Some "news" stories aren't

Senator Specter appears to be shocked - shocked! - to discover that the Patriots started taping prior to the start of the 2006 season.

"Bill Belichick has been illegally taping opponents' defensive signals since he became the New England Patriots' coach in 2000, according to Sen. Arlen Specter, who said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told him that during a meeting Wednesday ... Goodell said Belichick told him he believed the taping was legal..."

But he wouldn't be, if he'd been reading what I wrote about it. Like what I said on September 20:

of course New England has "stolen signals" in this manner for years. It should be obvious to the meannest intelligence that recording the defensive signal-calling has been standard operating procedure. It's part of their game-day activity. They've got video of all of the opposing coaches signals for the last 8 years...

As I said - obvious to anyone with the brains to fog a mirror...


The interesting question is this - was it actually illegal prior to the "clarification memo" prior to the 2006 season? I'd love to know the actual text of the rule governing taping over the 2000-2005 time period, because I think that there are/were readings of the text that I've seen which do, in fact, support Belichick's interpretation. Prior to the "clarification" memo, anyway. If the coaches didn't have access to any of the footage during the game, was it technically against the rules? I don't know the answer to that.