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The Debriefing is a column that runs every weekday at 9:00 a.m. here on FanHouse. It goes deep into one issue and then bounces around to a plethora of smaller ones ... and does it all in a way that will make you feel like the prettiest girl at the cotillion. Bookmark this page, and visit daily.



Happy Friday, faithful readers ... let's celebrate by doling out some SchruteBucks, shall we? We start with Roger Goodell and the sticky little Patriots cheating situation he's been forced to deal with ... I'd like to have seen it dealt with a little more thoroughly.

In addition, we comfort Blazers GM Kevin Pritchard with some SchruteBucks, we bribe Lamar Thomas with some, and we ask that you give all you can to help soothe a soccer coach's man parts.

-68,000, Roger Goodell

In determining the appropriate punishment for Bill Belichick, here is, to me, the key question:

Does this really happen all the time, or are the Patriots doing something truly unique and devious here?

I don't know the answer ... but I'm leaning in a certain direction. There are two things that lead me to believe that the Patriots are unique in their cheating: 1) The gigantic fine from Roger Goodell, which he probably viewed as pretty stiff (we'll come back to that); and 2) the fact that no stories have surfaced from current players saying things like, "Yeah, the Patriots do this, but other teams always do, too." Not one current player or coach has suggested that this kind of thing happens routinely around the league. If they have, I haven't seen it.

And the floodgates have just opened like hell ... Hines Ward says the Patriots knew what plays were coming back in '01, the Eagles say the Patriots knew what plays were coming when they met in the Super Bowl ... everyone's piling on.

And with all of this, not a word surfaces about any other team doing the same thing. I think that's telling.

And if this is true, the allegations that the Patriots actually sabotaged the radio equipment in opposing quarterbacks helmets during games in Foxboro ... that just outright disgusts me.

If that's true, and if the Patriots are going that far to cheat, and they're cheating in ways that no other NFL team is doing ... if I'm Roger Goodell, here's what I hit Bill Belichick with:

Lifetime ban.

Again ... if those allegations hold any water, especially with the headset tampering, the Patriots are unfairly altering the outcome of games. They are prohibiting the game from being decided purely and solely on honest competition.

Compare it to baseball's situation with Pete Rose, where he allegedly gambled on the team he was managing ... look at the punishment handed to him. He got a lifetime ban, and why? Because his gambling may have influenced him to alter the outcome of games. He may have prohibited the game from being decided purely and solely on honest competition.

Why was the Tim Donaghy scandal such a big thing? Because he may have prohibited the game from being decided purely and solely on honest competition.

That is the one thing a sport cannot tolerate.

Goodell's punishment may look harsh at first glance, but it's not. $500,000 for Belichick; no problem. $250,000 for the organization; no problem, they probably make that in french fry sales in one game. And the loss of a draft pick or two; not really a problem ... given the abundance of draft picks the Pats have had in recent years, and the fact that they'd still have the 49ers 1st round pick next year. It's really not much. It doesn't hit anyone where it hurts. A suspension, and a long one, at the very least, should have happened.

What I want to hear from Goodell is exactly how he arrived at his decision to fine Belichick, exactly what his extremely short investigation found, how far back in time he looked, and if he looked into the allegations about sabotaging headsets.

+19,000, Wade Phillips

Because this absolutely has to happen now, and it is rather dumb that it didn't happen before. Wade Phillips proposed that the NFL adopt a communication system on defense identical to the one used on offense, where the plays can be radio'd in to the defensive caption, who then informs everyone else.

I see no logical reason why that would've been voted down. What was the deciding factor, cost? Slap a Radio Shack logo on the side of the coach's headset, and your problem is solved. Are we worried about day-glo green helmet stickers becoming too trendy among the kids? We just couldn't give up the tradition and history of hand signals? Can't give up the comedy of "accidentally" slipping a middle finger into one of the dummy signals?

Unless you're Bill Belichick, I can't think of one single good reason to have voted against that.

+4,000, The Sports Frog

For pointing out this quote from Peter King (on the Patriots acquiring Randy Moss), which came on April 29 of this year (emphasis mine):

"I'm about to get preachy/sappy. Even when the Patriots took a chance on guys like Corey Dillon, they were using roster spots on guys who were never accused of not hustling. To me, and to Bob Kraft, Bill Belichick and Scott Pioli, cheating the game is the worst crime a player can commit."

Ironyyyyy...

I think this ranks right up there with Peter King's 1991 column entitled "O.J. Simpson is the Sweetest, Most Sensitive, Most Non-Violent Man in the World" (I made that up).

Seriously, I'm not trying to slam Peter King ... I like the guy (I do now, I guess I should say), as I've grown to really appreciate his MMQB over the last couple of years.

But that quote is a little too delicious to not mention, given our current situation with the guys who so hate the idea of cheating the game of football.

+35, Kevin Pritchard

I'm guessing that the Blazers GM is extremely hungover right about now, and will soon wake up to a breakfast of scotch. The first statistic that Pritchard's new toy Greg Oden will rack up as a pro will be in the Season Ending Surgery category, and that's generally not the ideal way to start a career.

What will the future look like for Greg Oden a year from now? Most likely, still pretty good. But microfracture surgery ... those words are just too chilling. I'm not sure it's the best idea to assume that just because Amare Stoudemire recovered from it nicely that Greg Oden will recover from it nicely. Even with Amare, the long-term success rate for NBA players who have the same surgery is still pretty low.

I'm not projecting certain doom or even Bowie-ism ... but I'm not shrugging it off, either. Outside of a murder conviction, it's about the worst possible way to start an NBA career.

