Good. Now extend the concept and see what else you can conclude.
Your claim was not “would” but “should”. Now try again. :dubious:
Says the guy who wants Belichick suspended. 
Wasn’t Sean Payton suspended a full season for basically not putting a stop to the Saints bounty program when it was brought to light? The NFL acknowledged that he didn’t participate at all, but he was responsible for the actions of those under him in the organization.
Even if you can’t prove Belichick knew anything at all about the deflated balls, I wouldn’t be surprised if gets a game suspension just to reinforce the message that head coaches are responsible for pretty much everyone in the organization.
I agree that if there is definite wrongdoing there should be some punishment for him -not- knowing. Otherwise, there is incentive for underlings to skirt the rules while leaving a “plausible deniability” cloud around their actions. It also leaves the door open for underlings to be thrown under the bus with the more powerful getting off free. Coaches and other managers need to be incentivized to make sure everyone is informing them and walking the straight and narrow.
It’s like Sarbanes/Oxley. Is a CEO a CFO? No! But s/he is required to make sure that job is being done honestly and accurately, and share the pain if there is any malfeasance.
Mainly for knowing about it and approving of it and hiring the kind of coaches who did it. He was no innocent.
Coaches rarely get even a game misconduct even for significant issues with actual evidence behind them and actual effects, even ones that originate in the team, not the officials and rumors created by opponents. You can’t consider this case in isolation, even though doing so is necessary to maintain a proper recreational outrage.
As noted (like, a page ago) Payton not only knew about the program, but actively tried to cover it up. The bounty program was also massively larger than this apparently was. I continue to maintain that it is unreasonable to expect a head coach to be aware of every single thing that goes on in the organization.
I’m not going to get all up in arms if Belichick gets a one-game suspension, but I think that any discipline should really be focused on the people who, you know, actually did stuff.
Not to mention that the bounty program was about trying to seriously injure opposing players. That’s automatically a much more serious matter, both intrinsically and in terms of the league’s image.
Yes the bounty program was much more severe than deflating balls, and that’s why Payton got a full season suspension. I think it’s debatable what Payton knew and when he knew it. The general message behind Payton’s suspension, though, was that he was responsible whether he was involved or not. So, right or wrong, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bill gets one game.
I don’t know how debatable Payton’s knowledge was, and it’s irrelevant anyway since the league believed he knew. It is worth pointing out that, according to Wikipedia at least:
But in this case, no assistants were involved. The implication there seems to be that the coach is responsible for his staff, not every member of the organization.
Thing is, as far as I can tell, suspending a coach for actions that he was neither involved in or aware of, would be completely unprecendented.
I have no idea where you’re going with this, unless you are contending that there isn’t a rule against tampering with game balls.
Isn’t Bellichick the head coach/general manager? If they were separate positions, I could see a rationale for the NFL to go after the GM instead of the coach. But if Bellichick has both titles, then he’s responsible for both the coaching staff as HC and the rest of the organization as GM.
That would be even more unprecedented. Mickey Loomis was also suspended for the bounty program, but again, he was aware of it, and had specifically defied the owner’s orders to shut it down. The only other general manager ever suspended is Ricky Farmer, recently suspended for texting.
Not officially. His only title is HC. In practice, he has final authority over all football operations.
Saints GM Mickey Loomis was suspended for the bounty issue. Even owners can be suspended - see Irsay’s shenanigans last season.
The more frequent organizational punishment is for a team to lose draft picks, though.
But again, Loomis, Irsay, and Farmer were suspended for things they either did or had knowledge of and failed to stop. No one has ever been suspended for something that someone else did that they didn’t know about.
And now NFL has announced it. Tom Brady suspended four games, Patriots fined $1 million, lose two picks. NE plays INd week 5. Brady will be coming off the bench pissed and looking for blood. Prediction: 52-7 NE.
The fine seems excessive. I assume that the maximum fine has been bumped up (it was 500K for a while), but fining them twice what the Saints were fined for the bounty program is a little out-of whack.
Not that they can’t afford it, of course.
Oh well. Here’s to Jimmy Garoppolo!
Well the NFL mentioned that it was for the violation itself and also “for failure to cooperate in the subsequent investigation”, so I can see the fine being proper for especially the later charge.
The Saints didn’t particularly cooperate in their investigation either.
Whatever. I don’t have to pay it…
Ha! I would have preferred more games, but I’m pleasantly surprised about the two picks.
Suspending one of the best QB’s in football unfortunately hands a few wins to some teams. I don’t like that. I’d rather they fined him and the Pats instead of giving the Steelers a win in week 1.