NFL säsongen 2007

IS THIS MANGINI'S LAST NFL JOB?

As the dust continues to settle regarding last week's storm of controversy regarding the Patriots spying scandal, more and more folks in league circles are talking about the strong possibility that Jets coach Eric Mangini will find it very difficult to be hired by any other NFL team.

Selena Roberts of the New York Times addressed this point on Tuesday, and we've heard similar thoughts from multiple league insiders.

As a matter of principle, Mangini has violated the code of silence. As a matter of practicality, Mangini has shown that he cannot be trusted.

If, as plenty of league insiders privately will acknowledge, there are many tactics utilized by teams that violate one or more league rules, who would ever trust Mangini with the state secrets if he'll be willing to blow the whistle after he leaves?

The reality, however, is that Mangini has likely learned his lesson, and that he knows that he has pulled the trigger on a one-shot pistol. But this doesn't change the fact that no NFL executive could justify taking the risk that Mangini might offer up a sequel.

Meanwhile, Mangini might have problems keeping the job he currently has. As one league insider opined on Tuesday:

"The biggest issue that Mangini faces is that his team absolutely stinks. One of the problems with being a surprise team is that you can't surprise anyone anymore. They won't win more than six games this year. The Ravens tried to hand the game to the Jets after dominating for three quarters and the Jets refused to take it. The offensive line is awful, the defensive line is terrible, the running back is old, the wideouts drop passes, and the secondary is beat up. The Patriots will win that division by five or six games, easy. That, more than anything, is going to put heat on Mangini."

So it could be that Mangini will eventually have to seek refuge in the college game. If, that is, he can find a program that has no secrets that it would rather not have the NCAA find out about.

Well, maybe the UFL will be hiring.

he NFL’s Mob Mentality

Bill Belichick broke a rule; the snitch broke the coaches’ code

By Peter King

When the Jets spotted a Patriots on-field video assistant filming their coaching signals during a Sept. 9 game at the Meadowlands, it set into motion a passion play that could have starred another North Jersey operator, Tony Soprano.

By exposing the dirty secret of his former boss, Pats coach Bill Belichick, Jets coach Eric Mangini broke a long-held code that NFL coaches live by: Don’t go against the family.

“If he wasn’t before, Mangini’s dead to Belichick now,” says one head coach. “What Mangini did is a disgrace. He wouldn’t be a coach in this league without Bill, and this is how he repays him.”

Commissioner Roger Goodell ruled swiftly when he found out that New England had taped defensive hand signals. He fined Belichick $500,000 and the team $250,000 and stripped the club of a high-round 2008 draft pick.

It’s widely believed that New England has stolen signals in this manner for years, but officials from various clubs acknowledge that the Pats are not the only team that does it. Last week’s revelation doesn’t mean the New England dynasty is a fraud, but it does take some shine off those three Super Bowl wins.

It may seem absurd to think that if Belichick was blatantly violating an NFL rule—one reenforced by two NFL memos in the last year—the Jets should have ignored it. But last year the Lions and the Packers caught the Patriots taping and simply told them to stop without informing the league. Unlike New York, they followed the coaching fraternity’s antisnitching code.

Just what is this code? First, don’t mess with a former colleague’s players, a tenet Mangini—who was hired by Beli*chick in 1995 and rose from *coaching-staff gofer to defensive *coordinator—violated in March 2006, just after he left New England for New York. Mangini signed free-agent linebacker Matt Chatham, whom the Patriots were trying to keep.

By contrast, here’s what then Cowboys coach Bill Parcells, who needed a kicker, did that same off-*season. Though the Pats’ Adam *Vinatieri, one of the best of all time, was a free agent, Parcells let it be known that he wouldn’t touch the kicker. Why? Vinatieri was Belichick’s player, and Belichick had been a defensive assistant and coordinator under Parcells.

In another example, one coach told SI last week about allowing an assistant to leave with a year remaining on his contract to join another team. There was one proviso: The team hiring the assistant couldn’t sign the free agents of the team he left. On the third day of the next free-agency period, a prime free agent from the assistant’s old team was signed by his new team. The assistant’s former boss confronted him and said, “I’m going to tell everyone in the league I know what a no-good son of a bitch you are.”

Second, don’t mess with a former colleague’s coaches. When onetime Parcells assistant Chris Palmer got the Browns’ head job in 1999, he knew that a recommendation from Parcells, then the Jets’ coach, had helped. Though Palmer wanted to hire Jets line coach Romeo Crennel to be his defensive coordinator, Palmer didn’t try to get him.

