How exactly does NE winning the SB after 9/11 "help" football?

Yea its a good story that can be exploited to some level, but that's all.

No what happened is they lucked into Tom Brady.

CP is a place that 98% of the time screams you must have a franchise QB to win and then makes excuses for bias when the franchse QB's win.

Wow really dude. Did you not see and hear the gushing about how poetic it was that the "Patriots" were in the SB after 9/11 happened to our country? All of the stories that tied the SB as Patriotic to this nation. Have you not noticed the influx of people that that brought into football as fans? The average increase of NFL fans spiked post 9/11. In talking to a lot of people, that are not from nor have ever been in the northeast, that are fans of the Patriots and asking them when they became fans of the Patriots they ALL have said after 9/11 when they won the SB and how justifying it felt for the Patriots to win after what our nation had just been through.

In baseball when a team is caught cheating they get stripped of their championship. In football when a team is caught cheating to win a championship they just get a minor fine and draft picks taken away but get to keep their championship.

Tom Brady was a rookie and was not great by any stretch. The defense, and a very sold running game that the Patriots had at that time is what won that SB.
Depends on how you define help.
Brought a lot of new fans to the NFL. Ended up giving the NFL another QB that most people loved like Peyton Manning. Gave the NFL another rivalry to exploit. Wasn't there some mention of how the fans won't get to see another Manning vs Brady game unless it is in the playoffs.

You're using that term as if it has some sort of official meaning. Professional sports wouldn't even exist if they weren't supposed to be entertainment. Pro wrestling is scripted with a storyline and predetermined outcome. You're saying that's what the NFL is?

Never mind--this really is too stupid to discuss.

WTF? There is something wrong with you.

Remind me of when a baseball team was stripped of a championship for cheating.

What the **** are you talking about? The Patriots went 11-3 under Brady in 2001, including 7-1 in the second half of the season. The offense and defense both finished 6th in the NFL in points (scored for the offense, allowed for the defense) while being 19th and 24th in yards, respectively. The rushing offense was 24th in the NFL in yards per.

The tuck rule was properly called, and had cost the Patriots a game earlier in the season, when it was called in the Jets game. Clearing snow by the players is legal, and having either the Jets or Giants win the Super Bowl would have been more of a direct connection with 9/11 than having the Patriots win it.

As for rivalry, it it was only a product of the NFL officials, don't you think the Patriots would have fallen back into obscurity by now? Instead, Brady is the only NFL QB to have more than 100 more wins than losses, and Brady has reached the Super Bowl in 5 of the 11 seasons he's been the team's primary starter and has reached the AFCCG in 7 of those 11 seasons, while Manning has repeated shit the bed as a playoff QB, becoming the king of the one-and-done.

You need a better brand of tinfoil.

Don't forget the league destroying the Cheatriots' Spygate tapes so that the fans and press could never see the full extent of their cheating.... not to mention slapping Belicheat on the wrist by not giving him a nice long suspension like he deserved.

Brady was definitely a huge part of the Pats first win... but he was far from 2007 Tom Brady at that point. I don't think he even threw for 200 yards in the Super Bowl. He definitely didn't have a lights out game.

People also forget Brady got hurt in the AFC title game, and Drew Bledsoe played QB for most of the game that got them to the Super Bowl. That's completely been lost into history at this point.

Personally, I think that's way overblown in regards to being an advantage.

Disagreed. Clearly they must have gained some major advantage from doing it, because not only were they doing it for seven years under complete secrecy, but Belicheat's assistants have also tried to go back to doing it when they've gotten head coaching jobs (i.e. McDumbass in Denver, Charlie Weis and his laptop at Notre Dame).

What tipped you off? The fact that the owners locked out the players right after signing a new multi-billion dollar MNF contract?

The reality is the owners have a license to print money, and they know it... and they're going to squeeze for all they can. I don't know where the limit is. The popularity of football is through the roof. Look at the lockout last year... a lot of people defended the owners, they needed to make more money. Others just don't care as long as they get football. They'll do anything, pay anything, there's no limit. So the owners have the diehards in their palms... now they can try to branch out and draw more non-traditional football fans. The lockout should've tipped everyone off, but people really don't care. 18 game seasons, Thursday night games, London, LA, 16 teams in the playoffs. They can do all these things and people will still watch, and profits will get bigger. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but that's where it's heading.

The Patriots were on the verge of blowing out the Rams in that SB, when Warner tossed a pick-6. That score would have made it 24-3. The officials, however, called a penalty on the Patriots, getting McGinest for holding Faulk. If there had really been a conspiracy to ensure the Patriots victory, they could have just picked up that flag.

There is definitely an advantage. What's more relevant is that the advantage (even being caught) outweighs the punishment.


That being said, the advantage isn't truly that great due to the limited amount of time you have to see the other teams signals and relay back what that means before the snap.