Chus wrote:
How much did video taping a practice really help? The Pats had 18 regular season and playoff games of the Rams to study. It's not like the Rams were running a completely different offense once they got to the Super Bowl. The Pats still had to execute, and they did. They followed up that Super Bowl victory by throat-fucking the rest of the league for the next fifteen years. At some point, they have to get some credit for being better than everybody else, because they clearly are.
I don't mean to impugn all of their accomplishments from A-Z, and at this point all I can do is point you back to the SI article in which people from all over the NFL raise questions on their integrity. The piece said at least 19 teams or something took precautions against the Pats because they had grounds to think the Pats were trying to gain a competitive advantage in ways that violated league rules and/or basic fairness. Do you think teams take the same precautions against the Lions? The Packers? The Colts? As far as the Colts and Packers go, they are also some of the more successful franchises in recent memory, and as far as I know no team or official has called their accomplishments into question as they have done to the Pats, so it's not an issue of jealousy here or whatnot.
You're right that the Pats still have to execute, and they do that well. However, as you know, it's a hell of a lot easier to execute a game-plan when you have insider information on the opposing team's game-plan/strategy/etc. Have they always had insider information for playoff and regular season games? Well that's the essence of the issue - the answer is not an unequivocal yes or no either way, and that fact-based ambiguity is what tarnishes their legacy.