tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post6090012481549957765..comments2023-11-05T04:16:44.937-05:00Comments on Advanced Football Analytics (formerly Advanced NFL Stats): Belichick Cheating Evidence?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-13837437495536283632013-10-08T01:21:47.368-04:002013-10-08T01:21:47.368-04:00I am curious about something that was said in the ...I am curious about something that was said in the original article and then repeated in the comments. That is, Belichick was "caught, warned, but continued." <br />Maybe I'm missed something, but if the Sept 2006 memo to all teams was the warning, when were the Patriots caught before this? <br />I am aware of a Patriots cameraman being removed from a game against the Packers at Lambeau in 2006. There was also a Jets cameraman removed from Gillette that year. As far as I can tell, nothing happened, discipline-wise, for either of these incidents. If the league warned the Patriots beyond the 2006 memo, I never heard this brought up after the story took off in September 2007.<br />If there was another warning by the league in addition to the '06 memo, I'd be interested to know what it was. I thought I had read a lot on this, but I'm willing to learn more.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-22886619547679251332013-10-04T13:24:54.850-04:002013-10-04T13:24:54.850-04:00Before I can comment on the results, I really need...Before I can comment on the results, I really need to understand the methodology and assumptions made - because that's at the crux of the argument. But none of this was in the article. <br /><br />I'll deal with one area a little more in-depth. In a link you mentioned "passing, running, and turnover efficiency, plus penalties". Of course, the Patriots have historically statistically given up much fewer points per yard than the average team by using what most call a "bend but not break" defensive philosophy. If you're using yardage as a significant measuring stick, then do you do anything to account for this defensive philosophy other than rationalize an answer of probable cheating? If so, I haven't been able to find it. <br /><br />I would hope that the differences between expected results and actual results would first lead you to examine the assumptions and methodology you used...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-37823207456794863892012-12-12T22:52:31.029-05:002012-12-12T22:52:31.029-05:00None of the Patriot defenders can explain why the ...None of the Patriot defenders can explain why the stats don't even out over time. The odds are highly against this. I know it must suck to think your team didn't really win those super bowls, but they were caught cheating, and this explains the statistical anomaly better than luck. As for the stats continuing after the scandal, maybe they're still cheating.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-74164678612234977612011-01-03T14:31:58.746-05:002011-01-03T14:31:58.746-05:00It is January 3, 2011. NE's record is 14-2, i...It is January 3, 2011. NE's record is 14-2, in a year they started rookies, cast-offs, traded Randy Moss, signed Deion Branch, and lost significant players on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball. In this year, when most analysts accused Belichick of 'giving up on his season' in trading Moss, NE has fielded a team which has been a high-scoring turnover machine, with a 1000yd rusher, and a QB who's TD/INT ratio is 9-0. Explain THAT for me, will ya...?NEKIDnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-73189591069587480752010-01-16T02:22:35.040-05:002010-01-16T02:22:35.040-05:00how can you assume that it must be luck, genius or...how can you assume that it must be luck, genius or cheating? does your analysis take into account EVERY other variable? it seems to me that the only thing you have proven is that there is a certain aspect of belichick, whether it's his genius, or a certain strategy used at a critical point in the game, or training technique that maximizes the abilities of a player, etc., that is unique to him and only him. and it is this "thing" that gives his team that competitive advantage. can it be cheating? sure. cheating that gained an advantage could certainly be unique to belichick. but how can you discount every other possibility?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-57080908738348087732009-09-22T13:01:30.526-04:002009-09-22T13:01:30.526-04:00But even if Belichick still is cheating (in anothe...But even if Belichick still is cheating (in another form)...doesn't that still rule out the effect of taping signals? If taping signals explains - or even partially explains - his sucess, then his numbers would have taken a hit regardless of other cheating. <br /><br />Yet, this didn't happen. So can't we conclude that the act of taping signals was of little significance?