TEAM: The Green Bay Packers

SEVERITY:

SUMMARY: Performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) are used by players to illegally improve athletic performance above what legal training and preparation can do.

Players who illegally improve their performance unfairly penalize players who follow the rules. They not only put those players at risk for physical injury, but they also affect their economic livelihood by impacting their perceived value and their ability to secure appropriately-valued playing contracts.

SEVERITY = 0.5 video cameras per punished incident. Includes all documented infractions from 1960 to present with this Wikipedia page as the primary source.

• OL Keith Uecker (1989)
• OL Mike Ariey (1989)
• LB Jude Waddy (1998)
• DE Michael Neal (2012)
• CB Jarrett Bush (2015)
• CB Demetri Goodson (2016)
• DT Mike Pennel (2016)

VICTIM: The entire league

PUNISHED? Yes

PUNISHMENT: Each player was suspended for four games for violating the league's performance-enhancing drug policy.

SHARE: http://YourTeamCheats.com/GB#PEDSgate-1989

AWARDS EARNED: Everyone Was Doing It!

CHEATPOINTS EARNED:+ 7.0

TEAM: The Green Bay Packers

SEVERITY:

SUMMARY: The Green Bay Packers cheated so badly in the early part of the 20th century that they had their franchise revoked in 1921 and were forced to buy their way back into the league, which founder Curly Lambeau did, by paying the $50 league entry fee in 1922.

The infractions were for recruiting three Notre Dame players -- Hunk Anderson, Ojay Larson, and Hee Garvey -- for their final game of the season at Milwaukee. Chicago head coach George Halas found out and complained, which contributed to the revocation of the Packers' franchise. The Chicago Tribune, the home newspaper of the Packers' archrival Chicago Staleys (later the Bears), broke the story.

VICTIM: The entire league

PUNISHED? Yes

PUNISHMENT: The Packers were founded in 1919 and immediately established a high bar for cheating by getting themselves kicked out of the league a mere two years later in 1921.

SHARE: http://YourTeamCheats.com/GB#Recruitgate-1921

AWARDS EARNED: Champs of the Cheat!

CHEATPOINTS EARNED:+ 5.0

TEAM: The Green Bay Packers

SEVERITY:

SUMMARY: Hornung, the Green Bay Packers' "Golden Boy" running back and 1961 MVP, was forced to sit out the 1963 season, suspended by NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle for betting on NFL games and associating with gamblers. Hornung had bet up to $500 on games, said Rozelle.

Hornung apologized. "I made a terrible mistake," he said. "I am truly sorry."

VICTIM: The entire league

PUNISHED? Yes

SHARE: http://YourTeamCheats.com/GB#Gamblegate-1963

CHEATPOINTS EARNED:+ 3.0

TEAM: The Green Bay Packers

SEVERITY:

SUMMARY: Green Bay Packer Hall of Fame defensive end Reggie White ran a bounty program called "Smash-for-Cash".

In a 1996 article, White acknowledge the he doled out his entire paycheck to his teammates following the Packers' 1996 playoff victory over the San Francisco 49ers."I gave them money for big hits,'' White said. More than 10 players received $500, including linebacker Wayne Simmons, who was rewarded for the fumble he forced that was returned for the game's first touchdown by teammate Craig Newsome, White said. In the article, White said his incentive program would continue for the 1996 NFC championship game against the Dallas Cowboys.

The Smash-for-Cash program, a precursor to the New Orleans Saints' harshly-punished Bountygate, depleted White's $13,000 game check in $500 increments, according to a report in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, but was never punished by the league.

An unnamed NFL source, commenting in an ESPN report, said "The 'Smash-for-Cash' program is within the rules as long as players use their own monies, the amounts are not exorbitant, and the payments are not for illegal hits."

Greg Aiello, an NFL spokesman, said there was nothing wrong with what White did, likening it to a "quarterback buying gifts for his offensive linemen."

VICTIM: The entire league

PUNISHED? No but ... it's more probable than not that this was cheating

PUNISHMENT: Sounds quite a bit like the Saints' Bountygate, no? One difference is the lack of evidence saying the the Packers' coaches were involved, which apparently matters to the league.

SHARE: http://YourTeamCheats.com/GB#Bountygate-1996

CHEATPOINTS EARNED:+ 3.0

TEAM: The Green Bay Packers

SEVERITY:

SUMMARY: Mike Reiss of ESPNBoston.com, noted that during the November 30, 2014 game between the Packers and Patriots on CBS, Jim Nantz and Phil Simms discussed the preference of Green Bay Packer quarterback Aaron Rodgers for overinflated footballs.