-21,000, Donna Shalala

The president of The U put a no-tolerance policy in place for fighting, including the mandatory one-year suspension of any Miami player who gets in a fight ... which really threatens to dampen the mood at this weekend's Miami vs. Florida International game. Last year, of course, this happened, and it was awesome.

Because of Shalala and other do-gooders, it seems extremely that it will happen again. Unless ...

+21,000, Lamar Thomas

He's our only hope here. If we're going to get a scene at all reminiscent of what happened last year, it's up to the guy in the booth who completely endorsed the brawl last year.

I'm not ruling out the possibility of Lamar Thomas rushing into the field with a pair of brass knuckles in the middle of the second quarter. He so badly wanted to be involved in the fight last year that he threatened to take an elevator from the press box down to field level, and then suggested that the two teams meet again in the parking lot after the game. Poor Lamar, feeling left out like that.

This will be a perfectly civil game, just like the one Donna Shalala envisions ... until Thomas storms through the tunnel with a pair of brass knuckles in about the middle of the second quarter, and just starts swinging wildly at FIU players. He'll turn to the crowd, looking for their support, and will be greeted with stunned silence ... until a Miami player is forced to knock him unconscious from behind, so security can drag him out of the O.B.

+82,285,201, Ralph Wilson

A big part of the reason that Bills tight end Kevin Everett's doing so much better than was initially thought was a cooling agent that physicians applied to the area around his spine immediately after the hit. The new treatment was developed by something called the Miami Project, housed at the University of Miami, where Everett went to school ... and the Miami Project was funded largely by Buffalo Bills owner, Ralph Wilson. Neat little circle there.

Its like a carousel. You pay the quarter, you get on the horse. It goes up and down ... and around. Circular. Circle. With the music, the flow. All good things.

Maybe it's just me ... but sometimes I feel like I hear "donate to fight this disease," or "support research for this cause," or "help fight TBA," and I keep hearing it, and I never hear about any sort of a cure or progress. I guess this is a reminder that if you give, good things can happen ... possibly even for you or someone close to you.

I feel like this would be a good time for us all to share in a group hug.

+850, Sir Alex Ferguson's Balls

In keeping with the theme of the last item, please, give all you can to support research to help soothe and comfort the scrotal area of Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson.

Ferguson was hanging out at a train station, when he was approached by a drunken homeless guy who spat out a whole bunch of crazy as he attempted to do harm to Fergie's genitals. From the AP:

Ferguson was waiting to be picked up outside the Euston train station in central London when the attack occurred Monday afternoon. Ferguson had soreness and tenderness after being punched but was not seriously injured, officials told the City of London Magistrates Court.

The court was told that Ferguson thought the man staggering toward him was a beggar. Instead, Reynolds punched him and said: "I'm sorry Fergie, I did not know it was you."

Reynolds then allegedly chanted "Fergie, Fergie, shut your mouth" - a soccer chant common in Scotland.

The court was told that Reynolds had consumed half a bottle of vodka and several beers before the attack.

Well, I should hope so. Even crazy people don't go around punching people in the coin purse unless they're pretty well lit. I think England should deport this guy ... send him off to the United States, provide him with a bottle of Popov a day, and let's have him follow Bill Belichick around for the next 5-10 years.




Sorry, No Photos



Noel Devine. Pat White, Steve Slaton, and Darius Reynaud are still the three main ingredients in West Virginia's ridiculous offense ... but young Noel put on a show last night in West Virginia's 31-14 beating of Maryland (a game that ESPN showed a little bit of, inbetween clips of Ray Lewis on the sidelines).

Noel had just 5 carries, but those 5 carries went for a total of 136 yards ... which makes for a pretty decent average. A couple of the cuts Devine showed, too ... they looked like things you can't even do in NCAA Football '08 on the XBox. On one carry, he went around a guy by juking right, and as soon as his feet touched the ground, he juked right again, with about equal distance and speed ... that's just not natural.

There was another play where someone attempted to tackle him by his facemask ... the guy yanked his neck around, Devine went with it, did a 360, shed the guy, and kept on motoring. His speed, strength, and low center of gravity let him do things that just don't look real.



Chris Benoit. Not that I make it a policy to have a great deal of sympathy for people who murder their families, but someone's been digging through Benoit's diary, and what they've found, apparently, is a guy who was not right in the head.

I think this helps a little bit to answer the previously unanswerable question of "why?" ... It appears that Benoit was at least somewhat mentally ill, suffering from depression and dementia, probably brought on by the number of head injuries he suffered in his wrestling career.

"It's plain that he was depressed," said Ichter. "It's plain that he was beginning to exhibit some of the signs of the dementia that's associated with the brain injuries he sustained because he talks in there about not being able to remember things. Chris, at the end had become intensely paranoid, to the point that he would not take the same route to the airport on a consistent basis, to the point that he would not allow the family outside of the house."

He also wrote a ton about the loss of his friend Eddie Guerrero, once saying, "I will be with you soon." He also talked a lot about how much he loved his wife Nancy and his son Daniel.

It's eerie to know these things, but I guess it's better than not knowing, or just throwing your hands up and saying, "Well, it had to be steroids!"



Deserving Of Your Full Attention ...

8:00, ESPN2. College Football. Oklahoma State @ Troy. I thought Friday nights were for high school football ... what happened to that?

Other Stuff ...

7:00, ESPN. MLB. New York Yankees @ Boston Red Sox.
8:00, Fox Soccer. College Soccer. Virginia Tech @ Tulsa.
11:00, ESPN Classic. Rodeo. 1999 Wrangler World of Rodeo.