The Patriots and "CameraGate"
Time to weigh in here with my opinion. If you don't follow NFL football, move along -- there's nothing to see here that will interest you. :-)

In support of the Patriots: What they did wasn't as bad as I'd originally thought, and let me explain why. Football teams "steal" each other's play signals all the time. It seems to be the equivalent of the code-cracking done on military communications during WWII -- it gives an edge to the smarter side, and it's not dishonorable or below the belt. And, yes, everybody does it; to refuse is to give yourself a rather stupid disadvantage. Competition among playoff-caliber NFL teams is fierce and sophisticated, and decoding the other side's play-calling is a well-known part of it.

The NFL controls teams' use of photography equipment with a set of arcane rules. You can film your opponent's sidelines, but not this way, or from there, or with this kind of audio, etc. etc. etc. (I don't know them all.) This is to give all teams a level playing field, so to speak. Presumably, the use of too much technology and footage would make it too easy to crack the codes, and then competition would suffer. I'm guessing that's the reason for the rules.

So that's what the Patriots did. They broke a rule about how to film the opponent. Terrible, huh? Really makes you think they ought to be stripped of all their recent championships, doesn't it? :-)

Now for the other side: They really shouldn't have done it. Belichick defended himself by saying he misunderstood the rule, but I have to think that he's smarter than that. I'm guessing they did it on purpose, and that, to me, is not honorable. Code-cracking within the rules is fine. Deliberately breaking a rule, for the purposes of competitive advantage, is not. They deserved the penalties.

Furthermore, the context of the rule infraction just makes the whole thing seem stupid to me. They did this in a hostile stadium, to a grudge opponent (the Jets), with a coach who knows Belichick and his tricks (Eric Mangini), and who has his own personal grudge against Belichick. What a setup! Almost makes you think they wanted to get caught. It's very un-Patriot-like, and it makes me kind of uneasy. I wonder if there's a lot going on under the surface between these two teams that the public isn't seeing.

In any case, the Patriots brand has been besmirched. That's going to take a long time to fix, and I honestly feel a little embarrassed to have put myself fully behind this brand; I saw them as a "we play fair and well" kind of team, and I don't like to associate myself with someone I think is dishonorable.

But yesterday's win against the Chargers started to restore my faith. It was a clean win, and a ridiculously well-played game. :-)