(You can't say the integrity of the sport itself after the 49er salary cap issue, among numerous other serious breaches.)
But when you take a look at the remainder of the article, which profiles a criminal conspiracy to cover up and protect the Patriots (who were no less than the driving force and face of the NFL as it transitioned from national icon to National Religion in the post-9/11 era!), you begin to understand why one can now accuse the NFL of wanting to see players die simply for the entertainment of a nation full of brutes.
First, the actual investigation only took a week into Spygate. This, however, should've been no surprise: The NFL had known of the various practices being used basically since the day Belichick walked in the league -- the article, earlier, had noted that the Competition Committee spent most of their time for six solid years trying to deal with Belichick. Belichick
But the first real indication of the coverup comes in the last statement of a paragraph in the ESPN article about the "investigation":
"Goodell didn't want to know how many games were taped," another source with firsthand knowledge of the investigation says, "and Belichick didn't want to tell him."
And, once Jay Glazer got one of the tapes, three high-ranking NFL officials had to run to Foxboro to ask the questions again, and got this bombshell:
"Once again, nobody asked how many games had been recorded or attempted to determine whether a game was ever swayed by the spying, sources say. The Patriots staffers insisted that the spying had a limited impact on games. Then the Patriots told the league officials they possessed eight tapes containing game footage along with a half-inch-thick stack of notes of signals and other scouting information belonging to Adams, Glaser says. The league officials watched portions of the tapes. Goodell was contacted, and he ordered the tapes and notes to be destroyed, but the Patriots didn't want any of it to leave the building, arguing that some of it was obtained legally and thus was proprietary. So in a stadium conference room, Pash and the other NFL executives stomped the videotapes into small pieces and fed Adams' notes into a shredder, Glaser says. She recalls picking up the shards of plastic from the smashed Beta tapes off the floor and throwing them away."
The problem with this stand is simple: Some of it was NOT. This meant, simply, that the NFL was now destroying evidence in it's own investigations which, at least on surface, would make the NFL a participatory party in everything the Patriots had done over the course of the last seven years (2000-2006).
And the fact the NFL did not ask the question as to how many games were taped or whether the games involved were swayed by the spying also means the NFL simply does not want to know. To do so now, frankly, would almost force the NFL into a position where they either have to nullify three Super Bowl championships (placing all others into question), or admit their rules don't apply universally and you get, essentially, what we have now in the NFL -- going far beyond competitive balance.
Belichick and documentation on the subject put the number of games in which signals were illegally monitored at "over 40" between 2000 and 2006.
No one in the league could believe the nature of the investigation, the destruction of evidence, or any other act the NFL had committed with respect to this situation...
"The view around much of the league was that Goodell had done a major favor for Kraft, one of his closest confidants who had extended critical support when he became the commissioner the previous summer. Kraft is a member of the NFL's three-person compensation committee, which each year determines Goodell's salary and bonuses -- $35 million in 2013, and nearly $44.2 million in 2012. "It felt like this enormous break was given to the Patriots," a former exec says. They were also angry at Belichick -- partly, some admit, out of jealousy for his success but also because of the widespread rumors that he was always pushing the envelope. The narrative that paralleled the Patriots' rise -- a team mostly void of superstars, built not to blow out opponents but to win the game's handful of decisive plays -- only increased rivals' suspicions. After all, the Patriots had won three Super Bowls by a total of nine points."
... Super Bowls they almost certainly won with illegal information -- and we now find out that all three Super Bowl "wins" were involved...
"The Panthers now believe that their practices had been taped by the Patriots before Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004. "Our players came in after that first half and said it was like [the Patriots] were in our huddle," a Panthers source says. During halftime -- New England led 14-10 -- Carolina's offensive coordinator, Dan Henning, changed game plans because of worries the Patriots had too close a read on Carolina's schemes. And, in the second half, the Panthers moved the ball at will before losing 32-29 on a last-second field goal. "Do I have any tape to prove they cheated?" this source says. "No. But I'm convinced they did it.""
[...]
"How did New England seem completely prepared for the rarely used dime defense the Eagles deployed in the second quarter, scoring touchdowns on three of four drives? The Eagles suspected that either practices were filmed or a playbook was stolen. "To this day, some believe that we were robbed by the Patriots not playing by the rules ... and knowing our game plan," a former Eagles football operations staffer says."
Mr. Henning, you didn't need the damn proof. You just provided it. Because of your belief you had been spied upon, you changed your plans and were able to move the ball as you wanted to, forcing the league to step in (much like they did against the Rams) to ensure the "right team" won.
And Hines Ward of the Steelers comes back with knowledge about a game largely lost in the maelstrom of the "Tuck Rule" fiasco and the debacle with the Rams...
"Ward told reporters that Patriots inside information about Steelers play calling helped New England upset Pittsburgh 24-17 in the January 2002 AFC Championship Game. "Oh, they knew," Ward, now an NBC analyst who didn't return messages for this story, said after Spygate broke. "They were calling our stuff out. They knew a lot of our calls. There's no question some of their players were calling out some of our stuff.""
