They Never Prosper, Huh?

It wouldn't be too crazy to think that in today's world of never ending steroid accusations and suspicions of cheating that the controversy surrounding Bill Belichick and the Patriots might have gone over just a little smoother. What am I saying, it'd be plenty crazy.

Even with the topic of steroids popping up in every single conversation pertaining to just about every sport held around every water cooler, on every television and every radio day after day, doping has not yet come to define cheating as a whole. In fact when you stop and think about all the ingenuity and technology that has gone into increasing the performance of performance enhancers and making them harder to detect, it makes cheating the old fashioned way seem like a complete insult to our intelligence. Seriously, players are peeing in cups while lab technicians are fighting to thaw out the cups they peed in 10 years ago while the public is fighting for blood tests, and here the Patriots are in broad daylight using some jerk with a camcorder. I know it's all about cheating, but where's the effort New England?

Come on Bill, it's been over a half century since Bobby Thompson and the Giants used the infamous spyglass to help win the pennant, win the pennant, win the pennant, win the pennant, and they didn't even go on to win the World Series that year. By contrast New England has won 3 of the last 6 SuperBowls and you'd have to be naive to think that they never used any trick photography on the way to or during their championship victories. I mean really, if they used the cameras in a season opener then when wouldn't they use them?

Now even with the revelation that the man who many consider(ed?) to be the game's greatest strategist has been breaking the rules to get ahead, to me the biggest surprise has been the response we've gotten so far from the league office. Sure losing draft picks can hurt most teams, but the Patriots are hardly most teams and only their first and second round picks from this year's draft made the roster. What about forfeiting week 1 to the Jets? What about suspending Bill? What about investigating past infractions? I'll give Goodell some more time before passing judgment, but I am clearly expecting more than a second and fifth rounder.

To me the bottom line here is real simple. People are sick and tired of all the cheating and now one of the biggest possible fish has not only been caught, but caught red handed and the people want to see an example made. So will Belichick and the Patriots suffer because we haven't been able to nail Barry yet? Maybe, but who cares? They all cheated right?