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-9846205554031032972009-09-20T22:58:03.051-04:002009-09-20T22:58:03.051-04:00Bill Belichick = Wizard of Oz.Bill Belichick = Wizard of Oz.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-47555385585002873182009-05-01T19:57:00.000-04:002009-05-01T19:57:00.000-04:00Fair points, but you're assuming a lot there. Beli...Fair points, but you're assuming a lot there. Belichick's obsessive nature, that he videotaped in Cleveland, and that the taping was the only form of the cheating. I don't think that answers the question, why did he keep doing it after being warned, knowing it might bring a high cost to himself and to his team?Brian Burkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12371470711365236987noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-11244500290925840352009-05-01T19:53:00.000-04:002009-05-01T19:53:00.000-04:00A couple of observations: you're assuming videotap...A couple of observations: you're assuming videotaping= competitive advantage..You reason: why would BB risk getting caught and expend resources for something that did not lead to some sort of advantage.. Very logical conclusion.. However, as someone already mentioned, it's quite possible that videotaping was just a manifestation of BB's obsessive nature and the advantage gained if any was minimal. If videotaping was such an advantage why as someone has already mentioned didn't the Pats use the advantage in ALL situations and not just in crucial moments of a game as you hypothesize to explain away the efficiency stats problem? Also, Jimmy Johnson admitted to doing the same thing and along with Dick Vermeil have publicly stated that videotaping offered no advantage..My question to you is have you looked at JJ's coaching history and his teams expected wins vs. their efficiency? do they also have the same inflation as BB's Pats? If you expect videotaping would lead to some competitive advantage, you would also expect to see similar win total inflation from JJ's Cowboys/Dolphins.. The other question would be have you look at BB's Cleveland numbers? I would assume he was also videotaping back then, and as stated, you should see the same win total inflation IF videotaping= competitive advantage..Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-61053288303810505152009-04-29T00:04:00.000-04:002009-04-29T00:04:00.000-04:00I like the data, but your interpretation of this d...I like the data, but your interpretation of this data is mostly speculation and little fact. Frankly, parts of your argument sound just as biased and irrational as the Pats fans who are blindly defending Belichick. If your answer is a clear "yes," then why does Belichick continue to buck the trend? the last two years put your data in a new context. Either way, your old argument was pretty shaky. <br /><br />Your argument is built on the premise that Belichick would only steal signals in "critical" situations? Basically, cheating just enough to gain a significant advantage, yet not enough to disrupt the stats. That's an awfully fine balance, is it not? How would Belichick know this happy medium, and consistently find it year in and year out? And why would Belichick limit his cheating to only a few critical plays - thus limiting the effect of his work? It's like having all the answers to a 100 question test and only using the cheat sheet for just 3 or 4 questions. It doesn't add up. Wouldn't he be tempted to cheat more in losing efforts, thus skewing the data? Also, why allow the game to progress into "critical" situations at all, if you have tools to prevent it?<br />Also, how many times a year do games actually boil down to such "critical" situations? Not only that, but how many times does it happen against an opponent Belichick already taped?<br /><br />Also, you've done a poor job of defining what is a "critical" play. In theory it sounds nice. In reality? Well, you are assuming that Belichick can identify the few plays on which a game will hinge - within the heat of the moment, no less. That ability alone is highly impractical. Kind of like your description of "genius beyond anything a mortal human could ever comprehend."<br /><br />I'll ignore other barriers to cheating like, dummy signals and the sheer logistics of deciphering, countering, and relaying said info to the QB within an extremely limited timeframe.