Toni Monkovic of the New York Times blogs that the New England Patriots’ "spygate" drama is not over. Sorry, Mr. Goodell. This Things Got Legs [The Fifth Down]. But what the hell is he talking about? The myth that Bill Belichick and the Patriots taped opponent’s practice walk-throughs for before their first SuperBowl win has been exposed as a farce. The Pats have already been fined and had a first-round draft choice expropriated. And the offense in the first place was the ludicrous one of videotaping coaches signals — made openly and in public — from NFL games.
"Spying" means doing something covert to gather information secretly. As Wikipedia defines espionage, it is "obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information." The Patriots did none of that. Signals sent off in front of 80,000 fans on a Sunday afternoon are not secret or confidential. Give it a rest, Mr. Monkovic. Take the summer off, Mr. Goodell.