"'I like to push the limit to how much air we can put in the football, even go over what they allow you to do and see if the officials take air out of it,'" Simms said Rodgers told them before the game. Rogers' believes that "It's not an advantage when you have a football that’s inflated more than average air pressure. We’re not kicking these footballs."

Former quarterback Phil Simms said that Rodgers' preference is the exception as most quarterbacks prefer a softer football.

VICTIM: The entire league

PUNISHED? No but ... it's more probable than not that this was cheating

PUNISHMENT: Rodgers' ball-manipulation is different than what Tom Brady was accused of being "at least generally aware" of. Rodgers inflated his footballs to an illegal level before the game-day inspection and hoped that the illegal balls slipped by an unsuspecting official. More seriously, based on Simms report, the officials may actually have conspired to help Rodgers by adding a puff of air for him.

Said Simms: "You know, the officials do check those footballs and sometimes maybe even get lucky and put an extra half pound of air in there to help Aaron Rodgers out." This is a very serious charge. Are the officials helping some quarterbacks cheat?

I'm sure the league is looking into Rodgers' statement about illegally tampering with his footballs and allegedly receiving help from friendly officials to introduce illegally inflated balls into football games. It's a matter of fairness and the integrity of the game, after all.

SHARE: http://YourTeamCheats.com/GB#Inflategate-2008

AWARDS EARNED: Hip-Hip-Hypocritical!

CHEATPOINTS EARNED:+ 3.0

TEAM: The Green Bay Packers

SEVERITY:

SUMMARY: As reported by Will Brinson of CBS Sports, the Green Bay Packers broke NFL rules by taking QB Aaron Rodgers off IR, playing him for a game, and then putting him back on IR when they were eliminated from playoff contention.

Said Brinson:

NFL injured reserve rules allow a team to use a temporary IR slot on a player and have him return, as the Packers did with Rodgers. However, in order to be placed back on injured reserve, the player needs to suffer a new injury.

Rodgers left the game against Carolina because he was "sore" at one point, but he was not placed on injured reserve until Tuesday, when the Packers had been eliminated from the playoffs courtesy of the Falcons beating the Buccaneers on Monday night.

When they placed Rodgers back on injured reserve, they did not provide an injury-specific reason for placing him on IR. Everyone just sort of assumed the Packers were placing him on IR with the same collarbone injury that had kept him out since Week 7 when he hurt it against the Vikings. The plan was obvious all along: bring him back in Week 15, make a Hail Mary run to the playoffs and hope to just catch fire.

The plan didn't work out of the gate, so the Packers put him back on injured reserve. The problem? If a team places a player on injured reserve with the same injury, the team who places him on injured reserve is required to release him.

Despite the clarity of the NFL rule, the Green Bay Packers chose to blatanly ignore it by not releasing their quarterback.

VICTIM: The entire league

PUNISHED? No but ... it's more probable than not that this was cheating

PUNISHMENT: Paragon of fairness and good judgement, Roger Goodell, chose to turn a blind eye to this attack on the integrity of the game.

SHARE: http://YourTeamCheats.com/GB#Rogersgate-2017

AWARDS EARNED: Points for Creativity!

CHEATPOINTS EARNED:+ 2.0

TEAM: All 32 NFL Teams

SEVERITY:

SUMMARY: Tampering with free agents is rampant, it's laughable and it is against the rules (PDF). It's so bad across every team in the league that the NFL had to create a three-day legal tampering period. However, tampering still regularly occurs long before that annual three-day window opens. On March 9, 2015 the league once again felt compelled to warn all 32 teams about not tampering.

Why is tampering considered a problem? Because tampering with players still under contract makes it difficult for clubs to re-sign their own talent. It also puts those few teams that actually follow NFL guidelines at a distinct disadvantage. In many cases, contract agreements are in place days before any negotiations are allowed to begin.

This isn't fair, it isn't legal, and it is blatant cheating by the teams who engage in the practice.

VICTIM: The entire league

PUNISHED? No but...

PUNISHMENT: NFL commissioner and former Jets public relations intern Roger Goodell is doing all he can to curtail and punish the "commonplace" practice, although it admits that there is so much tampering that it is hard to police it all.

The CheatPoints earned for this leaguewide cheat is for all of this team's tampering incidents that have gone undiscovered or unproven. If specific instances are discovered, they are punished on top of this leaguewide penalty.

