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Jeremy Schwartz is the Mexico correspondent for Cox Newspapers. He is based in Mexico City.What's on this page?
The entry titled "After further review in Mexico: Get off the Patriots' back."
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After further review in Mexico: Get off the Patriots’ back
While the national media in the States has been quick to slap the “cheaters” label on the New England Patriots, observers south of the border are more forgiving when it comes to the three-time Super Bowl champs.
Fernando Von Rossum, perhaps Mexico’s foremost football analyst, blasts American commentators in today’s Reforma newspaper for their indignant diatribes against the Patriots and coach Bill Belichick.
“I’m inclined to think that we are faced with that oh so human condition called envy, in the face of a team and a coach that, like it or not, is currently on a higher plane than its peers and whose only equal at the moment are the champion Indianapolis Colts,” Von Rossum wrote in his column.
Von Rossum, who has covered the NFL for Mexican television for nearly 40 years, goes on to say that the Patriots were correctly penalized for breaking NFL rules, but that the U.S. media suffers from hypocrisy when it bemoans Bellichick’s theft of the New York Jets’ defensive signals.
“Those famous signals are constantly being modified and many players change teams every year, bringing that information with them,” he wrote.
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By paul guertin
September 22, 2007 9:01 AM | Link to this
Your theory that “envy” plays a major role in all of this fuss about the cheating Patriots might be true to a point, but the well entrenched American attitude that “might makes right” also plays a part, I think. There is a long standing unwritten law that states that if you have achieved great success you are entitled to to greater latitude regarding what is right and wrong. In terms of continued success, the Patriots will be hurt by this, though their P.R. might be damaged short term. I say let’s do away with all of the rules and regulations and find out who truly is the best.