Spygate to spark change?

Well it looks like BB got his wish and SPYGATE can finally be put to rest.....bout time...GO PATS!!!!

Yeah, SpyGate is officially over now....NOT. A radio headset in one defender's helmet is a colossally bad idea because defensive players are exposed to contact on every play. What happens if Tedy Bruschi is the one member of the Patriots defense with a transmitter, and he gets hit in the head and the transmitter stops working. Then what? Does the offense have to stop using theirs? Is there an official timeout so they replace/fix the helmet?

Few defensive players remain on the field for an entire series. There are rotations on the defensive line, linebackers come off the field and extra DBs come on the field in the nickel and dime packages. Safeties are removed for CBs on obvious passing downs. Designating just one of these players, and more importantly keeping track of who and who doesn't have the transmitter, is going to be a nightmare for Mike Pereira's crews.

There's only one fool-proof way to stop people from cheating, but the league doesn't have the juice to do it.

Pardon my cynicism, but if a electromagnetic frequency is being broadcast within the stadium, what's to prevent cheating by interception of that signal by someone with a receiver? Cheating would be easier this way, or harder to detect than with a camera, wouldn't it? It's a downward spiral, yes?

Great. More technology from this overcoached parody of what was once football. Let's get ALL the electronic gear (and some of the coaches) off the sidelines, remove coaches from the skyboxes, and let the QB's and MLB's call their own plays.

when are they going to investigate the timing of arlen specter's phony 'investigation'?

I think SPYGATE has just gotten started. You're in for some tough times ahead!

The spy investigation is the biggest farce I have ever heard of. How does anyone “spy” in front of 30,000 people? Goodell had just made this ruling of where filming could be done, so if the guy felt he was doing anything against the rules wouldn’t you think he would have been just a tad bit sneakier? I think Goodell just used this issue as an excuse to line the coffers of the NFL. Specter should be investigated as to why he tried to influence the outcome of the super bowl, plus I hear he has his own ax to grind against the NFL because of his interest in Comcast.

The allegation most assiduously avoided by the Patriots and the NFL was the one regarding the Patriots use of an alternative radio frequency (compared to the one specified by the NFL) to communicate between the coaches and the quarterback. As “following the money” opened up the Watergate investigation, “following the radio frequency” might be the same in Spygate.

The NFL pre-assigns a private frequency to each team so that the other team cannot hear the communications, but more importantly because they want to monitor such team communications for any other evidence of cheating or unauthorized use of the radio system (eg, only one player, the QB, is permitted to have a receiver in their helmet).

The fact (unsubstantiated, but heavily rumored and traced to individuals close to the Patriot organization) that the Patriots were communicating on another frequency (unavailable to the NFL) was key to the concealment of their scheme for stealing the other teams defensive signals AND communicating them to their QB. The conspiracy of silence around this allegation, after it was reported several times (including Chris Mortensen of ESPN) even PRIOR TO Spygate, seems to confirm that the NFL was covering up what was really happening. They were in a perfect position to substantiate and follow up on this violation of NFL rules in many games, yet it seems as if the Patriots use of their own frequency was dismissed as a technical snafu or misunderstanding. Also note that the NFL's radio frequency was supposedly disabled 20 seconds prior to the the start of each play to prevent last second communications. Who knows if one of the reasons the Pats tampered with frequencies was to circumvent this limitation. After all, if signals were intercepted, those last 20 seconds would be necessary to react and complete the communications loop back to the QB.

Of course, we really don't know that any of this happened. However, the radio communication angle really needs to be explored much more deeply and transparently. It makes the videotaping violations all the more egregious, since the electronics gave the coaches much greater leverage to benefit from their cheating. When I see many of the silly comments that say "Everyone was taping or stealing signals", I have to smile at their naivete. Maybe everyone was stealing signals, but everyone wasn't tampering with radio frequencies and it was exactly that violation that would have placed the Patriots cheating in a unique and much more dishonest context.

Also, who really knows what else was being done with the frequencies if the Patriots had successfully dodged NFL surveillance on the assigned frequency? Of course this is speculative, but could they have been eavesdropping on their opponents electronic communications? I suspect that this is NOT the case, because the transmissions could have easily been encrypted. However, if they were not properly encrypted, the NFL would have yet another poorly managed league process as reason for their defensiveness and possible coverup.

Until the redio allegations are is fully explored and aired, the public will have no real confidence in what has happened and Senator Spector will be dragged into the coverup himself. There are eerie parallels between this matter and the baseball steroids scandal where league officials conspire silently with the real offenders in protecting the IMAGE of the game. Somewhere in the process, the INTEGRITY of the game is forgotten and left unprotected.

Again, some of this is speculation but before irate readers respond, ask yourself... if the NFL really wants to put Spygate to bed, why haven't they and the Patriots transparently and fully addressed such allegations? It would be an easy enough to do.

It's not the questions that are wrong, it's the fact that there have been no answers. This could be easily put to bed if Robert Kraft were to initiate a full and complete
press conference with Roger Goodell. Instead, Kraft has been eerily silent and Goodell has destroyed tapes.