Bill Belichick is a cheater. He has disgraced America's greatest sport and favorite pastime. He should be sent to prison.

Get your tongue out of your cheek, Jonathan, or you'll have people calling the cops on grandpa for cheating at checkers.

He should, at the very least, be suspended for a half season. Here's why:

A player caught trying to gain an unfair competitive advantage through steroids or another banned substance receives a 4-game suspension, assuming it is his first violation.

Belichick has been caught twice trying to gain an unfair competitive advantage through videotaping the opposing team's signals -- once against the Jets earlier this year and once against the Packers last year. All reporting that has come out since the Jets incident has indicated that Belichick has run an organized and highly complex videotaping scheme for many years -- he allegedly has a video library of the defense signals of every head coach and defensive coordinator in the league. There are also allegations that he sends players onto the field wearing a wire so as to tape the other teams' on-field signals. None of this is legal. Much, if not all, of it is very, very clearly outlawed by NFL rules.

Belichick was fined $500,000, no small sum. But that's just 12.5% of his annual salary, according to reports. And though the team will lose either one or two draft picks because of Belichick's action, he was suspended exactly zero games. That strikes me as unfair.

You were Serious?!?!

It's a GAME, Jonathan!

You're mixing terms like "legal" "outlawed" and "NFL Rules" indiscriminately.
Keep the two in perspective.

The league has rules about handling cheaters, and that's all well and good. Just as it should be with a GAME.
I don't think it takes us anywhere we ought to go as a nation to make cheating in order to win at a GAME into a Crime, until you get into the realm of THROWING a game, or shaving points for the betting money.

The suggestion of prison was tongue-in-cheek. But anything short of that I would have no problem with whatsoever. Flogging, perhaps, or public shaming. Put him in the stocks!

Slippery slope there, gvc. I mean, as the world's dominant cultural hegemon, the US of A ought to step it up when it can. Since we obviously can't make any pretense towards removing cheating in the political sphere, we ought to at least take some responsibility for fair play when we can.
He shouldn't go to jail, but Belichick should be banned for life.

And no, Charlie Hustle shouldn't be in the HOF.

See Jonathan..., your tongue has wandered right back into your cheek!

Look Jonathan, NoGuay.., the NFL is essentially a private club, who's existance is centered around a game.
Games are conducted according to rules.
NFL may enforce these rules, and should. Particularly if they want to be seen as fair, above-board, and having "a level playing field" (even though it's crowned in the middle..)

Bad Boy Billy has earned everything the league can throw at him, right down to having his pee-pee whacked with a yardstick.

Enforcing NFL rules is not the responsibility of the government, but DON'T be surprised if some Camera-Hogging Congress-Crooks are making noises about a Congressional Investigation by week's end...
That (like repeatedly investigating music) will be an easy, high-profile substitute for NOT dealing with why we're still in Iraq, and why the government spends such vast sums of what the taxpayers struggle to earn.

[Isn't it about time for 'John' to pop up with something about "overweight, buck-toothed, beer swilling, white-middle-trash football and NASCAR morons..."?]

gvc, I think your sarcasm sensors have been dulled.

Everyone obviously agrees with you that rule violations in a sport should be dealt with by the sport's governing organization: I'm saying Belichick should be banned for life, Jonathan is saying he should get a half game suspension, and ...
Who is claiming--the joke about a prison sentence notwithstanding--that the government should intervene??

Maybe so, NoGuay, but you Did type the phrase "the US of A ought to step it up when it can", and that usually means the government ought to do ~something~.

Oh man, gvc, you really are humorless.
I was lightly mocking you for taking the "sent to prison" joke hook line and sinker.
Sheeesh.
Kudos, though, on maintaining your staid earnestness in the face of levity--good work.

We allow tax deductions for contributions for groups who send the money to Israel(the persecutor of the Palestinians and a country in violation of so many UN resolutions and etc.), so the tax code is pretty liberal. Taxes are taxing and is a boring subject anyway, let's talk about something else.