NFL needs to follow MLB when it handles cheating by teams or players

When it comes to cheating, the NFL is a pushover. They need to be more like Major League Baseball. They need to be more decisive.

Sorry NFL but you dropped the ball when it came to doling out punishments for cheating, especially when it was the Patriots. Major League Baseball has now set the standard for what should punishments for cheating and they may not be done yet.

Nothing is worse than waking up and knowing that your favorite teams have been cheating. Cheating and winning as a result. Nothing like hearing your favorite athletes are embroiled in controversy because the idea of winning at all costs was so much greater than winning with integrity and sportsmanship.

Nothing prepares you, as a fan, to deal with those allegations or the reality of them when it comes to light that they were in fact, accurate.

I know this feeling because I am an Astros fan.  What I am not, however, is a hypocrite.

For the better part of ten years, I have been saying that several of the Patriots Super Bowls and their seasons were tainted by decisions made to cheat. What is the difference I ask now between stealing signs and videotaping walk-through practices or recording defensive signals? There isn’t one. They are the same. Both are cheating. What is the difference in wearing a “buzzer” as has been recently alleged regarding a deeper look into the Astros cheating than say, deflating footballs for your star quarterback? Are they not similar in nature?

Patriots fans have been denying any wrongdoing since the first allegation. They lost a first-round draft pick, Bill Belichick was fined something like $500,000. The Patriots responded by giving him a raise and a contract extension. Major League Baseball fined the Astros $5 million, took away two first-round draft picks, and suspended the team’s manager and general manager for a full year. The Astros responded by firing both of them.

I am not denying that my team cheated. They did. It has been proven whether or not we ever find out to what extent it actually helped them. It doesn’t matter. They did it and those involved deserve to be punished. I’m not making excuses. The 2017 World Series means nothing to me anymore. The WS Champion patch on the side of the $40.00 hat I bought the day after they won is in the trash. The T-Shirt as well. I’m only thankful that they didn’t win this past October.

I’m still debating on whether or not I will continue to follow them. Something I have done every year for the last 45 years of my life. The team’s owner may have saved my fandom of the team by firing the two in charge but maybe there should be more. Maybe the players who knew about it and benefited from it should as well. I know they should. Tom Brady was punished for his actions, so should any member of the Astros roster who participated as well.

After the MLB took action, the Astros fired their two guys, the Redsox fired Alex Cora, and the Mets today fired Carlos Beltran. All were involved and none of them were innocent.

The NFL is soft when it comes to punishing players for cheating. A player can use PED’s and still play in the post-season. You can’t do that in the MLB. It is too late to discipline the Patriots harder for all that they have done. It would be like spanking a child for lying two years after he ate the cookie. Make no mistake though, the NFL needs to get stronger. They need to hold coaches and players to a higher level and players and coaches, in turn, need to hold themselves higher.

Whether sports celebrities like it or not, they are looked up to. They are admired and they are emulated by children. Emulated by children who view cheating as a way to a championship if nothing is done.

When the MLB season kicks-off I won’t be subscribing to the MLB package and I won’t be attending minor league games, and I won’t be pouring over stats and pitching lineups, batting orders, or anything else. Not this year anyway. Maybe down the road, I will.

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As a fan, I am hurt by their actions and would be devasted if this were the Miami Dolphins. I can’t simply root for another team because this team was always my team. To root for someone else is just wrong but too root for the Astros now isn’t right either, at least for now. It’s different. I won’t suffer, I’m an adult but how do I explain to my eight-year-old son that plays baseball and says he is Josh Reddick or Jose Altuve and sits next to me while we watch the game together? How do I explain to him why the Astros are not on the television. It’s quite easy actually.

I tell him that the cheated.

Professional sports is hard. It takes a toll on the body that never goes away. It takes men and women away from their families for weeks or months on end as they train. Lance Armstrong won the hearts of America only to inject it with lies.

As I sit here and think about these events of the last several months and more specifically the last couple of days I wonder how I would feel if I was a Patriots fan because I know what it is like to be an Astros fan. Funny thing is, never once have I ever seen a Patriots fan admit that their team was wrong. Here I am, my team was wrong.

So next time NFL, come down hard. Make a statement that is so tough that no other team will attempt it. Quit slapping teams on the wrist and putting players on suspension for PED use when they really could care less since they still get their post-season bonus money. You simply are too soft. And now my rant has ended.