Harbs says New England's titles "got asterisks now"

**ballhawk** · 05-02-2012, 01:20 PM

Originally Posted by festivus

i'd expect that from florio. He is one of the few talking heads who does not pour gasoline into the hype machine, and this kerfuffle is all hype.

say what?!?!?!

**festivus** · 05-02-2012, 02:13 PM

Eh. I didn't put that quite the way I meant.

I suppose he is a major contributor to the hype machine, in a way, by breaking stories based on anonymous tips and so on. Still, I think he has a sense of perspective many of these other guys lack.

/shrug

**Haloti92** · 05-02-2012, 03:27 PM

Originally Posted by akashicrecorder

QUESTION! Hoping someone in here can clear it up:

A friend of mine who is a New England fan swears up and down that what the Pats did at the time they won their championships was not against league rules; he says it became illegal around 2006 or 2007 (I forget which year and am too lazy to re-wiki it). Basically, his point is that they weren't cheating at the time they won because videotaping opponents' signals had not been laid down as illegal yet. It was cheating when they did it in 2006 or 2007 after the handbook came out saying taping is illegal.

Of course, my rebuttal was, "Well, if everything was so hunky-dory, why did the Pats go through the trouble of hiding the fact they were doing it?" But of course, from a purely logical perspective, the perspective of pure debate, hiding something proves 0% about the il/legality of what you were hiding.

Anyway, can anyone shed light on this? I thought that videotaping opponents' signals had been illegal for quite some time.

It was technically against the rules for a long time before 2006, but it was never enforced (even when reported or proven), and therefore nearly everyone was doing it. In 2006, the league issued a specific memo to all teams saying from that point on they were going to strictly enforce the rule. The memo made it clear the league was serious about cracking down on unauthorized videotaping, but it was sent out in 2006.

Your friend is basically correct. Jimmy Johnson and a couple other honest former coaches have stated emphatically that it was a leaguewide practice during the 90's (and presumably until the memo in 2006).