Mothman wrote:
I respect him. What does that have to do with the rules or my comment above? Dungy's not saying the tactic is illegal. He may be right that the competition committee will need to look at it to consider if it should remain legal or if a rule change is necessary because of the way the Patriots have successfully used the tactic in combination with a hurry up offense to confuse defenses this postseason. However, right now, during this season, the tactic is legal so what's the problem? The Patriots aren't doing anything wrong in this regard. On the contrary, they've been doing something rather clever and effective. If they make a mistake in their execution of one of these eligible/ineligible plays, the onus is on the officials to penalize them for it. After all, they are there are to maintain control of the game and enforce the rules. If the pace of substitutions and reports moves too fast for them, they have whistles and the authority to slow things down and assert more control.
The bottom line here is that ineligible players are allowed to report as eligible and vice versa. A team must have at least 7 players on the line of scrimmage and the Patriots met that requirement. There's nothing in the rules about which 7 players must be on the line and as long as players report their eligibility to the officials and the official reports that information to the captain of the defense, it's all above board. The idea that it's problematic because it's an attempt to deceive is just silly, since NFL teams are constantly attempting to deceive each other using legal tactics. That's a part of the game.
I don't get the whining towards NE on this stuff either. The whining should be directed at the officials...which is where Harbaugh seemed to take it the first time. I never really heard definitively if the officials were guilty of not allowing enough time before the snap so the Ravens could line up correctly.
In the Championship game were the penalty was not called, I'm of the opinion there should be some punishment/consequences for the officials. There's players getting fines for simple issues nearly every game but officials seem to escape the consequences for missing blatant things.
Or maybe not and it's just not publicized.
But Dungy blaming the Pats for a missed call is off the mark. Funny that he's an old Colt.
Regardless, Belicheck and his team are confronted with a significant image issue when HoFers are calling him Bellicheat(Shula) and people like Aikman and Brunell are casting doubts on Brady, now Dungy piling on...all during prep time for the Superbowl. Bellichek has spent a lot of energy trying to diffuse this stuff. I wonder what the distractions will cause for his team if anything?