More red meat for the players on the Pats, as evidenced by these locker room comments yesterday....
The Patriots today reacted with their typical indifference when asked about Don Shula’s comments in today’s New York Daily News that if the Patriots go undefeated, their accomplishments should bear an asterisk because of the camera scandal earlier in the year.
“Will there be an asterisk, though?” tight end Ben Watson said. “Nobody’s going to go 16-0 and put an asterisk. That’s why I’m not worrying about it. I don’t have anything to say about it, really. We’ll see at the end of the season what happens. I can’t make a prediction on whether there will be an asterisk any more than I can make a prediction that we’re actually going to go 16-0. We could go 9-7 for all I know.”
Linebacker Tedy Bruschi said he respected Shula’s place in the game, but doesn’t appreciate outsiders calling the Patriots’ accomplishments into question.
“Well, if someone questions your integrity, if someone questions who you are, if someone questions the organization you’ve been a part of ever since you walked into the league, would it upset you?” he said. “So yes, it does upset me.”
*******************
Here's hoping each week someone else says something about the Pats.
It's really destroyed their year so far.....
7th November 2007 01:43 PM
gimmekeef
Shulas a whiney old asshole who charges a fortune for crappy steaks.This whole Pats thing is getting old.Let em get their 19-0 and have the draft......
8th November 2007 08:08 PM
TomL
Pittsburgh Steelers.......................................HERE WE GO STEELERS HERE WE GO................
[Edited by TomL]
8th November 2007 10:20 PM
robpop
quote:gimmekeef wrote:
Shulas a whiney old asshole who charges a fortune for crappy steaks.This whole Pats thing is getting old.Let em get their 19-0 and have the draft......
The toast every yeat after the last undefeated team loses sickens me. Somehow I see Double B speaking the same words as Shula 20 years from now.
8th November 2007 10:22 PM
robpop
quote:TomL wrote:
Pittsburgh Steelers.......................................HERE WE GO STEELERS HERE WE GO................
[Edited by TomL]
Gonna be interesting now. Gonna be there on Sunday. Gonna be boozin on Sunday for the first time in weeks.
9th November 2007 05:49 AM
Nellcote
Don Shula, practicing selective amnesia.....And oh my,my, look at all of the killer teams they beat.....
Litke: Shula should be cautious with asterisks
November 7, 2007
Associated Press
Name a coach and NFL team caught cheating and then forced to give up a first-round pick, only to gain a measure of revenge by roughing up an opponent or two en route to a perfect season and a Super Bowl title.
Bill Belichick's New England Patriots?
How about Don Shula's 1972 Miami Dolphins?
The parallels aren't exact, since that Dolphins team is already in the record book and these Patriots are only halfway through their regular-season schedule. But Shula couldn't be bothered with distinctions earlier this week when he suggested an asterisk would be appropriate if the Patriots did make it onto the same page by season's end.
"The Spygate thing has diminished what they've accomplished," the retired Hall of Fame coach told the New York Daily News. "You would hate to have that attached to your accomplishments. They've got it."
If Shula believes that, then he ought to negotiate a two-fer and paste the other asterisk next to his own undefeated team.
He was still the coach of the Baltimore Colts at the end of the 1969 season, when then-Miami owner Joe Robbie approached him and signed Shula to a contract. The NFL charged the Dolphins with tampering and awarded their first-round pick to the Colts. Undaunted, Miami reached the Super Bowl in 1971, then rebounded from a loss to the Dallas Cowboys by winning the next two, including the perfect 17-0 campaign.
Belichick may be crazy -- and I'll lay the over -- but he's no fool. Whatever advantage his Patriots gained by stealing signals in their opener against the Jets, chances are good they put the extra video camera back in the case after that little chat with commissioner Roger Goodell. Yet, they've only gotten better.
Let's not soft-pedal what Belichick and the Pats did. Even though a one-game suspension would have made the point much more effectively, Goodell found enough wrongdoing to lighten Belichick's pay envelope with an unprecedented $500,000 fine, then took another $250,000 from the organization and a first-round pick.
It's curious that the commissioner decided to destroy all the evidence afterward, but it might also be telling.
"You don't know what was on those tapes and how much it helped," Shula said. "I think the commissioner just wanted it to go away."
Small wonder. Teams have been looking for an edge since the league opened for business and they've only become more sophisticated in the intervening years. Since the Patriots are state-of-the-art in just about everything else they do, it stands to reason they were better at stealing signals than their opponents, too.
Yet, if Goodell is serious about running an honest game -- I'll take the over on that bet, too -- and he concluded a fine and a draft pick were enough to level the playing field, well, it must not have been that tilted to begin with. After the whistle, though, that's a different story.
The Patriots are arguably the NFL's most talented team, they're definitely the best-coached and thanks to comments like Shula's, they're easily the most motivated. There's no chance success will go to their head.
To know that, you only had to see Belichick grab a clipboard in the Dallas game a few weeks back, walk grumpily toward the bench and start lecturing his linebackers, who hadn't given up so much as a first down at that point.
Better yet, go back and look at the film on tackle Matt Light's personal foul in the second quarter Sunday against Indianapolis. Colts defensive end Dwight Freeney fooled Light with his pass rush and was en route to steamrolling Tom Brady. Rather than see his quarterback crushed, Light desperately leg-whipped Freeney and got caught. Even so, it was one of those win-at-all-cost maneuvers that few people would have admired more than Belichick and Light's teammates would have admired.