<br /> <br />Finally, I have a bit of a problem with your refusal to accept that other coaches have cheated - while at the same time assuming the extent of Belichick's cheating runs far deeper than we know. You can't have it both ways. You can't take a 'just the facts' approach when it suits your argument, and speculate when it doesn't. Saying that it is not "relevant" if other coaches cheated is really just as ignorant as the Pats fans who claim "everybody" did it! <br /><br />Any fan looking at this from a dispassionate perspective can see that spying was/is pretty common in the NFL. Even if we as fans think it is morally reprehensible, it's pretty clear that the coaches - even the ones who did not cheat - weren't very concerned about it. Both Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer publicly admitted to taping signals. Jimmy said he was told how to do it by a Chiefs scout when he first entered the NFL. He also said that the best known signal stealer is Howard Mudd; offensive line coach for the Colts. Howie Long said he knew of this practice too. And we have proof that Herm Edwards waved to the camera and said "Hi Bill!" I mean, Belichick didn't even bother to hide his cameraman. He was on the opposing sidelines, dressed in full Patriots gear, filing away. His actions were as overt as can be. This nonchalant attitude - by all parties - points to the fact that these coaches simply saw it as being part of the game. Even the innocent coaches knew it was happening and turned a blind eye to it for decades. They merely took steps to hide their signals.<br /><br />So, excuse me if I don't get all up in arms about this. I suspect most fans have come to the same conclusions I have - unless they want to stick it to Pats fans, of course ;) Your data was probably the most damaging evidence against Belichick -- right up until the past two years where we see the trend has continued. That blows a pretty big hole in your theory.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-75272217005707063522009-04-27T22:39:00.000-04:002009-04-27T22:39:00.000-04:00If it didn't give the Pats an advantage, why did B...If it didn't give the Pats an advantage, why did BB keep doing it after being caught and warned 2 seasons ago? If it didn't give them an advantage, why did BB expend the resources to do it? <br /><br />I understood your comment, except I admit I misinterpreted the bias part. But keep in mind this entire analysis was performed in August <I>before</I> there was ever any hint of cheating by the Patriots. In a way, it's the perfect bias-free research. I'm only re-examining the results within a new context.<br /><br />The analysis here has no twists, no turns. It's a straightforward multivariate linear regression of independent statistics known to estimate team season win totals very accurately. It's something any undergrad stats guy should be able to grasp--that is, it's very straightforward with nothing to hide, no "hand waving" as the professors say. There was an extreme outlier, not only in the fact that the aggregate multi-year estimation error was through the roof, but that there was never a single negative or break-even season.<br /><br />So we essentially have this multiple choice question. There's this unbelievable outlier--what explains it?<br />A. Luck? Well, maybe, but the odds are astronomically against it.<br />B. Coaching genius beyond anything a mortal human could ever comprehend? Believe that if you want, Pats fans!<br />or C. Cheating? Something we already know as fact.<br /><br />Belichick cheated, most likely for years and in more ways than is public knowledge. The question I tried to answer is: can we detect it in the stats. And the answer is a clear <I>yes</I>.Brian Burkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12371470711365236987noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-45770452947882549912009-04-27T21:55:00.000-04:002009-04-27T21:55:00.000-04:00Brian,
Thanks for the lengthy reply.
You seem t...Brian, <br /><br />Thanks for the lengthy reply.<br /><br />You seem to be misreading my comment, however, as some kind of moral defense or denial of Belichick's cheating. The guy cheated -- it's morally reprehensible and wrong. He is not a role model. <br /><br />I'm taking issue with your use of statistical analysis and your claim that the cheating in question had much to do with the Patriots' success this decade. You don't have any actual evidence of it and your hypothesis, with all its twists and turns, has now been disproven by the data. You should at the very least make corrections to the two erroneous statements in your post I noted to account for Gibbs' performance.<br /><br />Regarding your chain of logic, your initial conclusion was that Belichick's outperformance resulted from superior coaching. No tower of anything, pretty straightforward. It was the same explanation attributable to all the coaches who came out at the top of your initial list and the reverse explained those at the bottom. <br /><br />After the cheating was revealed, however, you had to make many more assumptions. Why would the cheating not simply make the Pats more efficient and thus be evident in the efficiency stats? Why would there be no improvement evident in 2nd matches in the same season, the actual way in which in the signal stealing video tapes were used? Why would Belichick try to hide the impact of the cheating from one particular and kind of obscure statistical model (in one of your other comments you note that a more popular model actually incorporated the supposed effect of the cheating into its calculus)? And so on...To get the data and evidence to fit your hypothesis, you had to create a chain of assumptions. It is flatly not the same logic that you used before the cheating was revealed.