Pete Rose vs. Bill Belichick

September 16, 2007

Here we go. Now the accusations begin.

Did the Pats win their game Sunday night against the San Diego Chargers because of film that they took during the past few years of Belichick’s reign as head coach?

Have they been cheating all along? Was all of this Tom Brady’s idea? Or a remnant of Bill Parcells’ playbook? How deep does this scandal reach?

The score was 38-14 Sunday night and the Patriot defense was able to stifle the greatest modern day running back. And the offense ran roughshod over the Chargers play after play after play. But how did they do it?

It can’t all be ‘good’ preparation. Nope, I say it’s a much deeper level of cheating. And it probably goes all the way back to games where the Patriots knew exactly what play the Indianapolis Colts were going to call in successive playoff appearances, year after year.

Nobody guesses right that many times without help.

NFL sources are now saying that the taping incident that was revealed in NY last week was just the tip of the iceberg. They say that there were likely incidents of audio taping, microphone wearing players (so the Pats could hear the audibles of the other teams’ quarterbacks) and maybe even payoffs to officials (this last part is probably just a rumor).

But whatever the case, the Patriots’ wins all need to be taken with a grain of salt. They, and Belichick, are now in the same league as Pete Rose, the Chicago Black Sox team and most of the race teams in Cannonball Run.

I say the team should be fined $10Million and should forfeit eight games.

We’ll see if the league is more lenient.

More to come…