Are These 5 Patriots Championship Rings Now Tarnished?

[btcarfagno]

I heard an interesting thought as to the punishment that would stop all of this BS really fast.

A fine of the team won't do diddly. What will the fine be? $500,000? Maybe $1 million? The Pats made that back and 10x more by winning the Ravens game, being able to host another playoff game, and getting to the Super Bowl. That sounds like pretty good risk/reward to me. A suspension of the head coach during a game is meaningless. If he can have no contact with the team for however many weeks I suppose that would be somewhat interesting, although knowing Belichick he would just find a way around that too.

What would absolutely stop this and any other inane shenanigans in the future is to hit the team with a salary cap hit. $15 million for 2015, $10 million for 2016 and $5 million for 2017. If the union bitches about it then disperse the amounts among the other teams, thus the total league wide figures would not change. now THAT would put an immediate stop to all of this REALLY quickly.

Tom C

[pgellis]

AH HAHAHA!

Belicheat just threw Shady Brady under the bus!

[sports-rings]

Throwing Brady or the ball boy under the bus won't fly. The NFL in bounty-gate explained that the Head Coach is ultimately responsible.

The most troubling aspect of this to me is two things:

1) The Ravens lost a very close game and it appears the Ravens believed the Pats were using under-inflated footballs.

2) The integrity of the games is of the utmost importance. Once the public feels that games are not being played fairly, that is a catastrophic public relations hit for any professional sports league.

I believe the media and the other owners will put a lot of pressure on the NFL, and this combined with the first incident known as Spy-gate will lead to an unprecedented punishment by the NFL.

Perhaps as a Jet fan, this is just wishful thinking, but this will be fascinating to watch over the next few days.

This link would can show you how to properly clean a tarnished ring.

http://www.ehow.com/way_5252185_home...shed-ring.html

J.

[Witness York]

As seems to be the case with everything in our society, this issue will divide along partisan lines. Patriots faithful will trivialize it; Patriots haters will emphasize it. Many people won't care. I do know the Pittsburgh Steelers have serious issues with Spygate relative to the 2001 and 2004 AFC championship games. This controversy may be similar to the Barry Bonds steroid issue. Both the Patriots and Bonds were too good to need any additional "help".

Whatever the case, this forum is about rings and the Patriots know how to design them. I would be happy with either of their AFC title rings let alone one from their Super Bowl victories.

[gnaz01]

All this talk and no one has even mentioned that the refs handle the balls not once, but twice, every single play!!! Why would they not have noticed it. The head ref was a 12 year veteran and the others were 7+ years, and you are telling me they couldn't feel it?? They handle the ball more than Brady.

[pgellis]

Originally Posted by gnaz01

All this talk and no one has even mentioned that the refs handle the balls not once, but twice, every single play!!! Why would they not have noticed it. The head ref was a 12 year veteran and the others were 7+ years, and you are telling me they couldn't feel it?? They handle the ball more than Brady.

My buddy is an official in the NFL and he said that you are moving so quickly with the ball, that you could not tell if the balls were under-inflated........just saying.

Plus, that still doesn't excuse the Patriots for cheating to begin with.