Back in the day, Shula probably would have felt the same. His Miami teams, like Belichick's, were disciplined and punishing, and while they beat up opponents with a low-tech running attack led by Larry Csonka and Jim Kiick, the Dolphins were not above running up a score once they got rolling. In the perfect season, coincidentally, that translated into a 52-0 beating of New England.
That year, the Dolphins also happened to draw what most experts consider one of the NFL's softest schedules ever. Their opponents had a winning percentage below .400. But nobody suggested an asterisk was in order then, and if the Patriots go through a deeper league and all the way to a Super Bowl without losing, Shula would do well to remember something that Csonka once said:
"Perfection ends a lot of arguments."
------
Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke(at)ap.org.
9th November 2007 08:46 AM
Some Guy
*
9th November 2007 10:27 AM
sirmoonie
quote:Some Guy wrote:
*
Yep, hard to live down. Kind of the sports equivalent of being tarped.
9th November 2007 11:02 AM
Some Guy
are the *Patriots off this weekend?
9th November 2007 11:33 AM
Nellcote
Pats are in bye week mode.
Time to rest up, get healthy.
We are preparing for the assault on Buffalo next week.
The Bills are the competition in the AFC East.
They play well in all three facets of the game.
We will have our hands full in the frozen tundra of Orchard Park.
9th November 2007 12:04 PM
gimmekeef
quote:Nellcote wrote:
Pats are in bye week mode.
Time to rest up, get healthy.
We are preparing for the assault on Buffalo next week.
The Bills are the competition in the AFC East.
They play well in all three facets of the game.
We will have our hands full in the frozen tundra of Orchard Park.
With that 5 game divisional lead this bye and that monster game in Buffalo I'm sure has the Pats working overtime..lmaaaaaooooooo..A win and its all over mathematically
9th November 2007 12:22 PM
Nellcote
Buffalo is a tough opponent.
They are going to field their best players for 60 minutes against us. They have a defense which can come at you.
They play a different style of ball than what we've been seeing recently. They have good receivers.
Coach Jaroun has been around this game for a while, he is to be respected. It's the next team we face, we need to stay focused. Can't let what we've accomplished to date ruin our focus, for that's over with.
On to Buffalo...
9th November 2007 12:44 PM
WinslowStud
All i can say is, the pats are lucky they don't have to come to cleveland this year....that winning record would end up the way of the titanic, a jeff george comeback, or robpop's sex life: a complete bomb.
9th November 2007 01:07 PM
Nellcote
Studly, you guys just keep supporting Coach Crennel.
Don't go running him out of town, he's good people.
9th November 2007 01:08 PM
gimmekeef
Cleveland...where nothing happens...all the time
9th November 2007 04:34 PM
Some Guy
Is the Nation worried?
10th November 2007 06:55 PM
robpop
Winslow's main squeeze.
10th November 2007 08:25 PM
sirmoonie
Check it bleeds.....
Lambert is hilarious doing that interview!
10th November 2007 08:37 PM
robpop
That was Oscar material. Great find.
10th November 2007 08:51 PM
sirmoonie
quote:robpop wrote:
That was Oscar material. Great find.
I think he is a park ranger up near Erie. I think I read that.
10th November 2007 08:57 PM
robpop
quote:sirmoonie wrote:
I think he is a park ranger up near Erie. I think I read that.
He is an officer for the PA Game Commission. Goes around busting dudes who do not shoot dear the proper way.
Anyway he fined my brother in law 25 bucks for unathorized use of a motor vechicle on state game lands.
Just checked into it he retired.
Here is what they are doing now link.
http://www.nflplayers.com/news/news_release.aspx?id=4813
[Edited by robpop]
10th November 2007 09:08 PM
sirmoonie
quote:robpop wrote:
He is an officer for the PA Game Commission. Goes around busting dudes who do not shoot dear the proper way.
Anyway he fined my brother in law 25 bucks for unathorized use of a motor vechicle on state game lands.
Just checked into it he retired.
Here is what they are doing now link.
http://www.nflplayers.com/news/news_release.aspx?id=4813
[Edited by robpop]
Awesome read.
Didn't know Furness had died, and so young.
What the hell is Gerela coaching in New Mexico? WTF?
10th November 2007 09:23 PM
robpop
quote:sirmoonie wrote:
Awesome read.
Didn't know Furness had died, and so young.
What the hell is Gerela coaching in New Mexico? WTF?
I did not know about Furness either. I remember Coursin's accident. He was cutting down a tree and it fell on him. Tragic. The roids almost killed him, he made a recovery and then that.
The most interesting story I had heard during an interview with Andy Russell. He as on a business trip years ago in Saudi Arabia, when he met Osama Bin Laden.
10th November 2007 09:25 PM
pdog
Winslows girl?
11th November 2007 02:22 PM
WinslowStud
two minute warning, first half: browns up 21-6!!
steeler fans, you may as well go clean the leaves out of your gutters now...browns about to be tied for division lead.
what? oh, ok:
11th November 2007 02:39 PM
PartyDoll MEG
Thank you, Stud! I was just about to post that too!!
11th November 2007 02:44 PM
WinslowStud
meg...
sundays can be such a religous experience, can't they?!
11th November 2007 03:31 PM
robpop
ahem. Sorry just clearing my throat.
11th November 2007 03:34 PM
pdog
quote:robpop wrote:
ahem. Sorry just clearing my throat.