September 10, 2007: For the 1st time, the New England Patriots, their head coach Bill Belichick, and their quarterback Tom Brady get busted for cheating. It becomes known as "Spygate."
The day before, the Patriots had beaten the the New York Jets, 38-14 at Giants Stadium, in the Meadowlands Sports Complex in the New York suburb of East Rutherford, New Jersey. During the game, the Patriots videotaped members of the Jets' coaching staff.
Videotaping opposing coaches is not illegal in the NFL, per se. However, there are designated areas allowed by the league to do such taping. Because the Patriots were instead videotaping the Jets' coaches from their own sideline during the game, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell deemed it to be in violation of league rules, stating that the act represented a calculated and deliberate attempt to avoid long-standing rules designed to encourage fair play and promote honest competition on the playing field.
After an investigation, the NFL fined Patriots head coach Bill Belichick $500,000 (the maximum allowed by the league, and the largest fine ever imposed on a coach in the league's history) for his role in the incident; fined the Patriots as a team $250,000; and docked the team their original 1st-round selection in the 2008 NFL Draft, which would have been the 31st pick of the draft.
The investigation revealed that Belichick had been engaged in the practice since he became head coach of the Patriots in 2000. Goodell said Belichick told him he believed he was operating within the rules, as long as the tape was not used during the same game.
In other words, unlike the the baseball team with whom he shared a metropolitan area, the Boston Red Sox, when Belichick was caught cheating, he basically admitted it, but said it was okay. The man has guts, I'll give him that.
A few months later, the Boston Herald printed a story that the Patriots had taped the St. Louis Rams' walk-through before Super Bowl XXXVI, which resulted in the Pats' 1st Super Bowl win. This, Belichick denied, and the Herald ended up printing a retraction.
Who's kidding who? There would later be a Spygate II, and a Deflategate, which was apparently led by quarterback Tom Brady, without Belichick's knowledge. But even if Belichick didn't know about it, which is laughable, he had created a culture of cheating that led his players to believe that anything was legal, as long as you didn't get caught.
The Patriots, like the Red Sox, had forfeited the presumption of innocence. And, since Brady subsequently won a Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, for which cheating has not yet been substantively alleged, and the Patriots have struggled a bit since Brady left, and Belichick hadn't done too well as the head coach of the Cleveland Browns before coming to Foxborough in 2000, it could be argued that we saw "the real Belichick" in Cleveland.
So who's the real King of the Cheaters? Belichick? Brady? Patriots team owner Robert Kraft? We may never know.
What we do know is that, with a culture of cheating embedded, not one single game won by the New England Patriots since Belichick became head coach -- including all 6 Super Bowl wins -- can be taken seriously.
Now, you can argue that the Patriots would have won those games anyway. But think of it this way: We have more proven instances of Belichick and/or Brady cheating, and the other benefiting from that cheating, than we have proven instances of them not cheating. So which is more likely: That these were the only times they cheated, or that they cheated in many more games?
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September 10, 2007 was a Monday. This was also the day that, in support of troubled pop singer Britney Spears, Chris Crocker posted the "LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!" video. I have a separate entry for that event.
The NFL held 2 Monday Night Football games. The Cincinnati Bengals beat the Baltimore Ravens, 27-20 at Paul Brown Stadium (now Paycor Stadium) in Cincinnati. And the San Francisco 49ers beat the Arizona Cardinals, 20-17 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.
And these Major League Baseball games were played:
* The New York Mets beat the Atlanta Braves, 3-2 at Shea Stadium. Óliver Pérez outpitched Tim Hudson. David Wright hit a home run.
* The Tampa Bay Rays beat the Boston Red Sox, 1-0 at Fenway Park in Boston. Scott Kazmir pitched 7 innings of 5-hit shutout ball, and 2 relievers completed the shutout with no more hits. David Ortiz appeared only as a pinch-hitter, and did not reach base.
* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Colorado Rockies, 6-5 at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. Ryan Howard doubled home the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning.
* The Washington Nationals beat the Florida Marlins, 5-4 at Dolphin Stadium (now Hard Rock Stadium) in Miami Gardens, Florida.
* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat Milwaukee Brewers, 9-0 at PNC Park in Pittsburgh. Tony Armas Jr. pitched 6 innings of 3-hit shutout ball, and 2 relievers completed the 4-hit shutout.
* The Detroit Tigers beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 5-4 at Comerica Park in Detroit.
* The Chicago Cubs beat their arch-rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, 12-3 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.
* The Cleveland Indians beat the Chicago White Sox, 6-2 at U.S. Cellular Field (now Rate Field) in Chicago. Yes, both Chicago teams were at home on the same day; no, they didn't both win.
* The Minnesota Twins beat the Kansas City Royals, 4-2 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City.
* The Arizona Diamondbacks beat the San Francisco Giants, 5-3 at AT&T Park (now Oracle Park) in San Francisco. Bengie Molina hit 2 home runs for the Giants. Barry Bonds, in his last month as an active player, went 1-for-3 with a walk.
* And the Oakland Athletics beat the Seattle Mariners, 9-3 at Safeco Field (now T-Mobile Park) in Seattle. Ichiro Suzuki went 2-for-5.
* And the New York Yankees, the Baltimore Orioles, the Cincinnati Reds, the Houston Astros, the Los Angeles Angels, the Los Angeles Dodgers, the San Diego Padres and the Texas Rangers were not scheduled to play.
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