Marshall Faulk has made his sentiments about the “cheating” Patriots — his words — very clear. But former teammate and likely future NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner took a classier approach to his accusations.
Warner, who is out promoting his new reality TV show The Moment, says he doesn’t think the Patriots’ Super Bowl win should be “tainted” but he does wonder whether they did cheat after all, according to 411Mania.com.
“I don’t look at it as tainted at all, that’s not the perspective that I choose to take,” Warner said. “But with that being said, I will say that I don’t know how you can’t wonder, how you can’t wonder if something did happen, if there was an advantage. I simply say that because to know that there was evidence out there, that there were tapes out there, but no one ever got to see the tapes — the Commissioner or whoever decided they were going to destroy them from what I understand — and so it continually leaves the question.
“Being that it was a part of the history of our game and it was directly part of my history, part of the history of my organization and my teammates, and possibly could have affected my career long term, you have a question; did something go on?
“But I don’t allow that to taint or affect the way I look at it. The Patriots beat us in that game – they outplayed us, they deserved to win – but it’s hard to just let it go by saying, ‘Oh, I don’t know if anything happened.’ I still have a question on what exactly when down in that whole time period; did they get some kind of advantage? Maybe it wasn’t in our game but did they get some kind of advantage in any game?
“I think it’s unfortunate for us and the people involved and for the people that are football fans that we have to even wonder ‘what if?’ but I’m not going to take that credit away from them and those players because I have really no idea what happened, if anything. I’m not going to automatically chalk it up as they cheated or they did do something or did have something because I don’t know. It’s unfortunate that I have to sit back and other players and fans have to sit back and wonder if.”
Now that’s a lot of jargon to process, but the gist of Warner’s comments hint that he’s skeptical but unwilling to discredit the Patriots without any facts. He has more than enough reason to be cynical about the situation, but in typical Warner fashion he’s just too graceful to sling unsubstantiated mud around.
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