Every year, the 1972 Miami Dolphins pop champagne when the final undefeated team loses, preserving their 17-0 squad as the last to enjoy a perfect season. It's a rite of autumn in the NFL.
But now, here comes the New England Patriots, and if ever the cork was staying put, this is the threat. They've blown out eight opponents, beat their only perceived equal on the road, and now stare down history in a way perhaps like no one previously.
So leave it to Don Shula to start the tarnishing, start the mud slinging.
The Hall of Fame former Dolphins coach claimed to the New York Daily News that because the Pats were caught filming the New York Jets defensive signals from the sidelines in the season opener – a violation of league rules – that a 19-0 season would be marred and that an asterisk could be attached to it.
"The Spygate thing has diminished what they've accomplished," Shula told the paper. "You would hate to have that attached to your accomplishments. They've got it."
Ah, not really.
Shula certainly has the right to an opinion on the Patriots, but if it isn’t going to be fact-based then it rings hollow and desperate in a way that is far beneath him.
This isn't to defend the Patriots or Bill Belichick for that blatant and calculated bit of cheating. It was an embarrassment for the franchise and its coach.
The NFL was right to fine Belichick $500,000, the team $250,000 and take a first-round draft pick (or a second- and third-round pick were the Patriots to somehow miss the playoffs). It should have gone further and suspended Belichick for the second Jets game this season.
But the facts of the crime are clear – New England was caught filming Jets coaches during the first half of the first quarter of the first game of the season. The first time the Patriots employee operating the camera tried to head to the locker room, he was stopped by NFL security and forced to hand over the incriminating evidence.
New England's coaches never got to watch the tape. The filming constituted cheating and the intent was obvious. But thanks to what is now a convenient bit of circumstance, to say the Patriots gained an advantage from the film is inaccurate. They couldn't have.
The reality is New England hasn’t gotten anything out of the so-called "Spygate" this season except deserved national scorn.
Shula also raised the issue of alleged past filming, but tape of defensive signals from past seasons would be mostly useless. NFL teams constantly update their movements, even week to week, since it isn't against NFL rules to film the coaches' signals from other areas of the stadium.
New England was trying to get a real-time, in-game advantage. The NFL confiscated previous season tapes and destroyed them without further punishing the Pats.
Shula even accuses NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell of covering up past crimes, which is a strong allegation that the league, naturally, denies.
"I think the commissioner just wanted it to go away," Shula said.
Vast conspiracy theories aside, the debate here is about this season and this season only.
If you want to project back on previous seasons – where allegations of similar conduct, among other stories, exist – and even question the legitimacy of New England's three Super Bowls, hey, that's what Belichick has wrought upon the franchise. The Patriots have no moral high ground to stand on.
But for this year, considering the severity of the punishment and the level of outrage, you could even argue that New England is possibly the cleanest team in the league.
However, Shula is arguing forward just in case New England wins its next 10 games, Super Bowl included.
"(The NFL's punishments) tells you the seriousness or significance of what they found," Shula told the paper. "I guess you got the same thing as putting an asterisk by Barry Bonds' home run record."
Of course there could be some back story at play here beyond Shula's interest in preserving the unique greatness of that Dolphins team.
It starts, naturally, with Belichick. One of the Pats coach's closest friends and chief protégés is Nick Saban, who took over the Dolphins from 2005-06, ran them into the ground, fled in a heap of lies only to replace Shula's own son, Mike, at Alabama.
There is also New England's 21-game win streak over the course of the 2003 and '04 seasons that some Patriots players tried to equate to the Dolphins 17-0 season, which Shula at that point claimed wasn't the same.
Whatever it is, Shula has this one wrong.
While it will certainly play well to the growing anti-Patriots crowd nationally, regardless of intent and even giving thanks to fortuitous timing, New England is in the clear this season.
The facts are the facts, the timeline is the timeline, no matter how Shula wants to spin it.
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1 comment:
I cannot see anyone laying the facts out for all to see than Chico Bonner has done. Facts is facts.
Anytime I hear talk of Shula being a football insider I bristle. Shula used to be a football insider, quite an accomplished one for certain but now he needs to sit back and shut his mouth. Yes he coached the undefeated Dolphins but that was then and this is now. If Shula had the same technology available in the dark ages of football he certainly would have done the same thing. That is what coaches do. They can't go on the field and win the game themselves so they use whatever is available to gain an upper hand.
Part of facing an opponent in the NFL always was and remains today an attempt to gain the previously mentioned advantage on the field. Coaches have done exactly what New England's Belichick only not with the video camera. So has the respected Dungy of Indianapolis and all the rest of coaches in the NFL. Period. The only difference is Belichick got caught.
I couldn't agree less than including Shula as part of any theoretical homage like a Mount Rushmore type monument with the names mentioned. Shula couldn't be the water boy for any of those coaches. All that and his TEAM's undefeated season is in the first REAL jeopardy ever from the Pat's. Dungy's Colts looked like a contender but turned out to be nothing more than a contender who cuts.
When the Patriots do go undefeated this season all we can hope for is whatever is left of that Dolphin team from so long ago will finally sit back in their retirement and long term care facilities with their mouths shut. Why give so much creedance to what a senile old man is saying anyway? Why give so much creedance to what a coach who just didn't quite make it? (said with a deep bow because Dungy is a black NFL coach)
The oldtimers and the wannabes should watch each week and behold the Patriots glory.
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