SHARE: http://YourTeamCheats.com/GB#Tampergate-1960

AWARDS EARNED:Everyone Was Doing It!

CHEATPOINTS EARNED:+ 4.0

TEAM: All 32 NFL Teams

SEVERITY:

SUMMARY: it's a common complaint around the NFL. In late, close games, the helmet communicators of visiting teams suddenly "malfunction" and stop working. It has been accepted as standard practice in the league. Are you on the road and the game is close? Then you are going to have problems with your headset.

In recent years, the Patriots have accused the Colts of doing it and the Jaguars have made the same charge of the Patriots. The Redskins accused the Buccaneers of disabling their headsets, and Tampa Bay accused Dallas. The Giants openly bragged about doing it way back in 1956. The charges go on and on and on.

VICTIM: The entire league

PUNISHED? No

SHARE: http://YourTeamCheats.com/GB#Headsetgate-1980

CHEATPOINTS EARNED:+ 4.0

TEAM: All 32 NFL Teams

SEVERITY:

SUMMARY: Stealing your opponent's signals has always been common and never been illegal.

Said former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Bill Cowher, "We had people that always tried to steal signals. Stealing someone's signals was a part of the game, and everyone attempted to do that." Admitted former Dallas Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson: "When I came into the NFL, back in 1989, I talked to a Kansas City scout and he said, 'Here's what we do, we videotape the opposing team's signals and then we sync it up with the game film.' So I did it." Bragged, former Denver Broncos head coach Mike Shanahan: "Our guy keeps a pair of binoculars on their signal-callers every game, with any luck, we have their defensive signals figured out by halftime. Sometimes, by the end of the first quarter."

NFL commissioner and former Jets public relations intern Rodger Goodell confirmed this himself in 2008, saying that the issue was not stealing signals, that is allowed "and it is done quite widely." The issue is where and how you record them. If you chose to videotape them, then (after 2006) you have to do that from a league approved location. If you hire lip readers, they can do it from your coaches lap, if you want.

After 2006, examples of allowed videotaping locations are: the luxury boxes, media booths and other enclosed spaces. Expressly prohibited locations are the sidelines, the field, locker rooms, the coaches booth or any other place accessible to team coaches and staff. The point of the rule is to not allow the footage to be useful in the current game.

Prior to the September 6, 2006 memo and, 2007 follow up, from NFL head of football operations Ray Anderson, there was no league restriction on filming location, which is the reason the memo was sent.

Many NFL head coaches have downplayed the significance of the practice, saying that attempting to decipher opponent's signals was a long standing practice and entirely common throughout the league.

VICTIM: The entire league

PUNISHED? No

PUNISHMENT: NFL commissioner and former Jets public relations intern Rodger Goodell suggested that the responsibility was on teams to conceal their messages, not on the ones trying to steal them. During his news conference before the 2007 Super Bowl he said that any coach who did not expect signals to be stolen was "stupid."

Prior to 2006, every NFL team is assumed to have done it, but none of them broke a rule. You can't punish something that is not prohibited. Filming from the sidelines was not prohibited until 2006 and filming your opponent's signals from approved locations has never been prohibited, even today.

SHARE: http://YourTeamCheats.com/GB#Spygate-1960

AWARDS EARNED:Everyone Was Doing It!

CHEATPOINTS EARNED:+ 0.0

TEAM: All 32 NFL Teams

SEVERITY:

SUMMARY: Sign an opponent's recently-cut player to your practice squad to get intel on their plays, signals and tactics. This is not illegal and is a leaguewide practice.

Said one player, who chose to remain anonymous as he was still in the league as of 2015, "If teams have an opening at a certain position, they might not be looking for perhaps the best player to fill it on their practice squad. Instead, they might go for someone who has access to the opposing team’s playbook."

“Let’s say we’re playing the Jaguars in seven days and you want to know more about their playbook. From time to time teams will sign people off of practice squads. You don’t have to put them on active roster so if there’s a need for more depth at linebacker and you’re playing Jacksonville, there would be more of a chance to sign a linebacker off the team you’re about to play’s practice squad and hoping that the person you’re about to sign will divulge information about the playbook.”

VICTIM: The entire league

PUNISHED? No

PUNISHMENT: Not illegal.

SHARE: http://YourTeamCheats.com/GB#Scrapsgate-1960

AWARDS EARNED:Everyone Was Doing It!

CHEATPOINTS EARNED:+ 0.0