Cheaters Never Prosper

As dismissive as I've been of the LOLcats phenomenon, it does lead to some pretty funny spinoffs, like the realisticats I wrote about last week, or this one here at Matt's place.

On the actual question of the Patriots cheating, I don't think that it makes a huge difference objectively. There is obviously some benefit to being able to steal signals, in particular if the defense knows what the offense is running (see, for instance, the utter domination Tampa had over Oakland in the Super Bowl when the Raiders didn't bother changing up their play names, even though their coach from the year before was now the Tampa coach.) But I doubt stealing defensive signals, which I believe is the charge here, is a huge advantage.

For one thing, defense is primarily a reactive thing, whereas offense is active, so it's more difficult to figure out, especially on the fly, how to set up a play to take advantage of a defense. More important, I think, is the fact that any halfway decent defense reacts to what the offense is doing; which players are in the huddle, how they line up, pre-snap motions, etc. This is something you realize if you play Madden; if you simply pick a defense and don't adjust to what the O is doing, you will get creamed, every time.

So I doubt that the Pats gained a huge advantage from doing this. Which means that, at least to my mind, it doesn't particularly taint their Super Bowl wins. However, I was listening to Colin Cowherd on ESPN Radio yesterday, and he made a great point, which is that because Belicheck basically goes out of his way to demean people, treat them poorly, and piss off everyone who isn't a member of his organization, he gets absolutely no slack when something like this comes up.

Imagine, if you will, the Colts getting caught doing something like this. The immediate reaction would be something like 'well, Tony Dungy is a winner, he tries to do everything he can to put his team in a position to succeed.' That's because everyone loves Dungy (understandably and justifiably, I should say; the guy is an absolutely fantastic man, coach, etc.) But, when grousy, kvetchy, smartest-guy-in-the-room Belicheck gets caught, everyone's first response is 'Cheater! Liar! Tainted championships!

'Herd made the very true point that there's a benefit to treating people nicely, even when you don't have to, because someday your chips will be down, and it would be nice to have people trying to pick you up, rather than walk all over you, when it happens. Good words to live by, I think...