Are your grapes sour much, there, Donny?
November 7th, 2007 by Jakes
Wow, could anyone’s grapes be more sour than Shula’s? Not to mention, does anyone here think that by making these comments he didn’t make it a whole heck of a lot more likely that his beloved record* (asterix applied because there were only 14 regular season games at the time, not to mention there was no salary cap) will fall this year?
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3097057
November 9th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
IIRC, the Dolphins 14 regular season games included zero playoff teams, and an opponents aggregate winning percentage of around .400. Oh, and did Shula forget that his team was punished a while back for tampering… um, isn’t that cheating? So is everything they do subsequently to be asterisked?
But that aside, I need someone to explain this to me. The Pats were caught with Videogate about eight minutes into the first game of the season - and the tapes were confiscated at that time i.e. not even used in that first game. Now putting aside whatever you feel about (a) the actual advantage that was achieved by this practice, or (b) whether or not other teams also did it… how does this impact *any* of the games *this* season?
If folks want to talk about asterisks for past Patriot seasons then I get that. I personally think it’s ludicrous, but I understand their position at least.
But… um… what would the asterisk be for *this* season? If the Pats were caught before any games *this* season could potentially be impacted, what’s the problem? Is it that people are assuming that Belicheck is so arrogant/stupid that after getting such a harsh penalty, he’s *still* doing it this season? I think Belicheck was arrogant/stupid for ignoring previous warnings and not only continuing to do it, but continuing to do it on the road against his former disciple with whom he has an obvious feud brewing. The Patriots got the punishment they deserved - for ignoring the warnings (which is what I think the punishment addressed more, rather than getting punished for the actual “crime”).
Is the problem that people ass-ume he must be cheating some other way - so we need to asterisk for that reason?
I saw Marcellus Wiley (didn’t even know he’d retired, fwiw) on ESPN insisting that the Pats should get an asterisk if they’re somehow able to go undefeated. A few minutes later, he insisted that - right now - Adrian Peterson is better than LDT. I get that AP is an exciting rookie with a lot of potential who’s had a very nice first eight games to his career… but let’s see him (a) do it for an entire season, and (b) do it more than one season i.e. do it after defenses start gameplanning to stop him… you know, like they do with LDT. I’d also like to see AP pick up a blitz, like… hmmm… LDT (among so many other NFL RBs). So I’m inclined to accept that Wiley is going to say a series of stupid things in hopes of getting noticed (which I suppose worked, cuz I probably wouldn’t have noticed him in this new role otherwise). I guess that’s his defense.
But I would just like someone to explain to me what is being asterisked, exactly.