You are entitled to your opinion. But your obsession with the formations is getting insane. The patriots lined up in a legal formation and no flag was thrown period. It is up to the official to call if a player tries to switch legibility without leaving the game. The formation itself was 100 percent legal when it happened. Any reaction to the formation is an acknowledgement that the rule needed to be amended but they didn't break the rules. I assume that is the instance you are referring to regarding them getting caught cheating a half a time. In that you are flat out wrong
Curious of your opinion regarding syracuse violations and how it impacts your view of the program being honorable.
Re: Syracuse Basketball I am able to compartmentalize violations that occur on the field/court of play and those that occur in the labyrinth of rules and regulations that the NCAA enforces on people. I played a D1 sport (not at SU) and have seen the nonsense first hand at different levels and so I'm somewhat forgiving of the recruiting/eligibility issues. Fab Melo, for instance, was never going to be a student wherever he went -- what the Syracuse AD did was not ethical nor appropriate but...
The organization is paying a fairly steep price for those transgressions, so there is "justice" after all in this case…not really comparable to the Patriots case where my entire point is there haven't been appropriate penalties other than a draft pick. Kraft is worth over $2B more, the risk/reward is very favorable there….
My "obsession" with the Patriots formation is not insane, in fact is very fact-oriented. I took 3 mins to understand the rules by Googling the rule book…understanding the pattern of eligibility from play-to-play mattered I looked at ESPN play-by-play, which took another, um, 38 seconds. It's funny, but if you want to be conspiratorial, MOST other plays that I've seen, including the third Patriots "Formation" play, were labeled as "Vereen reports as eligible"…BUT, the first TWO plays that were run that way had no such labeling on ESPN…Hmmm…
So, I got a free 7-day trial of NFL playback online, this took all-in about 7 mins, and forwarded to the series in question…in MY rewatch of the series, the FIRST TWO formation plays were one after the other, but as I said then you can't tell perfectly because the changes aren't mentioned on the broadcast and you're forced to watch the formations unfold…in MY viewing, again, the plays were back-to-back, so I thought maybe the NFL asked ESPN to take down the description of players reporting eligibility on the play-by-play because it was a give-away. The Boston paper-guy refuted my notions (rather specifically, I'd add) by saying the players subbed in and out…but that's not what I saw and I believe the reporters are just reporting what they were told…
Not a big deal in the end…this issue is not the institutional cheating we're talking about but should have been flagged on at least the late report, different universes. And I might be wrong about the series of plays…but at the end of it, it's definitely not INSANE to think there's favoritism in big-money business or sports.
I am extremely hopeful that all this clamor will put the Patriots under a microscope and we'll get a level playing field this year…if a lineman hits Brady it won't automatically be a penalty…if Jerry Hughes is excited his teammate made a big sack on 3rd down and smacks his own player on the head to celebrate it won't be a drive-extending 15-yeard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that will written about on ESPN the next day…
But, the Patriots should definitely have lost draft picks last week, this whole thing should not have taken 4 months.
Cheers…psyched about Mr. Washington's commitment