Ok, here's my one sperglord post for the year.
Spygate: The taping of defensive signals from the sideline in 2007 after a memo forbidding that was sent out during the offseason.
I cannot think of better criteria to measure offensive performance than yards per game and points per game.
The years prior to spygate:
2001 - 19th in ypg, 6th in ppg.
2002 - 21st in ypg, 10th in ppg.
2003 - 17th in ypg, 12th in ppg.
2004 - 7th in ypg, 4th in ppg.
2005 - 7th in ypg, 10th in ppg.
2006 - 11th in ypg, 7th in ppg.
The post-spygate years:
2007 - 1st in ypg, 1st in ppg.
2008 - 5th in ypg, 8th in ppg.
2009 - 3rd in ypg, 6th in ppg.
2010 - 8th in ypg, 1st in ppg.
2011 - 2nd in ypg, 3rd in ppg.
2012 - 1st in ypg, 1st in ppg.
2013 - 7th in ypg, 3rd in ppg.
The Patriots offense has been objectively better every single year with the exception of Brady's injury year after spygate. Which is why I cannot be bothered to agree or even pay attention to the '0 SB victories post spygate, lolz' meme.
What's striking is that in all of our SB victory years our YPG ranking was lower, and in two cases significantly so, than our PPG ranking. What does that tell you?
That our success in those years had a lot to do with an awesome defense and special teams that put our offense in a lot more short field situations.
Starting in around 2005 our pass defense began to really struggle, rebounded for a few years and then just tanked. Our awful defense over the last few years has been the achilles heel of this team not some overblown rules violation.
I don't condone what the team did but anytime anyone tries to say all of their success was due to taping defensive signals I lose all ability to respect their football opinion.