Self-Aggrandizing Blowhard Looking to Glom on to Super Bowl Hype

Super Bowl? I may play squash

I'm not sure whether this Senate fossil realized the whole Spygate brouhaha occurred during the second week of September.

It's time to, you know, move on, Arlen.

Thankfully, he says this doesn't rise to such grave levels as the destruction of CIA tapes, even though most people don't care about that, either.

With the Super Bowl fast approaching, a senior Republican senator says he wants the NFL to explain why it destroyed evidence of the New England Patriots cheating scandal.

"I am very concerned about the underlying facts on the taping, the reasons for the judgment on the limited penalties and, most of all, on the inexplicable destruction of the tapes," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., in a Thursday letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

Specter, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the matter could put the league's antitrust exemption at risk.

"Their antitrust exemption has been on my mind for a long time," he said in a Capitol Hill news conference.

The matter may not compare to the CIA's destruction of interrogation tapes, Specter said, but he added, "I do believe that it is a matter of importance. It's not going to displace the stimulus package or the Iraq war, but I think the integrity of football is very important, and I think the National Football League has a special duty to the American people - and further the Congress - because they have an antitrust exemption."

Let's see if I can explain it for him.

You see, football is a very competitive sport, and any coach worth a nickel is trying to gain a competitive advantage over his opponent. This often involves trying to steal the other team's signals. You'd be incompetent not to.

Coaches don't have the luxury of sitting on their asses for a living and being elected in perpetuity unlike certain U.S. senators. It's a cutthroat business.

In a Jan. 31 letter to Specter which the senator released Friday, Goodell said the tapes and notes on the investigation were destroyed to ensure that the Patriots "would not secure any possible competitive advantage as a result of the misconduct."

Specter said the explanation "absolutely makes no sense at all," and blasted the commissioner for failing to respond to his inquiries on the matter for more than two months. Goodell said in his letter that he just became aware of Specter's questions Thursday.

The league has ruled New England did not gain an advantage in this incident, and still whacked Bill Belichick with a $500,000 fine and it cost the Patriots their first-round pick (shows you how blessed they are, they have San Francisco's pick, seventh overall this year).

So Arlen, go have a sandwich, a warm saucer of milk, and basically, STFU.

On top of this, the idiot claims he won't even be watching the Super Bowl.

"I may play squash while it's on," Specter said.

H/T Radical Ron.

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Belichick Kicks Them While They're Down

There's a difference between beating people and going out of your way to kick them when they are down. The Colts are beating people. The Patriots are kicking them when they are down. John Clayton of ESPN has an excellent article on Bill Belichick's low class act:

Running it up: Belichick, Pats take no prisoners

On Sunday, Belichick kicked a Hall of Fame coach while he was down, running up the score on Joe Gibbs' Redskins to 52-7. This comes a week after Belichick reinserted quarterback Tom Brady midway through the fourth quarter of a 49-28 win over the Dolphins.

What seemed cute three weeks when Brady threw an unnecessary last-minute touchdown pass to Kyle Eckel while whipping the Cowboys 48-27 has turned ugly.

So why is Belichick running it up on people?

He wore the black hoodie in the Week 1 spy incident and accepted his punishment. Now, he's making the league pay with blowouts

So Belichick is PO'd that he got caught cheating, and is taking it out on the league. Yesterday, he brought new meaning to low class:

That's why he …

• … kept Brady on the field for an 88-yard drive six minutes into the fourth quarter despite already leading 38-0. On that 14-play drive, the Patriots went for a fourth-and-1 at the Redskins' 7 and ordered a 35-yard bomb to Randy Moss.

• … went for a fourth-and-2 at the Redskins' 37 on the next possession while leading 45-0. Backup QB Matt Cassel hit Jabar Gaffney with a 21-yard pass. Two plays later, Cassel scrambled for a 15-yard touchdown run to open a 52-0 lead.

Asked why he would go for two fourth downs in a blowout, Belichick responded, "What do you want us to do, kick a field goal?"

What you don't do Bill, is get 40 points up on an injured and undermanned team and still have your All-pro QB throwing bombs, doing QB sneaks on 4th down to get 1st downs, faking spiking the ball and throwing into the endzone, blitzing the other team late in the game, and needlessly pounding the team into the ground.

I'm not knocking the players, they are doing what they are told on the field. But Belichick knew the 'Skins had only three healthy corners going into the game, one got hurt early, and he still went out of his way to pound on them.

Still, there's no doubt what he's really doing. Redskins veterans Phillip Daniels and Marcus Washington, who have 18 years combined NFL experience, both said they had never seen a team run up the score the way the Patriots are doing.

Face it, folks, Belichick plans to lay waste to the NFL. Commissioner Roger Goodell took away a first-rounder, so the Patriots will take away your firstborn. Belichick has assembled perhaps the most dominating team in NFL history, and he's intent on destroying all opponents in his path.

This is just plain stupidity by Belichick. He is needlessly risking injury to his better players just to stick it to the league. And remember, what goes around comes around.

Other teams are noticing how the Patriots kick people when they're down, and it does not sit well with them. One of these Sundays, injuries will catch up to the Pats, the ball will bounce the other way, and they will get down in a game. And when that happens, watch for some big time payback. And I don't want to hear a word from Belichick when it happens.

This will not end well for Patriots fans.

Report: Vick Cops Plea Deal

The writing was on the wall. Your co-defendants dimed you out, you flushed tens of millions through sheer stupidity, and you were facing additional charges.

So what's Michael Vick to do?

Take the deal.

Fox is reporting this, though we're waiting for further confirmation. In an interesting twist, Roger Goodell's wife is on-air as the news comes down.

He could well be free in a year and there likely would be a team to take a chance on him, be it 2008 or 2009. We'll see how long a punishment Goodell has in store.

UPDATE 2:33: Newspaper account here, via Drudge. Likely due to an avalanche, the story link is down.

ESPN also reporting it, though their site has nothing. I guess the news outlets are doing some patient fact-finding.

UPDATE II 2:38: Finally, the Washington Post comes through.

Michael Vick has agreed to plead guilty to the federal dogfighting charges against him under a deal reached today between his attorneys and prosecutors, his lawyer said.

Vick's D.C.-based attorney, William R. (Billy) Martin, made the announcement in a written statement released by his office this afternoon. Martin said that Vick accepted full responsibility for his actions and decided over the weekend to accept the plea deal.

The terms of the plea deal were not immediately clear, but previous reports indicated that the two sides were discussing an arrangement by which Michael Vick would spend about a year in jail.

Vick and his attorneys are scheduled to appear in federal court in Richmond next Monday, according to the statement.

The deal still must be approved by the judge in the case and could collapse at any point until then.

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