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Patriots coach Bill Belichick has given an exclusive interview to Armen Keteyian. The sit-down will air on Friday’s CBS Evening News.
The CBS press release (which wasn’t — sniff — sent to us) states that Belichick will “address[] for the first time charges made by his team’s former videotaper that he knew the taping of opposing teams was wrong.” (It’s not clear to us whether the “he” refers to the former videotaper or Belichick.)
So why did Belichick (and/or the Patriots) pick CBS? Well, the Pats and CBS have partnered to put the first “CBS Scene Restaurant and Bar” in the heart of “Patriot Place.” The venue opens later this year.
Even if the partnership between the Patriots and CBS had nothing to do with the selection of CBS to do the interview, we hope that Keteyian’s interview will at least disclose the relationship, so that the audience will be able to factor the potential bias into its assessment of whether the interview is fair and balanced, or whether it’s a one-sided puff piece aimed at giving Belichick an opportunity to get his point across without being asked tough questions or reminded that Commissioner Roger Goodell essentially called him a liar during a press conference on Tuesday.
May 16th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Keteyian also seems like a guy Bill Belichick likes. When he was doing sideline reporting for CBS he generally was allowed to listen in on the Patriots during halftime. He also interviewed Belichick this season when Belichick told him there would be a time (after the season) to discuss Spygate.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
May 16th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
I see the dead horse but I seemed to have misplaced my stick. May I borrow yours?
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Rating: 4 / 5 with 5 rating(s)
May 16th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
I agree Travis. Maybe they could send Mark Scherleth to do the interview & then afterwards he could tell America about how his 1998 Denver Broncos were also cheats when the taped the SD Chargers practice & violated the salary cap. They just showed a clip on channel 4 from the interview. BB takes a shot at Walsh & his comments make alot of sense especially if you know how he works.Keep banging the drum all you Patriot haters because once again your teams are not as good as the Pats.
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Rating: 3.65 / 5 with 6 rating(s)
May 16th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Awww shucks. Poor Billy’s upset that nobody thinks he’s a honest to God genius anymore and he just can’t stand it. So now he’s gonna go on CBS and try to discredit Walsh and fling some more outright lies about how he misinterpreted the rules and stat unequivically that he’s not a cheater. Sounds earily similar to the Clemens/McNamee scenario. Too late Billy, you can’t argue with video tape, and thanks to our good friend Matt Walsh we now have plenty of it. I hope he’s asked one very simple question:
If it wasn’t an advantage, then why waste time and effort doing it?
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Rating: 2.7 / 5 with 7 rating(s)
May 16th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
too bad dan rather isnt there anymore…he is fair in his reporting…oh wait scratch that.
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Rating: 4 / 5 with 4 rating(s)
May 16th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
I dearly hope BB for once speaks out, defends himself and his team. He has said before that he knows things that would likely change opinions on the whole thing. I hope he lets us know what those things are.
No matter what the whole truth is, we are certainly NOT being told the whole thing by anyone, and the Patriots have been way too silent about this. It makes me wonder if the NFL hasn’t put some sort of gag order on the Pats, telling them there will be additional penalties if they speak out.
It will be nice to hear something from BB. I doubt we will hear much, but I am hoping we start to hear the Patriots perspective on the matter, especially regarding his interpretation of the rules. I read the NFL policy on the matter. It isn’t all that clear. As a matter of law, that is not a good thing. Internal policy must be written in such a way that it is clear and understandable. I would like to hear his interpretation of the rule, and hear what he says about Walsh. I don’t understand why everyone is taking what Walsh says as truth and fact, especially since his reputation is less than stellar. Even his possession of tapes is enough to make one question his credibility. They are not his, are they? They were property of the Patriots. Then he lead everyone to believe that he had walkthrough tapes and information that would blow the case open. Now he is being treated as Mr. Justice. Even Specter has said he seems perfectly credible. Well, comes from the same party that let known liars lead us to war as well, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
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Rating: 3.4 / 5 with 5 rating(s)
May 16th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Who cares what network it airs on. Is it relevant to the issue of Spygate or is it just a slam and slander against CBS and the Patriots?
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Rating: 3.5 / 5 with 4 rating(s)
May 16th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
WHO CARES ANYMORE?!?!?!?!?!? Seriously!!
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 4 rating(s)
May 16th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Can we at least wait tll the interview has been aired before everyone expresses their opinions. Clearly their is no such thing as an unbias opinion in this whole mess.
Lets all remember a couple of things the Patriots video taped coaches signals from a prohibited location in the stadium. Stealing, deciphering or vieiwing the opponent’s signals in the NFL per the Commissioner is not aginst the rules in the NFL or baseball as far as I can tell.
But it sure is fun to make Gamesmanship out to be cheating.