And then we get, probably, the closest thing ever to ESPN admitting outright that the National Football League -- the station's bread-and-butter -- openly fixes and rigs championships...
After Spygate made headlines, rumors that had existed for years around the NFL that the Patriots had cheated in the Super Bowl that had propelled their run, against the Rams, were beginning to boil to the surface, threatening everything. "I don't think fans really want to know this -- they just want to watch football," the Panthers source says. "But if you tell them that the games aren't on the level, they'll care. Boy, will they care."
This MAY HAVE BEEN true in 2006-2007, if that. It certainly is NOT true now, especially with what we know about head injuries, CTE, and the truth behind much of the American sports machine, with the NFL as it's forefront.
Arlen Specter, by the playoff season of the undefeated regular-season of the Patriots, was demanding everyone in front of Congress on Spygate. It was this move that, on an off-the-field level, has me believing that the Giants were ordered to "go over", since it was clear they were the only team that could pressure Tom Brady enough (which see the nationally-televised Week 17 matchup several weeks before) to make a game with the unstoppable Patriots believable.
The New York Times blew up the story again -- just two days before the Super Bowl. Checkmate on the Patriots.
But Specter went further. Using the annual media lie-fest the Commissioner inflicts on the nation two days before the Super Bowl, Specter now believed the league to be openly covering for the Patriots in a manner that "you couldn't sell that in kindergarten".
Specter, effectively, concluded that the NFL was in criminal conspiracy with the Patriots to protect the league and it's increasingly-sole relevant franchise, and demanded Goodell meet with him, which he did 10 days after the Giants' first Super Bowl win over the Patriots.
Specter got the same runaround -- even when challenged that the Patriots' championship win over Specter's favorite team, the Eagles, might not be legitimate.
After the meeting, Specter got no further cooperation from anyone involved. Any intelligent person with the power of Specter in the United States Senate should've realized something criminal had gone down.
So he then went to Matt Walsh, who outlined several illegal monitorings of the Rams practice, including one in which the Patriots were able to snuff out a strategy the Rams periodically used by putting Marshall Faulk back to take the kickoff.
The most damning of these, though, was the Rams actually put in several new red-zone packages over the late practices leading to Super Bowl XXXVI -- packages the Patriots knew like a book when the game came around.
By the end of the Walsh interview, Arlen Specter -- one of the most influential members of the United States Senate -- wrote that the NFL was engaged in a coverup.
The league demanded Mike Martz cover for them as Specter's demands for a Congressional investigation intensified. In fact, there was reason for this within the league:
"No matter how angry owners and coaches were over Goodell's handling of Spygate, they were unified in their view that a congressional investigation posed a threat to the game itself. On June 5, 2008, Specter delivered a lengthy speech on the Senate floor, blasting the NFL's investigation, destruction of evidence and lack of transparency. "The overwhelming evidence flatly contradicts Commissioner Goodell's assertion that there was little or no effect on the outcome of the game," he said. Once more, Specter called for "an objective, thorough, transparent investigation" of Spygate. But he knew then, his aides now say, that such an investigation was never going to happen."
The fact is, the "unified view" is correct. If the NFL were truly called onto the carpet, the league could very easily be exposed as rigged -- a fact, thanks to Dan Moldea, those of us who know what we are talking about knew about for games as early as 1979.
A nation of laws, and not of corporate "men", would've disbanded the NFL 30-40 years ago!
The only reason I don't share a lot of the concern Beli-cheat has about his Hall of Fame chances is that many of the parties in the Hall of Fame voting process probably were involved in similar criminality at some point along the line.
Bob Kraft was one of the few public voices (even over private concerns) supporting Goodell's handling of the Ray Rice fiasco, etc. (I think we now have our DIRECT answer as to Super Farce XLIX.)
The night Goodell infamously was at Kraft's house just before the Deflategate Game, the league actually already had information that the Colts were concerned.
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This is a devastating piece.
Someone will lose their career over this.
I truly believe the NFL will try to cut ESPN out of the next national television package, with this piece being the final straw.
But the facts are these: The games you, as a nation, swear fealty to, are rigged. The championships are bought and sold as much as radio slots, Grammys, and all the rest of it. The athletes are being injured as part of multiple criminal conspiracies on the part of the NFL and it's member organizations.
And you can't trust these motherfuckers on anything.
You give me five minutes as Commissioner, and I can now cleanly reverse 5 of the last 15 Super Bowls.
You give me five minutes with enough legal power, I can probably jail Roger Goodell for a criminal conspiracy and probable violations of the RICO Act (the fraud over the course of 15 years now being the necessary component).
But what that one Carolina team official said is no longer true: People no longer care if the games are legitimate. If they did, someone would've taken out Tom Brady already from the stands. (And if you don't believe that to be possible, consider the level of fealty people swear to the sport.)
But the fact is there: Your entire fealty is sworn on a criminal conspiracy.
Ruminate on that as you get ready for some football tomorrow night.
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