Sideline Spying: N.F.L. Punishes Patriots’ Taping
By JUDY BATTISTA
The National Football League fined New England Patriots Coach Bill Belichick $500,000 yesterday, and the team will forfeit its first-round draft pick in 2008 if it makes the playoffs, for violating league rules Sunday when a Patriots staff member was discovered videotaping signals by Jets coaches during the season opener at the Meadowlands.
The Patriots will be fined $250,000. If they fail to make the playoffs, they will forfeit their second- and third-round picks in 2008.
“This episode represents a calculated and deliberate attempt to avoid longstanding rules designed to encourage fair play and promote honest competition on the playing field,” Commissioner Roger Goodell wrote in a letter to the Patriots.
N.F.L. policy prohibits the videotaping of an opposing coach’s signals, and no team has ever been caught spying before. Last year, the N.F.L.’s executive vice president of football operations, Ray Anderson, sent a memo to all teams reminding them of the rule. The memo is believed to have been generated in part by suspicions that the Patriots had videotaped coaches at several games last season.
The harsh personal punishment for Belichick, the largest ever for a coach and the league maximum, is a clear rebuke to a coach who, after winning three Super Bowls in the last six years, is considered among the best ever, but whose aloof style has earned him plenty of detractors.
The day before the punishment was handed down, Belichick seemed to acknowledge wrongdoing without admitting it. He said in a statement, “Although it remains a league matter, I want to apologize to everyone who has been affected, most of all ownership, staff and players.”
Goodell said yesterday that he did not believe that the Patriots’ owner, Robert K. Kraft, was aware of Belichick’s actions. But Goodell penalized the franchise anyway, because, he said, Belichick has “substantial control over all aspects of New England’s football operations.”
No team has ever had to forfeit a first-round draft pick.
The impact of losing high draft picks could damage the franchise for years and could outlast Belichick’s tenure as head coach. His contract status is a tightly held secret. Nobody is even sure if he is signed past this season, and Kraft and Belichick have both danced around the question of how long Belichick would stay on.
During his investigation, Goodell determined that because the tape was seized before the end of the first quarter Sunday, it did not have an impact on the Patriots’ victory over the Jets. But Goodell said that the N.F.L. would now closely monitor the Patriots’ coaching video program.
“I specifically considered whether to impose a suspension on Coach Belichick,” Goodell wrote. “I have determined not to do so, largely because I believe that the discipline I am imposing of a maximum fine and forfeiture of a first-round draft choice, or multiple draft choices, is in fact more significant and long-lasting, and therefore more effective, than a suspension.”
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Jon Gruden Stole Signs in the Super Bowl -- That Was OK, Bill Belichick Is Different
Michael David SmithPosted Sep 12th 2007 2:56PM by Michael David Smith
Filed under: Buccaneers, Jets, Patriots, Raiders
King Kaufman of Salon.com writes today about the Bill Belichick controversy and sign stealing in sports:
The Patriots may have been trying to steal the Jets' signals for immediate or future use, but there's nothing wrong with stealing signals. It's a fine and respectable art. If it weren't, teams wouldn't need signals that are coded.
Kaufman is right, and in fact I believe the single greatest coaching job I've ever seen was done by Jon Gruden in Super Bowl XXXVII. Gruden had previously coached the Raiders, and the Raiders were continuing to run the offense Gruden ran in Oakland. So Gruden taught his Buccaneers defense everything the Raiders did offensively, including audible calls. That's a form of sign stealing.
But it's a legal form of sign stealing. What the Patriots apparently did -- videotape the Jets' signals -- is illegal. If the Patriots don't like the rule, they could have gone to the league's competition committee in an attempt to change the rule. Instead, they just decided to flout the rule.
So, to summarize: Sign stealing can be great coaching, as it was when Jon Gruden did it to the Raiders. But it can also be cheating, as it was when Bill Belichick did it to the Jets. It's all about whether you're stealing signs within the confines of the league's rules.