<br /><br />Regarding bootstrapping, my concern is that you cherry-picked a piece of Belichick's record and focused on how it was almost 3 standard deviations above the mean of COMPLETE coaching records. To really know the likelihood of Belichick's outperformance, you'd have to assess all coaches in the same manner, splitting between each assignment and recalculating the mean and standard deviation. The fact that Gibbs, who as you note was never accused of cheating, has a partial-career average close to Belichick's seems revealing.<br /><br />I'm puzzled by your argument that a fat-tailed distribution of coaching talent makes Belichick's record one in a billion instead of a trillion. The "almost 3 standard deviations above the mean" makes him at worst a 3 in a 1,000 guy, as I mentioned. In a normal distribution, three standard deviations above the mean exceeds about 99.73% of the set, no? And in a fat-tailed distribution, outliers are far more likely to occur. If pro football coaching talent is not normally distributed, Belichick's result may be even less significant. I believe it was the ground-breaking sports analyst Bill James who said that "absolutely nothing" in professional baseball was normally distributed because players and managers comprised only the very top of the entire talent pool. <br /><br />Finally, I did not say that the Wall Street firms were done in by 20-standard deviation events, just that they blamed their demise on those type of events. It's whole other post to explain what went wrong with the financial models of subprime debt (I did get into it some in this article http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_07/b4071038384407.htm though I'm not totally in love with how this piece ended up). I was using that anecdote to note that a 3-standard deviation event just isn't that impressive and it's certainly not a 1 in a trillion kind of thing.<br /><br />I posted my original comment because I noticed that your piece appeared to be widely circulated and cited, including by a New York Times blogger, and I just don't think it holds up. I've tried to keep my comments free of any personal or ad hominem type accusations. My use of the word "bias" was meant in the sense of cognitive bias, perhaps confirmation bias, such as a researcher who becomes taken by a preliminary hypothesis and loses sight of contradictory evidence.<br /><br />-Aaron<br /><br />p.s. The libel thing isn't a joke. The specific cheating allegation you repeated was retracted and libel law does apply to bloggers. See http://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal/liability/defamation for example.Aaron Pressmanhttp://gravitationalpull.net/wp/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-69271038967651725052009-04-26T11:25:00.000-04:002009-04-26T11:25:00.000-04:00Aaron-
Thanks for the excellent comment.
1. You'...Aaron-<br /><br />Thanks for the excellent comment.<br /><br />1. You're right. I am biased. I have been a big fan of Belichick's approach to the game. You can see that come across clearly in my first post on this subject.<br />2. You're also correct that the past two seasons have seen the Patriots continue to defy the model that seems to fit the rest of the league very well. This should move the balance of belief toward 'genius' and away from 'cheater.' I already have a draft of a post to that effect that I plan on posting closer toward the upcoming season.<br />3. Unfortunately, he is a proven cheater. Now it's only a question of how effective the cheating was, how far back in went, and whether we can detect it in the stats, which I think we can. I think any discussion of libel is laughable!<br />4. Regarding the 'shaky tower of tortured illogic:' I actually performed this analysis several weeks prior to any inkling about the Patriots cheating. At the time I concluded Belichick sure learned a lot between his time in Cleveland and New England, and that he's a visionary and a true outlier. I'm sure you or other Patriot fans would have happily accepted that tower of logic. Then, the revelations came about the cheating. The data now point to a different conclusion in that new light. It's the same tower, same logic, neither tortured nor shaky. Occam compels my conclusion, not yours--We have this outlier result, it could be because of cheating or due to supernatural coaching abilities. We don't need to assume the cheating.<br />5. Selectively hunting for sub-samples of over-performance by other coaches is called boot-strapping, and it might be a good idea. But Joe Gibbs was never accused of or caught cheating, so that has to be taken into account.