Bill Belichick -- Classy All The Way

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE GIANTS specifically for keeping the Miami Dolphins the only undefeated team in the modern NFL. I am pleased on many counts but that's the one that matters to me the most. The legacy remains and will remain for a long, long period of time.

This was the first time I can remember deliberately rooting for a New York team, but the cause was great. And Jimmy Johnson gets to eat crow.

The Patriots didn't win, didn't cover the spread, and I wish to point out that Bill Belichick is all class* -- walking off the field before the game was over. I can understand the confusion going on the field because the clock was ticking down towards zero, but he knew it wasn't officially over once he got there because the referees told him. He left the field anyway: a sore loser. Or, in his case just a loser -- and a cheating one at that.

* Classy in a Paris Hilton sort of way.

KTFBG.

VideoGate: Belichick's Cheating Ruins NFL Credibility

I'll skip the discussion of the travails of the actual incident in questions. It's pretty much blatant and obvious. I'm going to move right on to my opinions of the NFL's response. I think it's a total sham. What a freaking crock of excrement.

First and foremost Belichick, doesn't have even have to pay his fine because the Patriots are doing it for him.

Secondly, Belichick earns $4.2 million per year so even if he HAD to pay it, it's about 12% of his salary. In that regard, it's pretty minor. Sure, nobody wants to lose 12% of their salary, but I'd see many people giving up 12% for my Vince Lombardi trophy. This fine is insulting to the fans and the other teams.

Thirdly, Belichick has been accused of this in the past and has been warned in the past. He went and did it anyway. That's a pre-meditated offence and deserves the harshest punishment for him and his team. I don't believe for one second that the team wasn't aware of his actions. I think it's fantastic they got busted. I hope it serves as a distraction to their entire team. (I feel bad for their fans and ex-players because now their entire legacy under Belichick is now tarnished and in question.)

Fourth, the annual revenue of the New England Patriots is $250,000,000 (on an estimated worth of $1.1 billion dollars) -- yes about $250 million dollars per year. So a $250,000 fine is 0.1% of their annual revenue. Yes ZERO POINT ONE PERCENT of annual revenue is the amount of their fine. That's probably a day at the concession stands at best, or maybe the take for parking. It's a disgrace.

Fifth, The draft picks are a minor detail. They should be, at minimum, barred from the playoffs for a year or three and possibly have their last title stripped from them too. Belichick should be suspended for a year or two and not be allowed to coach or attend any games. The league needs to make a huge statement that it will not tolerate this sort of behaviour. This is far worse than what has been done by the players and it creates a double standard.

I'd cheat every game if I were disposed to be a cheater. What the NFL has done is create a situation where it pays to cheat. It's absurdly disgraceful. They need to do something FAR more severe but they won't. For $250k per game, or a few million dollars a year, you can cheat at every single game. Even the team with the lowest revenue rakes in over $167,000,000 per year and is worth 3/4 of a billion dollars.

I think cheating destroys the integrity, honesty, and character of a sport. It's inexcusable and must be discouraged in a meaningful way.

(Belicheck -- to catch the people who can't spell it right)

Michael Vick Is Evil and Deserves to SUFFER

8-17-07 RICHMOND, Va. - Two of Michael Vick's alleged cohorts in a grisly dogfighting case pleaded guilty Friday, and one said the Atlanta Falcons quarterback joined them in drowning and hanging dogs that underperformed.

8-24-07 Michael Vick filed his plea agreement in federal court Friday admitting to conspiracy in a dogfighting ring and helping kill pit bulls. He denied ever betting on the fights, only bankrolling them.

Aug. 24 (Bloomberg) -- The National Football League suspended Michael Vick indefinitely without pay today, hours after he admitted conspiring to run a dogfighting operation that Commissioner Roger Goodell called "cruel and reprehensible.''

