Bear with me: there is a political spin to this tale.
I'll be the first to say: I am no football fan. It's my least-liked of the major sports, behind hoops and baseball (hockey isn't even on the list). However, I remain knowledgeable about the game as do millions of Americans.
Many of us already know about the videotaping incident against the New York Jets by the New England Patriots, ordered specifically by Head Coach Bill Belichick. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell initially got right out in front of this issue, fining Belichick a cool half-million dollars for the blatant infraction and fining the team another million, while demanding every scrap of possible evidence from the team's video archives.
In this most corporate of sports, it appeared that the NFL Commish was actually doing something moral.
Then a sports and political columnist whom many of you may already be acquainted with started asking questions.
More below the fold.
Here is the nut of the issue, as described by Gregg Easterbrook in his TMQ Column on ESPN.com:
On Sunday, Sept. 16, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell went on national TV and promised he would get to the bottom of the Patriots' sign-stealing. Four days later, the NFL announced all videotapes and other spying materials compiled by the Patriots had been obtained by the league and destroyed. Goodell, who until then had been very upfront in addressing the Beli-Cheat scandal, didn't go back on television to say what the tapes contained; the commissioner has been in radio silence about the Patriots since the files arrived at the NFL's Park Avenue headquarters. The league acted in a hurry to dispose of damning documents, but has not revealed what was in the tapes and notes, nor said why there was a rush to get rid of them.
Now, as we all know, the Super Bowl is pretty much a national holiday in the United States. It's the biggest television event of the year, with frankly political and patriotic overtones in the coverage, the commercial sponsorships and the hype surrounding each annual game. It represents the core of the commercial American culture and a big element in how millions upon millions of Americans literally define themselves. (That's a frightening thought, but I think true nonetheless.)
The mere possibility of coaching staffs cheating in a Super Bowl, much less having the chutzpah to attempt such a thing under such powerful and omnipresent media scrutiny, seems to me to be a virtual impossibility.
Easterbrook goes on:
This weekend, in an e-mail exchange with NFL spokesman Greg Aiello, I asked twice whether the Patriots' documents contained evidence of cheating in the Super Bowl, and Aiello twice declined to either confirm or deny the existence of such evidence. The first time, he changed the subject with a detailed response about the original penalty; and the second time, after I protested he hadn't answered my questions, he replied, "I did answer your questions to the extent I'm going to answer them."
As a matter of logic, refusing to deny something is not the same as admitting it. But if the Patriots' tapes and documents contained no indication of cheating in the Super Bowl, it would be strongly in the NFL's interest to publicize this. Instead, the New England documents were shredded within roughly 48 hours of the NFL receiving them -- see timeline below. The rapid shredding occurred although Goodell said nothing about plans to destroy the materials when he was on national TV vowing his purpose was "maintaining the integrity of the NFL."
Knowing how much is at stake here, which is to say the sporting integrity of the most important sporting event each year (note I did NOT say COMMERCIAL integrity, because it manifestly has none), and the reputation of a three-time Super Bowl champion along with the reputation of an increasingly legendary football coach, it's not hard to understand why an NFL spokesman would try to wiggle out of addressing this strikingly touchy issue.
But as often winds up being the case, the cover-up may be worse than the crime. Or is it, in this particular case?
On Sunday, I asked Aiello whether the league would make a simple, declarative statement that the spying files proved the Patriots did not cheat in a Super Bowl -- and have not heard back from him. I assume this is not because he has forgotten: I've heard from Park Avenue sources that the fact I am asking these questions is very much on the NFL's radar. (Emphasis mine. TLK) I have known Aiello professionally for years and, like others who deal with him, have always found him skilled, knowledgeable and forthright. It's very odd to be getting a "non-denial denial" from him now.
I further asked Aiello who had examined the New England materials before they were destroyed, and he would answer only "senior members of the league office staff." I asked when the materials actually arrived at league headquarters -- How long were they there before being destroyed? -- and he would not answer. I asked whether the materials had been inspected by anyone conversant with the game plans and signals the Rams, Panthers and Eagles used against Bill Belichick's Patriots in the Super Bowl; football signs and terminology are cryptic, so it would help to have a skilled eye. Aiello wouldn't answer that. I asked who had ordered the tapes and notes destroyed, and he wouldn't answer that, either.
Belichick himself has a rather Nixonian cast to him. Easterbrook half-humorously compares the situation to the cast of characters in the Nixon White House and the "non-denial denial" that Washington denizens are so good at. He also brilliantly lays out the exact timeline for this brewing scandal that many establishment figures earnestly hope will now fade away.
But here is where he really nails it:
And if you're tempted to say, "Gregg, at worst this is just cheating in some dumb football games," here's why the affair matters: If a big American institution such as the NFL is not being honest with the public about a subject as minor, in the scheme of things, as the Super Bowl, how can we expect American government and business to be honest with the public about what really matters?
Really, what else is there to say?
I've felt for a long time that the Super Bowl was nothing but Son et Lumiere, a vast sound and fury of utter insignificance. Unfortunately, it also does say a lot about the soul of this country, and what it says is not particularly pleasant. For many serious sports fans, coaches actually cheating in a football game is serious. The game itself is what many people still hang their hats on as the motivation for watching the Super Bowl. At least the promise of competition is still there. Right?
If evidence of a crime (and if coaches cheating during a Super Bowl isn't a crime, what IS?) was destroyed on the orders of the NFL Commissioner, doesn't it just really, once and for all, nail professional football down as not only the most corporate of sporting pastimes; the most commercially seductive and corrupt sporting enterprise in America; the pastime that destroys the bodies of so many of our children before they have even physically matured; a sport that refuses to provide a fair pension for the broken men who inhabit the world of the ex-professional football player; but also as a sharp, high-resolution mirror reflection to the Republican madness that continues to destroy the Federal government?
The scale of this problem is phenomenal. If the millions of football fans don't really care about this, the possible destruction of evidence of cheating during their most cherished and anticipated public event, then is there any event or policy that the American people will simply refuse to tolerate? Even the 33% who refuse to abandon Bush, supporting his failed war started under false pretense, administered with profound cupidity, and used to impose Draconian executive and surveillance powers on the American people?
WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO PISS THESE PEOPLE OFF?
Maybe screwing with their stupid Super Bowl will do it.
That's why I decided to write this. I want this story to have legs.