<br />6. You also have a good point about the fat tails of the distribution. That might make Belichick a one-in-a-billion guy instead of a one-in-a-trillion guy.<br />7. As a business reporter, I'd bet you already know that the financial events are not 10 or 20 standard deviation events. It's more a like a single correlated 3 SD event. The financial wizards just didn't anticipate the degree of correlation.<br /><br />Try as you might, Bill Belichick broke the rules, and did it despite being warned. He knew that it must have made a difference and given his team an advantage or he wouldn't have risked it. Even he agrees with me! Like I said above, it's only a question of how big the effect was, and it looks pretty darn big.Brian Burkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12371470711365236987noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-55963558705588617192009-04-26T00:12:00.000-04:002009-04-26T00:12:00.000-04:00Brian,
I recently came across this post. The Patr...Brian,<br /><br />I recently came across this post. The Patriots have gone on to win 2.1 games more than your model predicted in both the 2007 and 2008 seasons. Your somewhat tortured hypothesis stated above was that cheating explained the Patriots previous five-year streak of outperforming its predicted win total. It is time for you to admit that your hypothesis has been disproved and the null hypothesis, that the illegal videotaping of defensive signals was not a significant factor in the outperformance, has been validated.<br /><br />It always seemed like a shaky tower of tortured of illogic. The cheating advantage was only and consistently used on a few key plays so it was invisible in the offensive and defensive efficiency stats? Somehow no advantage was discernible in 2nd games played against a team in the same season, the exact manner in which the Patriots were found to be putting the information to use -- a missing link that seems sufficient to disprove your hypothesis by itself. And on and on - William of Occam must be spinning in his grave grasping his famous razor.<br /><br />And what about your stats? You claim Belichick's average in his initial seven-year run as Pats head coach is almost three standard deviations above the mean. Did you actually calculate the mean by breaking down every stint of every coach at various teams? There's no evidence that you did. And as I'm sure you know, three standard deviations encompasses 99.7% of a normal distribution. Could Belichick be a 1 in 200 or a 1 in 300 coaching talent? Seems quite plausible. Three standard deviations is hardly the kind of impossible level of excellence you make it out to be (Wall Street CEOs were blaming their recent woes on 10 and 20 standard deviation events). All that's assuming, of course, you checked to make sure the coaching averages even fall into a normal distribution. Looks like pretty fat tails to me.<br /><br />There is also evidence of bias in your article. Near the top you claim that "No other modern team has even come close to the Patriots in consistently winning more games than their stats indicate" and noting "the 2nd best coach at +1.83 wins per season." Yet, in your prior article looking at the issue, you explain that Belichick's unusual result excludes his tenure in Cleveland. And when you isolated Joe Gibbs' record for his first stint with the Redskins (You call it "'83-'92" although he started as head coach in '81), his average was 2.11. I'll bet big money that if you further looked at slices within his 12 years, comparable to your Belichick run, you'll find a patch of Gibbs that equaled or topped the 2.33 average. Why would you leave out the Gibbs evidence other than to make your argument look stronger than it really was?<br /><br />Finally, I realize you are not a journalist and may not understand libel law, but it is dangerous (in a legal sense) not to mention highly misleading to your readers for you to have repeated the Boston Herald's allegations about the 2001 Super Bowl in your post at http://www.advancednflstats.com/2008/02/more-spygate-revelations.html without noting that the paper has rescinded its article and the reporter who wrote the story has admitted that he was wrong. See http://tinyurl.com/d7mo72 for example.<br /><br />Please feel free to state whatever moral or philosophical objections you have to Belichick's illegal conduct but please stop trying to argue that you've statistically proven some kind of causal link between that conduct and the Patriots success.<br /><br />-AaronAaron Pressmanhttp://gravitationalpull.net/wp/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-66639016290200753722009-01-07T08:45:00.000-05:002009-01-07T08:45:00.000-05:00So, after this year of going 11-5 without Brady fo...So, after this year of going 11-5 without Brady for the whole year, Rodney Harrison, Adelius Thomas, Maroney. Losing Asante Samuel to free agency. Bruschi going down for the last 3 games. Adelius Thomas's backup going down for last 5 games. Ty Warren missing 3-4 games, then playing the rest of the season with a torn groin.