injured.

This game did not seem like a preseason game at all.  Especially by the play of the defense.  The Pats will say otherwise, but I still think the Pats were seriously pissed by last year’s season finally against the Titans.  That was a brutally physical game in which Rodney Harrison was knocked out with an injury for the rest of the season by a cheap shot by one of the Titan’s receivers.  IMO, that one cheap shot cost the patriots another trip to the superbowl.  The AFC championship game was so close, just one play could have changed the whole complexion of that game, and I know a healthy Harrison would have turned the tables.  I think the Patriots wanted payback.  Keith Bullock didn’t help matters by saying he was gonna level Reche Caldwell in an interview before the game.  If you have followed the Pats for the past few years as I have, you know that the Patriots take any insult, however so minor, very very very personally.  They usually make their opponents pay for it.  Last night was no exception.