Patriot Games

(An Arrogant New England Sports Fan)

As a Pats fan, I suppose I should weigh in on (it pains me to to type it) "CameraGate".

I think Bill Simmons said everything most Pats fans are thinking and feeling here, but there is still a lot of Bullshit, end of the world, melodramatic sports writing going on regarding this incidence of (Gasp!) cheating in professional sports.

I am, first of all, really disappointed in Belichick. He screwed me over as a Patriots fan. I defend this team as the greatest ever and him as the greatest coach ever against disgruntled Raiders, Steelers, Rams, Jets, Eagles, etc. and then he goes and cheats. Now I can't ever defend him again. I still think he is a brilliant coach, but as soon as someone says, "Cheater!", I have to shut up. Thus, I think this whole scandal is actually worst for Pats fans.

Now onto all this faux-outrage by the rest of NFL fandom.

All of you, from the Jets to the Chargers, coast to coast, can kindly sit down, shut up, and watch as the Pats steamroll you with or without a camera, just as we've been doing the past six years (the aberration in Indy last year aside). Do you honestly think the Pats have been cheating this whole time and were only caught for the first time in a week 1 game that we were going to win anyways? I, for one, have always thought the NFL has done a better job than other sports leagues (read: MLB) at maintaining the integrity of its sport. I find it incredibly hard to believe that the Patriots have been cheating regularly. We're under a microscope because of our success and I think we would have been caught long ago if we made a habit of this.

As for the outrage, it's complete crap. Of course there is cheating in sports. If there wasn't, we wouldn't need refs. Refs are there to prevent cheating. Holding, pass interference, and false starts are all instances of cheating that get called on a regular basis. Obviously taping the other teams' signals is on a different level, but you can stop acting as though you thought you were watching the purest form of athletic competition every Sunday until Bill Belichick and the Patriots rolled into town. The Patriots got caught and have been punished. The system clearly works to some degree, so really this story should be done with. It should be, except every crap team that plays the Pats this year will use this instance of cheating to justify why they lost. It couldn't be because the Patriots are a juggernaut of a football team this year, could it? No of course not, we lost because they taped Eric Mangini for one quarter at the beginning of September. Feeling silly yet? Don't worry you will, just check your schedule to see when the Patriots come to town.