<BR/><BR/>Can you question the brilliance of Bellichick and his coaching staff especially after going 18-1 last year?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-69639910980707503562008-12-29T15:41:00.000-05:002008-12-29T15:41:00.000-05:00Since the NFL and everyone else is apparently watc...Since the NFL and everyone else is apparently watching the Pats like a hawk this year, we can suppose that they didn't cheat this year (2008). But did they outperform their stats anyway? Seems like that might be a good test to run.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-34033504773910235422008-12-17T12:37:00.000-05:002008-12-17T12:37:00.000-05:00a point should probably be made that the patriots ...a point should probably be made that the patriots coaching is widely known for another method that might be better at explaining your findings. One of the things that is generally recognized as being unusual in the patriot's coaching is their specific concentration on situational practice. according to much news coverage of the patriot's practice is based on repeatedly going over particular moments. i.e. "It's 4th and 3 with 30 seconds left. we need 4 yards for the first down, be in reasonable field goal range." and the play is designed to get precisely those 4 yards. the system that is coached there is largely designed around the concept of "get precisely what we need to get" and is also famous for really being bad for statistics people. the 2007 regular season was an exception to that. <BR/><BR/>the patriot's defense in the earlier belichick years was well known for doing 'just enough' to prevent the other team from winning. <BR/><BR/>given that perspective, the fact that they have generally outperformed the opposition would appear to have less to do with cheating and more to do with being very well practiced.<BR/><BR/>to the last anonymous poster, it might be a point, but it's worth noting that for a lot of brady's first years, the patriots threw screens more than almost any other play.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-16877588335159262152008-12-16T16:56:00.000-05:002008-12-16T16:56:00.000-05:00Has anyone ever thought of watching all of the Pat...Has anyone ever thought of watching all of the Patriots games for those years, noting crucial plays like 4th and 2, and seeing if there's any actual proof that the opponent run blitzed and the Pats just happened to call a screen pass that play?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-3643651020780082632008-11-20T15:11:00.000-05:002008-11-20T15:11:00.000-05:00Well, they did cheat, right? That's established. W...Well, they did cheat, right? That's established. We're just talking about the extent and the degree to which it helped them.<BR/><BR/>Have you considered the possibility they could be both good <I>and</I> cheat?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-76281085123578531302008-11-20T15:02:00.000-05:002008-11-20T15:02:00.000-05:00Listen BrianYou think your stupid theory proves Be...Listen Brian<BR/>You think your stupid theory proves Belichick and the Patriots cheat. They are better then the rest, that explains everything. Your opinion doesn't matter, and it sucks by the way.<BR/>Churd.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-45205784371047948992008-10-21T14:29:00.000-04:002008-10-21T14:29:00.000-04:00Here's my thing about this. I am a loyal Patriots...Here's my thing about this. I am a loyal Patriots fan, win or lose. Before Bill was caught cheating, we won some show stoppers, and lost some almost certain victories. I know that you guys are all math and stats etc., but why is it a probability that if Bill was cheating he was sharing what he knew with everyone on the team? Why is it not probable that we just went out there and played our hearts out? Why is it that if "your" team is playing any other team in the league, it's not bitter, but when "your" team is playing the Patriots, everyone despises them?<BR/><BR/>I can offer an unscientific explanation. It could be the same reason that all other teams used to hate the Yankees for winning "outside of their means", but now the 86 year losing streak Red Sox are hated just as much.<BR/><BR/>Are they all cheaters? You can't fake a home run or a double play...unless you're Barry Bonds. It comes down to this for me: We play hard and break bones. We have injuries that shut down our season...or do they? We play through with as much heart as any other team. We have just as hard a time with your Reggie Bushes and Ladanian Tomlinsons as other teams do. In the "history" of the NFL, the Patriots aren't even that great (he says as a lifetime fan). We sucked for a long time before we got our precious rings. We had an amazing last season only to have it ended by a quarterback with not even half the field vision of Tom Brady. We broke down in the secondary and replaced seasoned center with a rookie that got run over.