I understand you're trying to put this camera affair in a better perspective, but I believe there's a critical difference between this and taking steroids.
Steroids make players unnaturally stronger and faster. It augments their strength and speed, but this 1)only affects the play of the man taking it, and 2)other teams can still recognize how strong and fast the guy is, even if they can't necessarily know he's on steroids. Bottom line, this is a tactical cheating maneuver and its impact on a game is minimal.
Signal-stealing is a strategic, not tactical, cheating maneuver. It eliminates the risk in play-calling altogether, making the only variable the physical matchups between the players. You claim that cheating of this sort can't tarnish the Pats' super bowl wins because of their relatively inferior play in the 2nd half as opposed to the 1st. But, in any spy operation, to keep your source of information intact you can't let the enemy even suspect they've been compromised. You certainly can attest to Belichick's brilliance--wouldn't he pull a Milton Berle with his spying, and only utilize his secret as much as necessary to win?
Think 1940, Battle of Britain: The British had broken the code of the German High Command and knew exactly where and when the Luftwaffe was going to attack. The vastly outmanned and outgunned Royal Air Force was sent to protect the vital targets, but towns like Hastings were completely leveled because the British had to let the Germans remain secure in the belief that their plans were known to only them.
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I know this is way too long to make it into his mailbag, but I hope he at least reads it.
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"wouldn't he pull a Milton Berle with his spying, and only utilize his secret as much as necessary to win?"
I hope this is referring to Berle's legendary man-parts. Because I don't know how he realtes to anything otherwise.
Yeah, I remember SG introducing the concept of a "Milton Berle" in a column a while ago, basically to assure us that even though the Patriots won all their super bowls by a field goal, there was no chance they'd lose.
As the legend goes, Milton Berle was at a wild party and some guy challenged him to a contest to see whose dong was longer (donger). Mr. Berle won handily, of course, and later bragged that he had "only pulled out enough to win".
Right. See, I think maybe this is just crazy enough for him to post on his next mailbag column. You referenced that and a tactical move in WW2.... you're playing to his heart.
By the way, I finally got him to answer a question in a live chat session where anyone can send him stuff live, but he made fun of me for confusing Emilio Estevez and Joe Estevez. I should've called Drew Stephan on that one.
Even if the Pat's didn't utilize their cheating to fullest capacity, it still doesn't take away from the fact that they cheated.
It's as if you were to break into a bank vault and steal only enough to have a fun weekend in Atlantic City rather than as much as possible. It still doesn't take away from the fact that you broke into a bank and stole money.
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