Sometimes there’s just not enough wood in the world to knock on. I found this out the hard way earlier this week. It took less than a week for my post about the 2001 Patriots to come back and haunt me. For those living in closet, or not interested in sports, the coach of the team was caught breaking the NFL rules in an attempt to gain an unfair advantage. It’s unclear how long they have been breaking the rules, but in the court of public opinion the team has been presumed guilty.
Just before that article, I posted some lessons from the NFL which included some advice for what to do in a crisis. The final step was “get back to putting your energies into what was important before the crisis.” That’s what the Patriots will try to do this Sunday when they play an exceptionally talented San Diego Chargers. In a weird twist, this will turn into a great motivator for the whole team. The need to win to prove to the world that they can beat the best without any illegal perceived advantage. In fact they need to go out and win a Super Bowl to really redeem any level of respect. There was always a lot of talk about how Coach Belichick found ways to motivate the players each week while they were winnings and considered the best team in football. I’m sure this isn’t what he had in mind, but he unintentionally put the Patriots in a position where they’ve always thrived – as a team which no one respects.
For those a interested on how I’m dealing with all this, I’ve gone through all 5 stages of grief. You could read Bill Simmons article if you are really interested because I agree with everything. I have three points from my rationization phase that I haven’t read anywhere:
- The Patriots legacy was their defense. You can’t stop the “Greatest Show on Turf” from stealing <b>defensive</b> signals
- Some of the <a href=”http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/29/60II/main683747.shtml“>2004 Carolina Panthers took steroids before the 2004 Super Bowl</a> against the Patriots.
- Could a team not employ someone from the bleachers to record signals? Simple grab a set of telescoping binoculars and replace it with a bigger SD card. At halftime flip the SD card down to the locker room. From all the rules that I’ve read this would be fine. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the Patriots need to hire me – wink.
I want to thank Mighty Bargain Hunter for sending me the YouTube.com clip that follows this round-up. In a week of depressing football news it really helped me to see something uplifting. And now to the links:
- Nickel’s got a new cell phone. I’m happy he found the Sprint SERO plan. It’s the plan my wife has. I’d have it myself, but I’m grandfathered into an even better deal. Anytime anyone mentions cell phone, I quickly recommend the SERO plan. I have a little Treo envy with as I only have a 700P. I should focus on enjoying what I have instead of trying keep up with the Nickels.
- Silicon Valley Blogger shows what’s holding up in the real estate market. I was watching the new the other night and there’s another split real estate market in Silicon Valley. In fact some markets are still rising while a lot of California is falling.
- Money, Matter, and More Musings is starting to finally investing his ginormous pile of cash. (He doesn’t really say if it’s ginormous, I just like to use the word ginormous, since it’s really a word now according to a few dictionaries.) He went a little crazy with the ETFs in my opinion, but at least he did it in Zecco account, so he didn’t have to pay commissions. There’s an interesting note that Morningstar considers a near 50/50 US/foreign stock allocation as aggressive. While any all stock portfolio is aggressive, I think this mix of foreign/US is far safer than the usual recommendation of 80% US stocks and 20% foreign stocks.
- Money Smart Life is writing a sales tactic series. The first tactic is don’t miss out. This is famously used when looking at timeshares. We bought it hook, line, and sinker.
- Generation X Finance gives a visual guide to Morningstar’s mutual fund comparison tool. Because I’m too Lazy to read, this visual guide is just the thing for me.
- Blueprint for Financial Prosperity has Seven Credit Card Secrets to share.
- FreeMoneyFinance shows you how to earn money back from various credit cards
- No Credit Needed is running a series on how to save money and reduce debt. This article is about understanding the big picture. I think too many people lose site of that.
- Mighty Bargain Hunter continues his series on making money with an Ebay store. This one is helpful to people who don’t sell on Ebay – it’s about obtaining a product at the right price.
And the uplifting football moment that I promised you:
Nice video. :) It ended just the way I thought it would. Even when the kid interjected at the end. ;)
I was going to say something, but I didn’t. It’s clear the Pats would’ve beaten the Jets with or without the video, but as a New Yorker I can’t pretend I don’t feel a little bit of redemption in the ‘maybe they aren’t so good’ meme going around the sports world now. I always suspected there might be something there, because Belichick had such an awful run as head coach of the Browns.
End of story is that everyone in the NFL cheats, but some just flaunt it too much. Simple fact is that one idiotic non-necessary attempt to gain advantage by Belichick has tarnished his 3 Super Bowls wins and his legacy in a way that never NEEDED to happen – and from that I think we may learn an even more important lesson from the Patriots, namely that integrity counts for something. Belichick is very good at what he does, but I doubt many people would call him a good person after all of this. There’s good guys on that team, though, and I would hate to see this whole thing take anything away from them – Brady is a true Cinderella story, and I respect his QB and leadership abilities; Bruschi is a hell of a guy; I always thought Corey Dillon was an amazing RB and finally got his due in NE; and their O-line and D are, from a Jet perspective, from Hell.
So, bad coach – but I don’t blame the team. Those guys are still tough to beat, and deserving of respect. Even though I’ll be pulling for the Chargers I don’t hold the Pats’ coach against the team itself.
hey, your link to genx is all messed up
First, thanks for visiting my blog. The husband is a huge Pats fan (me, I am a Niners girl, so it’s okay for me to root for Tom Brady since we both grew up in the Bay Area in the 1980s…actually, I think Brady just bought and moved into the building I lived in when I first moved to Boston – keep in mind that I lived in the basement apartment of that building and he just renovated the top two floors and turned them into a deluxe penthouse condo for himself).
Hubs take on this whole debacle is that this happens all the time. He mentioned that 2 backup QBs in college football will give different playcalls where 1 is correct and the other is to throw off the other team. Hubs also said that teams will sometimes have a “spy” in the stands watching the other team’s play calls. This is why it is common for coaches to call plays from behind a clip board. Overall he thinks Mangini is petty and this whole thing is being blown up by the media.
Going back to the Niners, I am shocked they are 2-0. Hubs is mad that I am rooting for them because the Pats have the Niners first round pick and Hubs wants the Niners to lose lots of games so the Niners/Pats pick is one of the first ones. According to Hubs (notice where I obtain a lot of my sports info), if the Pats make the playoffs they will lose their first round pick BUT the Pats will retain the pick they received from the Niners.