Note to Coach Billick, PIPE DOWN!!

In the NFL, a defensive team can get penalized for simulating the snap count. It is considered cheating, and Billick was well within his rights to point it out. If the Jets and Ravens are indeed as good as everyone seems to think they are, they might meet in the playoffs and Billick wants to put the refs on notice. It's all gamesmanship.

I have to agree. Cheating is cheating. Some things may be worse than others but Billick still has everyright to complain about what the Jets were doing. Perhaps it would have been more tacktfull for him to tell the refs during the game and not the press afterwards.

What Billick is doing is not calling the Jets out for "cheating" but complaining that the referees missed the call. If every time a ref misses a call it means the team is "cheating" that makes every team in every professional sport a cheater becuase at some point they got away with something they shouldn't have. He is entitled to do that up to a point although we know that criticizing the refs can lead to fines.

Interesting, MJSD, when the Jets violate rules, you bring out the quotation marks.

If you can't see the difference bewteen being branded a cheater because you use a videotape to steal the opposing teams signs and being branded a cheater because the referees didn't call a penalty on a play that should have been a penalty than the school system in the New England area is in worse shape than I thought. As I said, I am sure that you can go through every game tape from Sunday and Monday and find at least one instance for every team where a penalty should have been called against them but wasn't. According to the logic that you seemingly endorse, that would make every team in the NFL "cheaters."

Committing a penalty is cheating. For the last week, people here have forgotten that there are degrees of cheating. The Jets cheated this weekend, got away with it, and still lost.

I would say there is a difference between a holding penalty and faking the snapcount. I agree that this is nowhere near the same level as what the Pats did but it is worse than a holding call. But like I said before, the better aproach would have been to complain to the refs during the game.

Here is a list of teams that cheated this week by your definition: http://sport...om/nfl/teams

I believe you are correct. Simulating a snap count I believe is a 15 yard penalty for unsportsman like conduct. Holding is only a 10 yard penalty. However, the Ravens got away with Pass Interference which is a spot of the foul penalty. Thus, that is even worse cheating.

I agree, tackling the guy before the ball gets there is worse. All I'm saying is that faking the snap count is a calculated action not a heat of the moment foul. It is wisely labeled unsportsmanlike conduct which is what it is more so than cheating. But you have to admitt it's a dirty tactic. And yes Billick is a whiny bitch.

I don't know about the "morality" of penalties. Grabbing the face mask or running into the kicker seem like more major penalties to me than a guy simply holding another guy. Yet, the NFL punishes the former for 5 yards and the later for 10. All I can say is that assuming I am correct and simulating the snap count is a 15 yard penalty, the NFL has decided that it is one of the more eggregious types of penalties.

From now on, every time I see a play that should have been a penalty but was not called, I am going to accuse the other team of "cheating." Do you realize how much "cheating" goes on in the NHL. There are tons of hooks, trips, high sticks, etc that go uncalled every game. Every team does it, thus every team in the NHL are "cheaters."

If there is a rules violation, such as a hold, pass interference, offside, false start, and so on, that is a form of cheating. Cheating is doing anything that violates the rules of the sport.

Ok, so please explain to me why by the definition you use, the Jets should be singled out. By my calculation, the Patriots have been flagged for 11 penalties this year compared to the Jets 4. That makes New England more than twice the cheaters that the Jets are, and that does not even take into consideration the fact that New England was forced to give up either a 1st rd or a 2nd and third because the commissioner found them guilty of cheating.

When the hell did I say the Jets should be singled out? I'm not the one who has been singling out teams for violating the rules.

Lets go over this very slowly. When you are the only team to be caught videotaping the opposing teams signals you are going to be singled out for cheating.

When you define cheating as committing a penalty, you can't single out any individual team because all teams committ penalties.

Thus, the Patriots deserve to be singled out because they are the only team that has ammassed a video library of opposing coaches defensive signals in contravention of NFL rules.

HAHAHA, look whose bitching about people throwing the word "cheated" around. irony.

You don't think I knew that New England fans would say these things? If the definition you want to use for cheating is committing a penalty in the sport as you indicate above, that would make every team in the NFL cheaters. Thus, by that definition the Jets are cheaters in the same way that every NFL team, including the Patriots, are cheaters. Of course the worst cheaters would be the ones who committed the most penalties (including those that were not called). In there game against the Jets, not only were the Patriots found to have have illegally used a videocamera to record the opposing teams defensive signs, but they committed 4 penalties. This is in comparison to the Jets 2 penalties. Thus, by all respects, the New England Patriots were the much largee cheaters in Week 1. In week 2, the Patriots "cheated" 6 times in comparison to the Chargers who cheated 7 times. Thus, even though the Chargers cheated more than the Patriots, the Patriots still got the victory. What about when Jeremy Shockey "spiked" the ball cuasing a five yard penalty. Was he cheating?

That's a very simple-minded way of looking at what I said. I'll try to go nice and slow for ya, okay?

1. Breaking a rule is cheating

2. There are different degrees and forms of cheating

3. The Jets, Patriots, and the 30 other teams all break rules from time to time

4. Because it happens so often, it really isn't that big of a deal, especially when officials punish the offending parties.

5. The people who spent all last week throwing the word "cheated" around won't spend so much time calling the other 31 teams cheaters. And I find that odd.

I wouldn't normally care about stuff like what the Jets did. It's against the rules, but it's inconsequential and Billick should have addressed the issue through official channels, not the media. However, head coaches using the media to hurt another team is something Mangini and the Jets should expect.

