Sports Insider by Frank Coppola: Bad news keeps piling up for Patriots

February 26, 2008

Bad news keeps piling up for Patriots

One of these days, the New England Patriots are going to receive a piece good of news.

They’re certainly due for it.

Things have hardly been rosy for the Patriots since their shocking loss to the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII. The national media’s obsession with Bill Belichick’s videotaping habits has been bad enough. But consider all these issues that have also popped up, giving Patriot Nation a collective headache.

• The Patriots were sued for millions of dollars by a former St. Louis Rams player and three fans.
• The Patriots decided not to place the franchise tag on star wide receiver Randy Moss, exposing him to the free agent market. Rumors of Moss signing with the Cowboys turned out to be premature, at least for now.
• Free agent cornerback Asante Samuel is demanding around $10-11 million per season, putting the odds of the Patriots re-signing him around zero percent.
• It was revealed that cornerback Ellis Hobbs played the Super Bowl with a torn labrum in his shoulder and chronic groin pain. Hobbs, you may recall, was beaten badly by Giants receiver Plaxico Burress on the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl.
• The Patriots lost out on free agent linebacker Zach Thomas, who agreed to a one-year deal with Dallas. Thomas seemed like a perfect fit for the Patriots, who need to improve their depth at linebacker.
• Speaking of the linebackers, the Patriots released veteran Rosevelt Colvin on Tuesday. The team hopes to bring him back, but not at the $7.6 million he would have made under his old contract.
• The hated Jets announced this week that linebacker Jonathan Vilma has their permission to seek a trade to any team ... except the Patriots. How this is allowed I’m not sure. But videotaping from the sidelines is a big no-no!
• Running back Kevin Faulk, long seen as one of the top character guys on the team, was caught with marijuana last week.

Of course, these other issues pale in comparison to the S-word.

Despite the NFL’s wishes, wannabe watch dogs at ESPN, Congress and other outlets continue to beat the Spygate drum.

Thanks to dolts like Arlen Specter, the story has been given new twists and turns as people continue to look under Belichick’s rug for more evidence of so-called cheating. (We’ll say it again: What the Patriots did would have been perfectly legal were it done in an enclosed area. Big frigging deal.)

Specter flipped his lid when NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told him Belichick has been taping defensive coaches’ signals since he became New England’s coach in 2000. Of course, this was old news that Belichick and Goodell had admitted long ago. You see, Mr. Specter, Belichick didn’t think he was breaking any rules. So why wouldn’t he have been taping signals all along?

The more I hear of this Spygate situation, the clearer it becomes that Goodell just wanted to make a statement about being the new boss in town. Under the Paul Tagliabue regime, these borderline rules violations were apparently ignored. But Goodell had come down hard on players like Pacman Jones and Tank Johnson, so he knew the players’ association would be in his face if he didn’t come down hard on Belichick, which he did.

Unfortunately, blowhards like Specter and most casual fans hear the word “cheating” and get their panties in a bunch. What the Patriots did was not cheating, plain and simple. How can videotaping something in public view be cheating? How can videotaping something from one location be OK, but from another location be cheating? It doesn’t make sense.

Then there’s Matt Walsh, who was ripped by Belichick and personnel guru Scott Pioli in the Boston Globe earlier this month. Apparently Walsh holds a grudge against the Patriots after they fired him for secretly tape recording conversations he had with Pioli. But some people want to believe that he was ordered by Belichick to videotape a St. Louis Rams walkthrough prior to the 2002 Super Bowl, an accusation Belichick basically laughed at because it was so dumb.

Not to be outdone, that multi-million dollar lawsuit was filed by some idiot lawyer in Missouri who claims that former St. Louis Rams players and fans are due damages because of an alleged taping that probably never took place. Maybe it’s just me, but I thought lawsuits had to be based on facts. The lawsuit has been torn to shreds by sports law experts in the last few days, which is a sign that the rest of the world might not be out to get the Patriots after all.

And that, in these times of turmoil, counts as good news for Patriot fans.

Frank Coppola can be reached at fcoppola@seacoastonline.com.

Posted by Frank Coppola at February 26, 2008 11:53 PM

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