<BR/><BR/>We were pinned with this Dynasty B.S. and have been under everyones microscope ever since Bill was caught. Woul it not be fair to say that most people caught cheating and are punished usually stop after that? If you cheated on a test, or tried to, and were caught, would you keep doing it? I wouldn't. But if you did it and someone else got caught, would you not avoid their mistake to save yourself? (Other teams in the league)<BR/><BR/>Did the '72 Dolphins cheat? How about the '85 Bears? One could say they might have, but maybe they were great teams with desire and skill...and luck. I know you keep saying, "It's not speculation because he was caught, we know he cheats", but this year so far we are 5-2. Not bad, not great, but on par with our average season opening...WITHOUT BRADY! <BR/><BR/>I respect the research you do and I do accept the fact we messed up. Move on and focus on your team. Who cares. It's a recreational sport guys.<BR/><BR/>Fact: Underdogs will win and kings will fall. It's an unspoken law.<BR/><BR/>Speculation: The Patriots are a dynasty.<BR/><BR/>Food for thought: Let the guys that go out there and play for your favorite team do their job. And when they win, be happy. When they lose, be upset.<BR/><BR/>Reality check: None of it matters anyway because until any one of you is manager of a team, a player, or a league official, all of this is trivial.<BR/><BR/>And as always...GO PATS!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-571381675574769402008-08-17T21:18:00.000-04:002008-08-17T21:18:00.000-04:00I agree and yet disagree because your stats are qu...I agree and yet disagree because your stats are quite unreal. The reality is though it is only cheating because he recorded it. Typically NFL teams read signals. They have scouts that their job is to sit and watch the opp and diagram the play. It is a well known fact that everyone does it. The real question is, does taping it make a difference? I heard an interview Boomer about the stealing signals thing and he talked about a game he played vs. the Chargers when they were lead by Dan Fouts. 1 week before they played the chargers cut an offensive player and the Bengals picked them up. The Bengals knew every offensive play the Chargers were running. And according to the interview the chargers won 40 something to 7... Not too important but interesting.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-53362490166359237822008-04-30T16:59:00.000-04:002008-04-30T16:59:00.000-04:00I no statistician. I'm not even good with math. Bu...I no statistician. I'm not even good with math. But wouldn't the team that makes it to the super bowl have to win a couple more games than "expected" by converting on crucial plays? Isn't that how you differentiate yourself in competitive sports? And wouldn't the fact that the patriots have made it to the super bowl half a dozen times since the late 90's mean they had to win more, throwing off their curve of wins relative to the rest of the pack? <BR/> <BR/>I could show you a mean graph depicting how a team's winning percentage in football is inversely proportional to the length of their coaches hoodie sleeves - and it would be just as true.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-87002703307572406942008-04-20T17:56:00.000-04:002008-04-20T17:56:00.000-04:00"Flawed argument?" Bill Belichick might disagree w..."Flawed argument?" Bill Belichick might disagree with you. Taping signals was important enough to him to risk fines and possibly a suspension. Remember, he was warned previously after being caught.<BR/><BR/>Neat article though. I got HD a year ago and was amazed how easy it was to read coaches' lips. During last year's Navy-Note Dame game I could read Charlie Weiss' calls, even the snap count. "It's on three." Too easy.<BR/><BR/>And if you watch the NFL Films replay of Super Bowl XXXVI (Rams/Patriots), you can see a sideline discussion between NE defenders of what could only be the Rams' offensive signals.<BR/><BR/>Stealing signs, and doing so consistently, would obviously give a team a clear advantage.Brian Burkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12371470711365236987noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-27211269833028962642008-04-19T20:27:00.000-04:002008-04-19T20:27:00.000-04:00flawed argument from the start. Stealing signs is...flawed argument from the start. Stealing signs is allowed. The rule broken was using a camera.<BR/><BR/>Stealing signs by other means even you guys can understand.<BR/>http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/magazine/life_of_reilly/news/2002/01/09/life_of_reilly/<BR/><BR/>offensive signals in 2002, but same idea.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com