The Giants won the Super Bowl...why the Patriots should have gone into the game distraction free

As great as the Giants played throughout the Super Bowl (and their relentless pressure from DEs Michael Strahan & Osi Umenyiora and all-purpose DL Justin Tuck accomplished what few thought possible, knock Tom Brady in the mouth for 60 minutes), the lack of killer instinct and tentative play-calling by one of the greatest offenses in NFL history still boggles me. Bill Simmons, aka The Sports Guy characterized it in his reporting from the Super Bowl thusly,

"For the rest of eternity, I will never understand why the Patriots -- a team that broke all kinds of offensive records by attacking teams with an aggressive, run-and-shoot offense that thrived on audibles, checks and the intelligence of the quarterback and his receivers -- became passive in the single biggest game of the season. It's one thing to change styles because it's 20 degrees and windy outside and you're worried about throwing the ball. But indoors? Only on the last drive did the Patriots look like the Patriots. I will never understand what took so long. Ever. I will never understand it. I wasn't even that depressed after the game, just confused. What happened to the remarkable offensive juggernaut from the first three months of the season? Where did their arrogance go? What happened to their swagger? Did the never-ending attention and nonstop pressure eventually get to them? For most of Sunday's game, it seemed the Patriots were playing not to lose. And maybe they were (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/080204)."

Why I bring up this tightness is that the late-breaking headlines throughout the final days leading up to the Super Bowl presents an interesting point in crisis communications and reveals how the Patriots & the NFL were to blame for a major distraction. A report came out Saturday before the game in the Boston Herald (can anyone say that paper is partisan after this) citing an unamed source who revealed a deliberate attempt by the Patriots to record the St. Louis Rams walkthrough practice before Super Bowl XXXVI.

DISCLAIMER: I was a HUGE fan of the Rams in '02 due to the fact that Kurt Warner (native Iowan) led the team and this was probably one of the most crushing losses for me personally during high school that I can remember. Adam "f***ing" Vinatieri was something I muttered when anything went wrong for me over the next 6 months. But I digress....

Now, the entire reason this came up was due to a lack of transparency about Spygate all the way back in September. The NFL, under Commissioner Roger Goodell refused to discuss the case any further after he destroyed the spying tapes given to him by the Patriots. Similarly, New England coach Bill Belichick issued a terse apology with no press conference and typically avoided answering questions during the regular season. The real problem with this entire strategy by both the league and the team was that it essentially screamed to the media, "WE'RE HIDING SOMETHING." As Gregg Easterbrook noted in his piece on what has been dubbed "Spygate II": After the league made its strange decision to destroy the materials, then refused to say what they contained, several media figures, including me, did this Journalism 101 exercise: Current scandal involves current taping by the Patriots. Are there any former Patriots video officials from New England's Super Bowl runs (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/080202&sportCat=nfl)?"

What that led to was former Patriots scout and video department official Matt Walsh, who has been the subject of an interview with The New York Times and as the story has gained steam, will most likely be appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Now, how could an issue like Spygate all of a sudden end up attracting the attention of the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA)? Well, besides Congressional members thinking that investigating sports is the best way to solve the country's problems (Iraq, health care, economic recession or steroids in baseball, hmm....) the NFL decided to create a story when they had the chance to make it a non-starter. Contrasting their lack of information with the NBA's handling of the Tim Donagehy situation is an example of why transparency should be at the heart of any disclosure.

So fast forward to Commissioner Goodell's State of the NFL Union press conference and the immediate media frenzy to find out what he knew, what the league knew, why the tapes were destroyed, responses to the latest media investigation and if the Patriots cheated during Super Bowl XXXVI with a respected Senator making comments that likened the NFL investigation to a Watergate-like cover-up. Could that have been a distraction for the Patriots and a possible explanation for why they scored 14 points after putting up 38 against the same team only 4 games earlier? Who knows, but it does remind me of another Super Bowl: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9901EFD61238F931A35751C0A96F958260.