I think we should give Vick a pair of meat underwear, then coat him in beef gravy and throw him in a cage with a few pit bulls. If he survives, we should electrocute him -- not to death. Then we should beat him -- not to death. Then, we should give him to PETA*.

Vick should be made a pariah with no chance of redemption because his debt to society can never be paid. As long as he remains on this planet, the planet is defiled.

I hope he becomes a prison bitch and is violated in the worst most inhumane ways by an AIDS infected inmate who is very well endowed. I hope his life becomes an unbearable hell and he contemplates ending it and sparing the planet his pathetic existence. I am not more favourably disposed towards his co-defendants, either. People who torture other living creatures for fun and/or profit are heinous creatures who deserve no mercy. They should reap what they have sown**. I also hope the Atlanta Falcons go after their paid-up-front money so his pocket can hurt too.

If you would like to suggest other ways Vick should be punished, have at it. I am in no way encouraging anyone to commit an act of violence against Vick. Tsk, tsk.

And, more importantly, to the few sick individuals who have said they don't see what the big deal is. You're just as bad as Vick and deserve the same (including Donovan McNabb, Stephon Marbury, a number of his Famcons team-mates, and select NAACP members). Look, they guy committed a heinous crime. He doesn't deserve your support. If you support him, you are the same sport of scum he is.

To those who would play the race card: what planet are you from? Get a grip. We don't know what race the dogs are. Oh, you think it's about Vick's race? Hahahahaha! That makes you dumber than Paris Hilton. Jump under a bus: this is about a pox on the face of humanity. Vick will rot in the eternal abyss of Hell. I feel sorry for all the less evil people down there who will have to associate with him. I do hope there is a very special Hell reserved for people like Vick***.

* I am not a fan of PETA, though I certainly support their message ,just not their whacked-out methods. I eat meat, dammit. Steak. Yum.

** I've just quoted the Bible. The world is ending.

*** Guangzhou, China perhaps?

Prince's Halftime Imagery Questioned

Green Stuff From Associated Press article dated February 06, 2007 11:16 PM EST

First, this: "In the sensitive post-wardrobe malfunction world, some are questioning whether a guitar was just a guitar during Prince's Super Bowl halftime show." Well, I have to wonder myself. It was amazingly suggestive, and we were all, "Oh My God" but not in a bad way, mind you. It was more like, "leave it to Prince to mock everyone without being blatant about it, and at the same time giving an amazing half-time show."

As the AP reports, "Prince's acclaimed performance included a guitar solo during the "Purple Rain" segment of his medley in which his shadow was projected onto a large, flowing beige sheet. As the 48-year-old rock star let rip, the silhouette cast by his figure and his guitar (shaped like the singer's symbol) had phallic connotations for some." Proving, beyond any doubt, some people are in desperate need of a life. Yeah, it looked like he was strumming his instrument, but so what?

Daily News television critic David Bianculli called it "a rude-looking shadow show" that "looked embarrassingly rude, crude and unfortunately placed." Mr. Bianculli is a prude who needs to get stuffed. Some people have small minds. Who cares what it was? The show was good, not even remotely obscene. We should be so lucky if they're all like that.

CBS said Tuesday that the network has received "very few" complaints on Prince's performance. The NFL that produced the halftime show and league spokesman Greg Aiello said the league has received no complaints.At least someone has common sense. "We respect other opinions, but it takes quite a leap of the imagination to make a controversy of his performance," Aiello said."It's a guitar."

But, was Prince's pose phallic? "The short answer is, of course it is," says Rolling Stone magazine contributing editor Gavin Edwards, who points out that on Prince's "Purple Rain" tour in the mid `80s, he performed with a guitar that would ejaculate, squirting water out of its end during the climax of "Let's Go Crazy." But Prince's half-time performance, though celebrated, came in a much different cultural environment, where even the fleeting outline of a man and his guitar could, for some, suggest shaded depravity. "If people want to be hypersensitive, they can be hypersensitive," says Edwards.

This is much ado about nothing.