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Rating: 3.75 / 5 with 8 rating(s)
May 16th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
According to Michael Holley’s “Patriot Reign,” Belichick is very friendly with Keteyian, Phil Simms, and the rest of the CBS team that covers the top AFC game each week. Whether that means this will be a joke or not remains to be seen, but Belichick has a history of granting interviews only to people he personally likes (i.e. Chris Berman instead of Tom Jackson).
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Rating: 4 / 5 with 6 rating(s)
May 16th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Maybe we can get PBS’s Frontline to do the interview…
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
May 16th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
“Belichick has a history of granting interviews only to people he personally likes (i.e. Chris Berman instead of Tom Jackson).”
I don’t blame him. After all, he isn’t a public servant, who are accountable to the very people they serve.
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 4 rating(s)
May 16th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Why is the one guy who truly benefited from getting defensive signals during the time alleged, seems to never get brought up? Charlie Weiss as offensive coordinator benefited the most from this action. You would have to think that he was at least involved in putting this practice into place. It gave him an advantage calling plays, and may have helped him achieve a greater rate of success. His success allowed him to get a high profile college coaching job at a school that fired someone for lying on a resume about a detail that really had no bearing on their qualifications as a football coach. Weiss’s actions at New England relate directly to his perceived qualifications as a football coach. Maybe we are seeing how qualified Weiss is for this position, now that he is getting his own players into the system. Maybe Notre Dame should take a stand against someone who has truly provided a fraudulant football resume to his head coaching interview.
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Rating: 2 / 5 with 5 rating(s)
May 16th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Anything short of coming clean and admitting that he understood the rules and got caught cheating will be a dissapointment. If he chooses not to, then how can you believe anything else that he says?
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Rating: 2.3 / 5 with 7 rating(s)
May 16th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Wow, Mike! Good for you for telling it like it is! It’s about time the people understand the persuasive influence Kraft & Co. has upon the NFL and some media outlets. If some media seems eager to expose the darker side of the Patriot Empire, it might be because they are so smug about only snuggling up to those people they like, and totally ignoring the people they don’t. I hope someone starts to investigate Kraft’s other business enterprises. Cheating is a disease that is probably found at all levels and depths.
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Rating: 2.35 / 5 with 6 rating(s)
May 16th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
bradyswingman, Billicheat calling out frauds? HE’s a fraud.
BigD201 — quit trying to give it labels other than “cheating.” That’s what it WAS - cheating.
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Rating: 2.5 / 5 with 8 rating(s)
May 16th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
there you go blowing Florio’s conspiracy theory PapaGriff. It’s more fun to throw some read meat to the dogs and spin another conspiracy about the trillions of dollars at risk at a two-bit Cafe in the middle of nowhere (AKA, Foxboro).
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Rating: 2.6 / 5 with 5 rating(s)
May 16th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
I believe there is a 1 and 10 chance that there will be challenging questions given to Belichick. It should be assumed that all questions were either written by Bill or were handed to him prior to the interview.
Additionally, the timing of this interview should be looked at very closely. I do believe that a certain person close to the Belichick family is speaking on Real Sports tonight.
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Rating: 2 / 5 with 5 rating(s)
May 16th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Maybe Dan Rather should do the interview, they could go over some documents.
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
May 16th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
they steal the signals because they want the other team to be on their toes and think they have to change it up because the Pats know what they’re calling. this makes the other team mess up in an effort to hide what they’re doing.
Walsh said he was warned….well duh. why let the other team know where the stealing is coming from?
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Rating: 1.35 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
May 16th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
On a different but related topic - am I the only one who is wondering why neither Senator Specter nor anyone in the media, nor the New York Times who conducted the interview had the common sense to ask Matt Walsh what the other team was he saw taping signals against the Patriots?
Are they all that dumb or is there truly a conspiracy among all those parties to turn their head when statements about other teams “cheating” are made.
The former coach of the Cowboys admitted to taping signals - and for some reason I haven’t heard Specter mention him once.
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Rating: 4.2 / 5 with 5 rating(s)
May 16th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
I’ll raise my eyebrows if he tells the truth!
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May 16th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Here’s hoping they also asked him whether his Defensive Coordinator, Eric Mangini knew of the practice of taping, and was content to keep quiet and allow the practice help get him a head coaching position, only to become a born again whistle blower when he thought it might help his career later.
Assuming the defensive coordinator was a willing party that would make him a cheater AND a rat.
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 4 rating(s)
May 16th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Well, that was…um, short.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
May 16th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Just saw the interview. They showed footage of Walsh filming a game in Patriots gear which
in Belichick’s mind refutes the idea that Walsh had to do it on the down low and hide who
he was with. But there are holes in that line of reasoning. He did make a funny reference about
being in a book club with Walsh.
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Rating: 3.4 / 5 with 5 rating(s)