Monday 11/5/07 10:45 AM
Who is Good and who is Evil?
As I watched the Pats/Colts game yesterday I noticed at one point during the game when the Pats had the ball and the crowd was screaming loudly that suddenly there was a noise like a CD was skipping. The announcers said nothing and I assumed it was an audio glitch on the part of CBS. It was just reported by WEEI that the NFL is looking into whether it was an audio glitch on the part of CBS or something done purposely by the Colts. The RCA Dome is known for its loud crowd noise, but in the post game conference yesterday Tom Brady stated that "it was if we were deaf" when describing the crowd noise and said that they had to go strictly "by the wristband". This means they had to run their offense with hand signals and silent snap counts, which put them at a severe disadvantage. After such lopsided officiating and the possibility that the Colts were piping in crowd noise to enhance the drunken hoots and hollers of those corn-fed, yokel Hoosiers....Can you spell C O N S P I R A C Y ?
Does video taping directly impact the outcome of the game being played? Probably not. Does piping in crowd noise as to inhibit play calling and communication between the Patriots while on offense? Absolutely!!! I hope the NFL and Roger Goodell pursue this issue with as much zeal and zest as they investigated the Patriots "Spygate" affair. If the Pats lost a first round draft choice and $750,000 in fines for the team and head coach, then this deliberate attempt to cheat and influence the direct outcome of the game should be worth the first and second round draft picks and two million in fines. Who is Evil and who is Good now?
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Go check out Wilbur's post on it at boston.com. He has the NFL video clips for the Pats game. Around 2:25 of the clip you hear the reverb. And as soo as Moss catches the ball it cuts out. Sharp. And the Dome is suddenly silent.
The whole good v. evil thing is so patently ridiculous -
Brady has never blamed teammates for the team's failings.
Manning has blamed his O-Line.
Pioli has never assaulted employees of another team.
Bill Polian has.
Kraft has never broken a lease and pulled a team out of a major city in the middle of the night against NFL wishes.
Jim Irsay has.
I can go on, but I feel a blog entry in all this...
Lets see if Dungy equates his teams"cheating" to Barry Bonds like he did with the Pats.
Yeah, about as likely as him disassociating with Anti-gay family groups.
Kevin has a great point about the franchise-shifting. Don't think that there isn't some animosity towards Kraft for basically getting things done on his own dime. These creeps in Indy, St. Louis, Tennessee, Baltimore, Arizona - they all moved because they were allowed to rape the taxpayers of the cities they moved into. Kraft gave the NFL at-large an example to point to of how to build a successful franchise without robbing the populace blind.
If you were at the Dome, and obviously you weren't, you wouldn't have heard anything but crowd noise. When Moss caught the ball, it was silent, because we didn't want it to happen. I really wish people would give up on this whole cheating thing. I don't think the videotaping had anything to do with the Pats winning Sunday. They won because they played better. We have a loud stadium because we cheer loud and it in enclosed. I assume you have now heard that it was a CBS error.
I was disappointed to watch the Colts lose on Sunday, but I also know that I was one of the lucky 57,000 people who saw the very best two teams in pro football play live.
Oh, and it was Bob Irsay who moved the Colts, not Jim his son. And Baltimore did the same thing to Cleveland later. I am not saying we are perfect, I am just saying shut up and watch the damn game and see who wins in February!
Hey,
I resent that comment. I'm a Hoosier and I haven't eaten corn in days. Gives me gas.
We have determined the source of the noise. It came from behind the grassy knoll.
Jerry and Teresa: Thanks for stopping by. Crowd noise or crowd noise, tell me this. When was the last NFL game that you saw in person orwatched on TV that had as much lopsided penalty yardage doled out as the game this past weekend? 146 to 25. Two absolutely bogus defensive pass interference calls and one bogus offesive PI call on Moss. Where was the PI call when Faulk was obviously arm hooked on Third down in the Third? Nobody in the country likes the Pats and thats fine with me. Just don't pull that Evil vs Good shit. I agree with Teresa, play the game on Sunday, but we always have. The media and league has tried to do otherwise. Jerry, you may not have eaten corn in a few days, but I bet you've had a little fun with the cob, huh? ;)
Teresa - I didn't blame the city of Indy, I blamed ownership. By the same token, I really think that Art Modell screwed the city of Cleveland, and he deserves to be demonized. As for it being Bob instead of Jim, I have a hard time believing, as his dad was grooming him for ownership (he was named GM, after all, only a month after the move to Indy), that he had no input whatsoever on whether or not to break the lease in Baltimore.
David,
I truly don't know what happened at the football game. I wasn't there and didn't watch it on TV. I was just yankin' your chain on the conspiracy theory.
As for corn, yes, I have had lots of fun with the cob lately. I even have pictures. http://jwiley.typepad.com/photos/corn_harvest_2007/index.html
You weren't kidding Jerry!
David,
Thanks for your very nice comments. I sit way up in the stands and they don't show replays at the Dome, but there were some very iffy calls. I will give you that. But, my point is that the best team on that day won. Nothing is perfect. No one is perfect. What is the process of the refs reviewing their game performance, because they need to.
It was a great game to watch. And, you should be very proud of the fans that represented you at the game, they were gracious and cheering a lot. I am just as tired of hearing about pumping in noise as you are about videotaping.
This I know. There are only two teams in the NFL and everyone else is playing for third. See you in January. I'll bundle up!