Third, don’t snitch. The most violated rule in the NFL is the antitampering rule: Before free agency begins in March, contact between teams and potential free agents is prohibited. Yet several G.M.’s routinely ignore the directive, and just as many decry the advantage they take—though not loudly enough to get the offenders in trouble.

It’s doubtful that teams’ attempts to get an edge by covert methods will end with the Patriots’ embarrassment. (As one coach says, the two cameras the NFL allows teams to use for game tape could be pointed to capture coaching signals between plays.) But there was hope around the league that the penalties Goodell levied against New England would halt the illegal use of technology.

“I’m not sure sports are supposed to be about who can cheat the best,” Ravens defensive coordinator Rex Ryan says. “I should be worrying about how to beat a team, not spending hours figuring out how to disguise what I’m doing. I hope this gets us back to football the way it should be.”

In case you missed any of it, here's an extensive sampling of what the NFL analysts had to say during their various broadcasts yesterday about the Patriots video scandal.

FOX Sports NFL Insider Jay Glazer headlined FOX NFL Sunday with an exclusive copy of the actual tape that was confiscated during last Sunday's Patriots-Jets game and sent to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

Glazer: "Everyone wants to know what evidence the NFL has in order to drop the hammer on the Patriots. We've got it for you. Check this out. [Tape runs] Video assistant Matt Estrella is clearly picking up the Jets' defensive coaching signals, and then he pans up to the scoreboard for down and distance. This goes on throughout the entire tape. What they do is take this film and then afterwards, synch it up with the actual coach's game tape. One of the coaches will then study the signals, and the next time they play the New York Jets and see those same hand signals, they can relay the blitz and coverage info down to the coaches on the sideline. Obviously this evidence proved to be damning enough for NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell."

Back in the studio, Jimmy Johnson led off the following discussion on this practice: "This is exactly how I was told to do it 18 years ago by a Kansas City Chiefs scout. I tried it, but I didn't think it helped us."

Howie Long: "If you're going to tell me that this is the first time that a team has taped an opposing team's sideline, you are naïve. The only thing that's unique about this is that the Patriots tried to do this at the Meadowlands, a stone's throw from NFL Headquarters, on a sideline that some would argue is policed better than our national borders, using a video guy who has a prior record after being caught doing the same thing last year, and against a coach who knows the who, what, when and where about everything. Now, the moral outrage that's been expressed by some people within the NFL and some of the media that cover the NFL, to me, rings a little bit shallow. I think there have been people laying in the tall grass looking to kick Bill Belichick in the teeth."

Terry Bradshaw: "I agree, but here is the fact. Bill Belichick, you are now known as a cheater. A cheater! That doesn't sound too good. It's embarrassing not only to yourself, but to your players. They didn't need this. It's uncalled for, and now people are wondering if you cheated during your Super Bowl wins. You've hurt your ownership and you've hurt the fans in your city all because of your arrogance."
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Johnson: "Every team has got a file on the other team. I used to send an intern up to the opposing coach's box after the game and go through the trash. Because after the game, what do they do? They take their game plan and their scouting reports and throw them away. My intern would get all of that stuff and put it right in the file."

Bradshaw: "He did not need to do this. He's too good of a coach."

Long [to Terry]: "If you think the Patriots have the market cornered on this, you are naïve."

Curt Menefee: "Bottom line, it wasn't the cheating that got the Patriots in trouble, because everyone does it, but the arrogance with which they operate."

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On this week's 'Grumpy Old Coaches' analysts Barry Switzer, Jimmy Johnson and moderator/referee Terry Bradshaw discussed the Patriots punishment for illegally videotaping the Jets sidelines and their own experience with going after a winning edge:

Johnson: "Bill Belichick was wrong because he videotaped signals after a memo was sent out to all of the teams saying not to do it. But what irritates me is hearing some reactions from players and coaches. These players don't know what their coaches are doing. And some of the coaches have selective amnesia because I know for a fact there were various teams doing this. That's why the memo was sent to everybody. That doesn't make him [Belichick] right, but a lot of teams are doing this."

Switzer: "It's total arrogance. The Commissioner sent a memo out to every squad."

Bradshaw: "Did you do it at Oklahoma?"

Switzer: "Yeah. It happened."

Bradshaw: "Did you do it at Arkansas?"

Johnson: "Yeah."

Bradshaw: "Did you do it in Miami?"

Johnson: "Yeah."