Tainted

Apparently Coach John Harbaugh of the Baltimore Ravens is one of the many people that take exception to the various scandals that have plagued the NFL in the last few years. While doing an interview with a Baltimore radio station, Harbaugh was asked his thoughts on the Saints' bounty program and reportedly said that he felt that the Super Bowls for both the Saints and Patriots were tainted by the cheating scandals.

Naturally, ESPN needed to milk this story for all it's worth, and had Tedy Bruschi, a former Patriot embroiled in the controversy to respond. Bruschi's response was that the Patriots had done all in their power to prove that they were championship teams, and that the scandal did not mean that they did not have championship caliber teams.

I think Bruschi is missing the entire point of Harbaugh's comments. In saying that the championships are stained, or somehow have asterisks attached to them, Harbaugh is not saying that the teams weren't talented. I would argue that he is completely willing to accept that the Patriots and Saints had teams capable of winning multiple Super Bowls, but his point is that they didn't do it properly.

The example of Pete Rose is telling. No semi-rational human being could possibly keep Rose out of the Hall of Fame for his statistics. No one even argues that. What they argue is that he has radically dishonored the game of baseball.

Bruschi's response is like repeating the chorus of Pete Rose's baseball statistics as though there were still someone that needed to be convinced of his numbers. It doesn't matter if you have championship quality. No one is denying the work that was put in for the Saints and Patriots to win their championships. What they are questioning is the integrity of an organization that seeks to find ways around the rules, rather than within them, to win championships.