A moment of silence for New England Patriots

I wanted to share this article by Michael Silver at Yahoo sports.  The article is about titled “Super Bowl QB’s get a shot at redemption” but the interesting angle is that Ken Wisenhunt and Kurt Warner are both still very angry about the Patriots Spygate scandal and the fact that it may have cost them both the chance at another ring or two.   

These two sections really stuck out for me:

The first is Warner describing his performance against the Patriots in 2001.

In Warner’s eyes, Belichick’s players seemed to have a very good sense of what the Rams were doing on offense that day – and remember, St. Louis, one of the most prolific offenses in NFL history, scored just three points until a late flurry. It has been substantiated that the Patriots’ practice of videotaping the hand signals of opposing coaches, a violation of NFL policy, went back a number of years. The Rams and Patriots had played earlier that season, and logic suggests that Belichick might have gained an advantage through surveillance for the rematch.

“You can’t help but wonder,” Warner said Tuesday night. “Perhaps it didn’t happen that way – obviously, it could have been good coaching. But it’s possible that something else was also going on, and if so, thinks about the ramifications. People’s careers were altered. I hate to think about it that way, but it’s human nature.”

Whisenhunt is no less upset.  

(Whisenhunt) flashed back to his time as a Steelers assistant and the two AFC championship games his team lost at home to the Patriots, after the ’01 and ’04 seasons, and a figurative light bulb turned on inside his head.

 

The latter game, a 41-27 defeat, occurred during Roethlisberger’s rookie season, when Whisenhunt was Pittsburgh’s offensive coordinator and play-caller. Recalling that chilly evening in January of ’05, Whisenhunt remembered plays he sent in that, as soon as the ball was snapped, New England’s players defended perfectly. The Pats’ uncanny sense of what was coming baffled him at the time, and now he had a possible explanation.

Every Steeler fan remembers watching those games in disbelief.  It seemed inconceivable at the time that our team came up so short. At the time I remember feeling we had been out coached. Although our player seemed to match up fairly well against the Patriots, it seemed that they were always a step or two ahead mentally.  It turns out there may have been a good reason for that.

I am not saying that  the Patriots cheated, although we all know that they probably did.   I am also not saying, that if they cheated its the only reason they won those games. The Steelers made plenty of mental mistakes of their own in each of those games.  But just like Whisenhunt and Warner you can’t help but wonder what might have been.

Sometimes the refs make a bad call and that costs you. But when another team blatantly and shamelessly cheats, well it just feels like a whole different story. 

So as we stand on the verge of another Super Bowl, I for one, plan on taking a moment of silence to celebrate the fact that Bill Belichick will not be coaching in this one.