If Bill Belichick ordered the Code Red on this one, then he is the dumbest genius in the history of God’s green Earth. For more Patriots punishment coming Bill Belichick suspension draft read below.
After all of the off-field drama over the past 20 years, and with the rest of the football country outside of New England already believing that the Patriots are the dirtiest franchise this side of the 1919 Chicago White Sox – how could Belichick possibly repeat the mistake he made 12 years ago in the original SpyGate saga?
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I don’t believe Belichick is that stupid. He’s arrogant, for sure, but he’s not that arrogant.
So the likelihood here is that either one of Belichick’s coaching staff minions requested one of these Kraft Productions film guys to record the Bengals sidelines on Sunday, or (the most likely scenario) that one of these film guys didn’t think he was doing anything wrong.
The rest of the country won’t buy the latter story, but it does make the most sense from what we currently know about this whole ordeal.
Kraft Productions is said to have been filming a “Do Your Job” mini documentary on one of their advance scouts. What these advance scouts do is look at the sidelines of the teams they are scouting (with binoculars), and try to figure out patterns when it comes to personnel coming in and out of the game.
It would make sense if you were doing a documentary on an advance scout to show the viewer something along the lines of what he sees. According to The Athletic, whomever shot this piece of footage got eight minutes worth of the Cincinnati sideline.
Cool … except that that’s totally illegal.
The Patriots have already admitted fault in the matter, even though the person who shot this footage may have been contracted out and not an actual employee of the Patriots.
Who done it? – Patriots punishment coming Bill Belichick suspension draft
The conspiracy theories are already flying, as you would expect. One name that hasn’t really been discussed yet is Stephen Belichick, who was shooed off the field in Buffalo by Sean McDermott earlier this year for lingering on the Bills sidelines before the game. Obviously, young Belichick wasn’t in Cleveland on Sunday as he was in Foxboro coaching the defense – but would it be possible that Belichick talked with one of these film production dudes ahead of time to try and get some intel on Bengals personnel tendencies?
One interesting angle to this whole thing is that the Bengals have a brand new head coach in Zac Taylor. Bill Belichick has novels of back history on every coach currently in the NFL, but his book on Taylor is obviously pretty thin as the two have never squared off.
Belichick wants every rock turned over. It doesn’t matter that the Bengals are 1-12. He craves as much information on his opponent as possible.
ESPN’s Dianna Russini has been all over this story since it broke on Tuesday and offered up some interesting details regarding how the whole thing went down.
“A source tells me a Bengals employee was watching the videographer/cameraman who identified himself as a Robert Kraft employee. The Bengals employee kept an eye on that monitor, the shot was of the Bengals coaches and staff on the sidelines for the entire 1st quarter.
“The Bengals employee flagged media relations. Bengals security then interviewed the Kraft videographer. This was also taped. The cameraman asked if they could just delete the footage and it all be forgotten, per sources.”
That last part is particularly damning as it looks like the person who got caught knew he was doing something wrong.
What’s next? – Patriots punishment coming Bill Belichick suspension draft
The Washington Post’s Mark Maske reported Tuesday that “the NFL hopes to move quickly in its investigation of the Patriots’ video” and that “a resolution is possible this week.”
Maske added about Patriots punishment coming Bill Belichick suspension draft: “One source said a consideration for the league is whether the video shows anything that couldn’t be seen on TV or on the coaches’ tape.”
If the tape is released to the public, and if it’s bad (zooming in on specific coaches) – then expect all hell to break loose.
Also, because the Patriots already admitted some measure of guilt here, and considering they’ve already violated this rule in the past – they are going to get hit with a penalty from the NFL. That’s for sure.
The big question is how severe that penalty will be?
Most people are suggesting simply a fine, but considering that the league fined Bill Belichick a half million dollars AND docked the team a first round pick the first time around – this penalty could ultimately be worse.
The real anti-Patriots crowd obviously wants Belichick forced out of his job for this, but it’s highly unlikely Roger Goodell goes anywhere close to that far. Belichick is now one of the faces of the league, and at this point in Belichick and the NFL’s history, exiling the greatest coach in the history of the sport would put a stain on the sport for decades.
Whether you think Goodell hates the Patriots or not, he does not want that.