And, Kevin, I was 14 when the Colts moved here and I don't remember a whole lot about it. But, I have read many, many stories about Bob and he was a jerk who did things that I don't think are okay. So far Jim has tried, I think, to do right by the city. We are financing a small part of that new stadium, but it is because it is part of the new convention center complex and it will be used for NCAA final fours every four years [hence the retractable roof-we have to have an indoor facility that holds 60,000 for basketball games since the NCAA is HQed in Indy] and other major conventions. This is a small city compared to yours--our buildings are multi-purpose.
Actually, according to the Indy Star, Irsay was threatening to move the team to LA if a deal didn't get done. Additionally, from Forbes.com -
That changes in 2008 when the team moves into a new $675 million stadium, largely funded by Marion County taxpayers. Without Manning as the face of the franchise it is unlikely the team would have gotten such a sweet deal. The Colts will get most of the stadium's revenue, including a $122 million, 20-year naming rights fee from Lucas Oil, while the City will cover the stadium's operating costs. The most incredible part of the deal: the City is going to pay the Colts $48 million for leaving the RCA Dome before their lease expired.
The number most commonly reported that the state is responsible for? $400 million, not including the $48 mil that Indianapolis will kick in for vacating the stadium early (which I don't even get). The NFL is kicking in $100 million, which means Irsay will be responsible for 26 percent of the cost of the new stadium while your state's government will be ponying up 66.3 percent of the final tally. From what I have read - Indiana is already operating at a $600 million deficit, but they're ponying up almost half-a-billion to a billionaire to keep his team in the state (according to Forbes, the team itself is worth $911 million).
Sorry, still don't buy Jim as a good guy.
Kevin: I am surprised at the naivete of the general football fan. This game is not pure and it is not run by pure and chaste men. It is run by ruthless, money grubbing codgers who will do anything to make a buck which is most readily done by winning. "Cheating" is widespread, but my only concern is the integrity of the game on Sunday. I want to watch pure, clean football being played and don't care about the rest. I want the game played like it was when you were a kid, you picked teams right before the game and played for the sake of playing. Some of the most competitive sports I ever played were not in High School,Pop Warner or Little League, they were in our backyards with nothing but personal pride on the line.
Thinking the whole NFL isn't corrupt is like thinking the US political system isn't corrupt.
You know, the real irony here is that the fans of our opponents think we believe that our team are saints. No one I know is that naive.
Is Belichick a boor and an asshole? Yes, and most likely, but the last time I checked, professional sports is about winning games, and for the last seven years no coach has been better at doing that with the pieces he's been given than Belichick.
Kraft? Sure he threatened to move the team...to another part of New England. The only money that came from the taxpayers of Massachusetts was from infrastructure improvements (ie: roads, sewers, etc. that were the responsibility of the state anyway). Is he a saint? No, but I would still rather have him than Irsay owning the club I root for.
As for players - I seem to recall at least one player on Indy getting picked up for a DUI, and if I remember right - Dallas Clark was kicked out of a high school girl's basketball game not too long back for comments he was making during the game -
(http://media.www.dailyiowan.com/media/storage/paper599/news/2007/02/21/Sports/Dallas.Clark.Ejected.From.HighSchool.Game-2732595.shtml)
And it's not exactly as though he's the only one to have offseason issues -
http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/category/nfl/2007/04/04/these-colts-arrests-are-starting-to-pile-up/
Gotta say, if almost half-a-billion is a small part of financing, I want to see if I can get the people of Indiana to finance my projects.
It just amazes me that this is the team that the NFL and press are trying to pass off as the NFL's "ggod guys."
No one is perfect...I don't think anyone belives that. And, it is clear that you and I don't agree and that is okay. I do agree with David that wouldn't it be nice if we could all play a pure game, but no game with money involved is pure. I don't think the Colts are Saints. And I sure as hell don't think the Pacers are Saints. They are an embarrassment. But, Peyton is the chosen poster boy of the NFL and Indy is going to ride that horse until it dies and you would too, if it were Brady. The Colts have done way more for this city that I can ever tell you. The Super Bowl last year was the first World Championship for this city since the ABA days in the 70s. Manning gives millions away to charities. You can't believe everything you read--on any side. I respect your passion for your team. See you in January.
But the Saints are Saints, right?
I'm so confused.
Good luck to you too.
And I'm sure the team has done a lot for the city - I never underestimate what winning a championship does for a region.
That said, don't try to sell me Irsay as anything more than the owner he is - which is one that was ready to move the franchise if the state didn't pony up enough money.
As for David's sentiments - I've pretty publicly shared the same view in a couple of my own posts -
http://theangryfan.blogspot.com/2007/08/remember-when.html
http://theangryfan.blogspot.com/2007/08/heroes.html
My apologies for the shameless self promotion, but these two entries are related to your statement.
Use this space any way you wish.
I enjoy the banter and think that everyone has made their point.
As for the Colts, I predict the injury bug and a Super Bowl hangover the rest of the way.
Check out my post:
http://sullsblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/nfl-2007.html
The only change I'll make to my preseason picks is that Tenn. will play the Pats for the AFC crown.
Isn't this a great country we live in!!!!
You mean you aren't going to jump on the Cris Collinsworth bandwagon and say the Jags are going to win the AFC South?? Give me a break. Del Rio can't keep his players out of the pokey.
Here is what I hope for you--I hope that your coach doesn't get too greedy and get one of your key players hurt trying to make his point. That would be sad, because whether I like them or not, the Pats are putting together a great season this year.
I will check out your blog posts. I have had a great time bantering with you guys. I love "meeting" fans who are smart and passionate, which you both are.
Take care.
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