There's a reason for that: it's easier to film defensive signals staring right in front of them compared to filming from the stands, for example. There's a reason Goodell burnt the tapes and handed out the punishment before a full investigation. Things were able to get REAL ugly.

Spygate was also a lot worse than what people say.

The Patriots' coaching staff (I specify this because we've never heard anything about Kraft knowing) taping calls during games and practices starting I believe in 2000 as far as our evidence goes. Might've been 2001, it's been a while since I've had to recall. A total of no more than a dozen games were proven after the punishment to have been taped in par,  to the point that Goodell almost tried punishing Belichick again (which would've gotten him sued for the same thing as double-punishing Ray Rice seven years prior). Mangini noticed it and decided he'd stop it, not realizing it was actually against the rules. The investigation ended with $750K in fines, mostly to Belichick for making the call, and a lost first rounder. The Boston Herald widely misreported the issue and led to a lawsuit by the Rams that was dropped not too long after. Kraft and Belichick personally apologized to the NFL privately and publicly, and I believe it was Polian, back during his Colts days, believed both to be fully genuine. At least two other former coaching staff members in the NFL have since said that both this and bounties were the norm before the respective scandals. Moreove,  Brady has never been tied to it considering the coaching staff acted independently, and due to the nature of the NFL, there's no way he could have known whether the calls he was being given would've come from illegally-obtained information.  

You need more? I can keep going. 

Now back to the topic of punishment: Brady's career forever has an asterisk next to it in the eyes of every non-Pats fan, going the distance to try and ban him, I repeat, after his first offense being only POSSIBLY caught red-handed. Anybody who watched the interview knows he's lying. He'll take maybe a fine and four games, and the Pats will maybe lose one more game than they would've this season because Garopollo is more than capable. Won't change anything banning him a whole year - there's a decentish chance they don't even win the division this year anyway. Let history damn him. 

No, you just bought the hype over it.  Sorry, but we can agree to disagree here, it's quite clear having viewed your comments throughout this section that not only is your grasp of the NFL by-laws thin at best, but you have a serious hardon for seeing the Patriots burn.  That's fine, but it doesn't make your point more valid.

And for the record, optical technology has been advanced to the point where a person at a great distance could see the boogers hanging out of your nose.

By the way the Patriots many times DID use the tapes during the same game. For example, the Eagles Super Bowl. Many Eagles players said during the second half the Patriots out of nowhere were able to read their blitzes to absolute perfection.

The Patriots method of Spygate was complete, that's how complex it was. This wasn't them just recording then studying film. They had a whole complex systematic method of cheating. It's quite crazy just how deep it goes.

For example: "[Eric Mangini] had three sets of signals being given, one real, two dummy. He had the same thing going when he beat the Patriots” the previous year, a former Pats employee told Sports Illustrated."

The Patriots were already gaining an advantage because other teams were forced to create more dummy signals. By the way, the Patriots knew about the dummy signals and had people that could decipher (or try to, at least) signals.

"The Packers spotted Pats video assistant Matt Estrella — who was also shooting the video during the Jets game the next season — shooting unauthorized video from the sidelines. He was asked to leave — then was spotted doing it from a tunnel, which got him booted from Lambeau Field.

“From what I can remember, he had quite a fit when we took him out,” Packers President Bob Harlan said."

When the Lions played the Pats in Foxboro in 2006, the same thing happened, Sports ­Illustrated reported.

The Patriots were caught cheating in 2006 by a few teams, which prompted the 2006 memo. My theory is that teams knew what was going but never had any definitive proof. Until one of Bill's own ratted on him.

But it wasn’t just a matter of filming opposing team’s coaches — it was also how that information was allegedly passed to Brady.

Offensive plays would be called based on stolen signals and the information relayed straight to Brady’s helmet, O’Leary theorizes.

“The voice in Tom Brady’s helmet was explaining the exact defense he was about to face.”

This is for the people that say Brady had nothing to do with it. Brady knew. Doug Flutie once remarked that when he went to put his helmet on after the 15 second QB cut off he was still receiving coaching information in his helmet.

“Coach Belichick’s explanation for having misinterpreted the rules, to me, that really didn’t sound like taking responsibility for what we had done, especially considering the great lengths that we had gone through to hide what we were doing.”

Source: New York Post, "Spygate: The NFL Cover-Up That Started It All." Posted 10/12/14

They are just acting like any corporation in USA.  Cheat till you get caught and then pay a small fine.  There was once a saying "play by the rules and you will get ahead."  This doesn't apply to the real USA.  You want something to be angry at...  look at Wall Street, the big banks, Monsanto, Nestle or any other shit corporation.  No wonder USA is going to shit.  People care more about a stupid game than real life.

Some of you are taking this way too seriously. Perhaps you are the ones that need to get your balls deflated.  I'm done here.  Perhaps I'll log back on VGC in a few months.  Just had to point out how some have their panties in a twist.

Why can't people be mad at all things? I hate it when people post something like this. So annoying and cliche. "Oh man why are people posting in a thread about a robber? Shouldn't we be talking about the robbers in wall street lololol."

By the way nowhere does it say "3 out of 4" of the Colts balls were deflated (whatever that means). The only source for this statement is from Kraft.

hehehe, he said deflated balls

you act as if the media portrays this in an anti -Patriots manner.  Make no mistake they like to brush over this stuff and only cover it for as long as they have to before saying stuff like "say what you will...but Tom  Brady is now the greatest QB ever"  unless you choose to ignore these never-ending scandals you can't but at LEAST put an asterisk next to their SBs.  They are the new age White Sox as far as tarnished legacies go.

Sorry, the Science just doesn't follow.  And the company that the NFL and Paul Tagliabue hired to double check the facts on the Saints case (Which resulted in an overturning of the penalties), has analysed the Wells Report and found:

"Our findings are as follows. First, the Wells report contains sufficient data to explore the question of whether the Patriots deflated their footballs using statistical techniques. Second, the Wells report’s statistical analysis cannot be replicated by performing the analysis as described in the report. Third, the Wells report’s results can (for the most part) be replicated when we use a different, flawed modeling approach that fundamentally differs from the approach described in the report. Fourth, the Wells report failed to recognize the importance of the logical link between two of its areas of inquiry: whether the Patriots balls were deflated more than the Colts balls, and whether the Patriots balls were at a pressure that could be explained without recourse to wrongdoing by the Patriots. When correct tests are performed, the evidence points to a conclusion that is inconsistent with the Wells findings. Our evidence suggests a specific sequence of events. The Wells report conclusions are likely incorrect, and a simple misunderstanding appears to have led the NFL to these incorrect conclusions."

It's not that the media is anti-Patriots, per-se, it's that the media is a bunch of fucking retards, and that most people, including football fans, are so scientifically illiterate, it's a wonder people don't walk around thinking their cellphones are magic.  You want to see why the Wells Report bothers me so much?  And why the NFL's penalty to the Patriots is concerning to say the least?  Read their analysis:

https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/On-the-Wells-report.pdf

They actually provide tables, they provide an analysis of all 4 guage use possibilities, unlike Wells.  And they've found that you simply cannot come to the conclusions that Wells did, given a thorough scientific investigation.  I've got no problems with hanging a team, or player out to dry if you can prove they did something.  However, the Wells Report proved that the NFL basically knows nothing about the games they run.  Very likely due to the fact that any game, played in cold, or hot weather, would've used balls at an illegal pressure, at some point or another during the game.