...
So, since the first quarter of the first game of 2007, the Pats have won nothing, right? Well, except for this:
- 64-16 regular season record, an .800 winning percentage...
- 4 division titles....
- 2 AFC championships...
- Gone 4-4 in the playoffs over that time...
- Regular season + post season record over the last 5 seasons: 68-20 (.772). ...
- Came within about 1:30, and two amazing catches, away from adding two more SB titles. Great plays by the Giants, but both of which were historically great plays. ...
Bottom line: the whole "they haven't won anything" since spygate is a complete crock. ...
You're preaching to the choir here.
This thread violates a fundamental principle of NFL fan behavior, which states: "Haters don't care about facts. They just want to hate."
A hater's reply to the OP's points would be simply, "Yeah, but in the previous six seasons they won three Superbowls and only lost one playoff game, so the 'cheating' had to have helped them when it counted.
You and I might know that that's an example of that old logical falacy "
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc." (Loosely translated, just because something happens
after something else doesn't mean it happened
because of it.)
You and I can recite facts until we are blue in the face or the cows come home (a choice of
cliches there!) and it won't make any difference to these people.
We simply have to accept that Spygate will be a drag on the legacy of the Brady/Belichick era for the forseeable future and probably beyond. In a sport and league where greatness is parsed in terms of split-second reactions and decisions, something like Spygate will always be a subject of conversation when trying to differentiate among the "great" coaches and teams.
The absolute tragedy of the entire mess is that it was an unnecessary, self-inflicted wound by Belichick, which could only have been the product of arrogance.
The NFL had decided that, while it had looked the other way long enough when it came to the common practice of filming from the sidelines during a game, that the practice had to stop and so issued a directive to that effect.
For reasons fully known only to himself and certainly not adequately explained by his "
Oops, I misunderstood the memo" excuse, Belichick chose to ignore that directive and to do so in the Lion's Den of the Jets' home stadium against a team now coached by his former Assistant who had left on bad terms.
We just have to accept that and realize that people who want to believe false things of the Pats as a result of the incident are not going to be convinced by fact or reason.