But what grinds my gears is that for a week, many people were making very simple arguments like "the Patriots cheated, therefore they should forfeit." These people failed to acknowledge the differing degrees of cheating, and that every single NFL team cheats during every single game. And this is a good example of one form of cheating that the Jets employ.

I have conluded 1 of two things

1) You are a moron, or 2) You are being intentionally disengenuous

There is no comparison between an action that takes place on the field that is part of the game and using a video camera to record the opponents defensive signals.

The NFL does have "degrees" of "cheating" for action on the field. defensive holding is a 5 yard penalty. Pass interference is a spot of the foul penalty. False start is a 5 yard penalty, holding is a 10 yard penalty. Grabbing the face mask is a 5 yard penalty. Grabbing and twisting the face mask is a 15 yard penalty. Running into the kicker is a 5 yard penalty and roughing the kicker is a 15 yard penalty. Those are degrees of cheating. You can't compare what happens during the coruse of play to thew type of cheating the Patriots were found guilty of, no matter how much you try to explain this away.

Dude, get this through your head:

I AM NOT TRYING TO EXPLAIN AWAY THE PATRIOTS CHEATING! WE CHEATED! WE DELIBERATELY BROKE NFL RULES TO TRY TO GAIN A COMPETETIVE ADVANTAGE!

What I'm trying to do is point out to you and to all the people who found the word "tarnished" and "tainted" in the dictionary last week, is that every NFL team cheats. You can say that the Patriots' cheating was worse than the Jets, and I'll agree with you wholeheartedly. But many people have been proclaiming that the Patriots are somehow the ONLY team that cheats in any way, shape or form. Which is completely and utterly incorrect.

Do you understand?

Again, you are being intentionally dishonest here. If you defins committing a penalty in the game as cheating I don't think you would find anyone who could say that every team didn't cheat.

If this is what you want, I will say it for you.

In terms of committing penalties during the coruse of a game, every team in every sport that has penalties and fouls "cheats"

In terms of cheating off the field by messing with technology in order to gain a competitive advantage in contravention of NFL rules, the Patriots are the only team guilty of cheating.

Is that the clarification you wanted?

That's a good way to describe it. There's obviously a difference in these two kinds of cheating. I'm just mad at people who were so simple and basic with their arguments about cheating. Everybody cheats. Nobody has been caught cheating the way the Patriots did, but they aren't the only team that cheats. I'm a stickler for the correct word usage. It annoys the hell out of people, but I feel as though it's important.

clap, clap, clap!!!

Have I not said this enough? There are different levels of cheating. I never said the Patriots and Jets were on the same level of cheating. But they're both cheaters, as are the 30 other teams. It's just like grabbing a facemask is a 5 yard penalty and yanking a facemask is a 15 yard penalty. They're both facemask penalties, but one is more severe than the other. But just because the 15 yarder is more egregious, doesn't mean that the 6 yarder doesn't exist and doesn't warrant a penalty.

^^^5 yarder

Actually, i beleive the 5 yard penalty is for what appears to be accidental and without impact to the play which would not be cheating. Where as taking someone down by the face mask is a violation which I would call cheating if it was done intentionally.

When did anybody try to commute or argue for the commutation of the Patriots' sentence? I know I didn't, and anybody who argues for that is wrong. To continue with your analogy of a murderer and a speeder, what I'm arguing against is the generalization of cheating. So would you put the murderer and the speeder in the same boat because they're both criminals? They both broke the law, so they're both criminals, but there are degrees of crimes. My point is that it's wrong to generalize cheating and then say crap like "They should forfeit the game because they cheated." Now, if you think their violation was serious enough to deserve a forfeit, that's fine, but to just say they should forfeit because they broke the rules is ridiculous.

You continue to try to compare "cheating" on the field with cheating off the field. If a team wins a game because their cornerback trips the receiver in an obvious penalty missed by the referee leading to an interception that leads to the winning touchdown, that is very different than a team that hijacks the footballs used by the NFL, implants a tiny microchip that allows them to control the flight of the ball and uses a remote control to alter the flight of the ball to their advantage. And by the way, if anyone is tryong to generalize the word "cheating" and "cheaters," its you.

Show me when and where I've tried to generalize cheating as one overarching offense and I'll do my best to rectify my error.

You have generalized cheating by saying that all on the field penalties are cheating and therefore all teams cheat. That is generalizing cheating.

Idiot, breaking the rules is cheating. That's what cheating is.

You know what, if the Chargers didn't change their signs from last year's playoff game to this year's game with us, they deserve to have them stolen. You guys can keep coming up with excuses, but we won fair and square this week, and we won convincingly.

I love it when people blame the victims.

You know what, if he left his car door unlocked, he deserved to have it stolen.

You know what, if she went out drinking with HIM, she deserved to get raped.

This isn't grand theft auto and it sure as hell isn't rape. Every team knows that every other team is trying to pick up their signs. If you don't change a code when you know it might be broken, it's just like talking in plain English. And if someone overhears you, you have nobody to blame but yourself. Are you saying you wouldn't blame the Chargers' coaches if they didn;t change their signs after all this sign stealing stuff that's been going on last week?

I think we can all agree that every team should change their signs when they play the Patriots because the league has confirmed that the Patriots have been cheating for years and have established an illegal library of videos of defensive signals that they have been using to their advantage since Bill Bellicheck's first season in New England. That being said, the fact that a team does NOT change their signs does not make it ok for the Patriots to use the signs that they stole to their advantage. If somebody stole my keys I would change my locks. But if someone stole my keys and I didn't change my locks, it does not jusitfy the theif using my keys to break into my house and steal all my belongings. Certainly I may be a moron in that situation but the thief isn't any less a criminal because of my stupidity.