It's not cheating if you spread peanut butter on your balls and let your dog lick it off

So the Patriots are in a little bit of trouble. They've been accused of putting a cameraman on the Jets sideline last Sunday whose sole responsibility was apparently to film the Jets defensive coaches as they signaled their plays on to the field.

The picture above, courtesy of 100% Injury Rate, may show the offending cameraman. Click on the picture for an enormous view of it. Who knows if this is the accused cameraman, he could be shooting cheerleaders, spectators, players on the opposite sideline or pretty much anything. It does look, however, like he's pointing it directly at the group of coaches. If this is the case, the Patriots are stupid, I mean brazenly, arrogantly stupid. It's not exactly a James Bond type of move is it? Seriously, how obvious is this?

I cant really give the Patriots too much shit for this, or stand here and yack about how the integrity of the game is being violated. I mean, the Broncos are notorious salary cap cheats. And lets get real, the specific violation here is something that likely every team in the league does. Hell, Shanny even admitted to doing it back in 2002:

"Our guy keeps a pair of binoculars on their signal-callers every game," says Broncos coach Mike Shanahan. "With any luck, we have their defensive signals figured out by halftime. Sometimes, by the end of the first quarter."

So how can you criticize the Pats at all? Easy, they were fucking stupid enough to put the cameraman on the Jets sideline and not even pretend to hide it. It's their "I'm Keith Hernandez" moment. Why put the guy on their sideline? They couldn't do this from the Pats sideline? They couldn't do it from the booth? It's really an unfathomably idiotic move, and they deserve whatever punishment they get. Not for the subterfuge, but for being moronic about it.

The Pats are going to get a giant fine - $1M seems about right - and they're going to lose a draft pick or maybe two (nothing higher than a 3rd, though). That's what they deserve, and that's all they deserve. Let's not get all crazy and talk about how the league needs to suspend Belichick and make the Pats forfeit last week's game or put asterisks by their Super Bowl wins. That's lunacy. It isn't going to happen and isn't warranted.