The New England Patriots are accused of showing poor sportsmanship against their opponents this season and I'm here to get to the bottom of these accusations once and for all.
First let's try and figure out exactly what sportsmanship is...
"Good sportsmanship occurs when teammates, opponents, coaches, and officials treat each other with respect... Kids who see adults behaving in a sportsmanlike way gradually come to understand that the real winners in sports are those who know how to persevere and to behave with dignity — whether they win or lose a game."
-kidshealth.org
Ummm... OK. So what we have here is that in order to show good sportsmanship we have to act with dignity (chalk one up for T.O. and the Bengals). Also, I guess it doesn't really matter who wins or lose. Well now it's clear that the Miami Dolphins are going for the Good Sportsmanship Award this year. Go get em guys!
OK let's keep looking here because that didn't help at all...
"Sportsmanship is, in a basic sense, conforming to the rules of sport...Sportsmanship expresses an aspiration or ethos that the activity will be enjoyed for its own sake, with proper consideration for fairness, ethics, respect, and a sense of fellowship with one's competitors."
-Wikpedia.org
Alright, so are there any rules in the NFL about scoring a tremendous amount of points? ehh, no. Next.
Do they show ethics, respect and a sense of fellowship with one's competitors?
General ethics is universal in the league. Respect on the other hand can be debated but all in all it depends on how you look at it the scoring. Some will say that they don't respect teams by continuing to run up the score late in the game with their 2nd string, while others say that if you take a knee that is more a slap in the face. I don't think the Patriots, sort of like Britney Spears and parting ways with the bottle, can win in this situation.
Are the Patriots playing fair? WAIT WAIT! We almost forgot about Spygate... They're not playing fair! It's proven now that they do show poor sportsmanship, YES! I'm glad we finally got to the bottom of ... this just in.... the Patriots aren't using any cameras when they are literally making teams cry, sort of like what Eric Mangini does every Sunday.
Back to square one.
Well maybe Bill Belichik is just the devil, honestly, he could be...
How about we all take a deep breath and take into consideration that maybe BB is doing this on purpose and not just sitting on his high horse and snickering at all the little people. What would he gain by embarrassing other teams? What if, just what if they're trying to create these headlines so they can feed off of the media attention.
Or maybe they have a little chip on their shoulders from the ridiculous Spygate stories and just maybe they're blowing teams out to prove that the cameras meant jack, keep them Mangini, you need them more than the Pats do.
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This article is clearly biased for the Patriots. The evidence of their unsportsmanlike behavior was summarized with 1 second left on the clock at the Super Bowl, when the Patriots, led by their coach, stormed off the field mad when they lost a game.
I agree Bill was a poor sport, but to base the entire teams character on his actions is debatable. I mean sure the leader of the team shines the most, but the team itself is comprised of some classy characters. Just like any team they have their bad apples, but the Coach is a major head case, and shouldn't be the measuring stick of the entire organization.