Your problem is that you are being rational about this. This is not a rational process.
What dominates the media is not about reason, it's about what an audience wants to hear or believe. Anyone who has worked in politics or entertainment (NFL = Entertainment) has known this for a long time. When millions of dollars of revenue are at stake and when easily inflame-able passions come into play, the media stretches, embellishes or outright ignores the truth and pounces if they think they have a good story.
In a perverted way, it's a compliment. In the Patriots case it means that the Franchise was successful and powerful enough to warrant its attempted dismemberment by headline hungry pundits.
This is a blood sport, don't you get it? "OK, let's see if we can rip this Franchise and its management apart. It's dominated the league, let's see if we can put it in its place. We can't? Nuts! OK, let's stretch the story out as long as we can. Damn that Specter, why couldn't he have stayed in remission a little longer, now he probably is getting too sick to hold hearings. So, what else do we have? Did Michael Vick torture any dogs lately? What about Marvin Harrison, what can we do to him about that gun? Does anybody have any more good rumors about Roger Clemens? Did they really let that poor horse run until she broke both her legs--wow, isn't that cruelty--we can make some points with PETA on this one--did anybody get a shot of when they killed her?"
The only dupes in this are the poor idiots who think that any of what ESPN says is actually really believed by the people who say it. They don't care if it is true. It's a story that sells clicks and Airtime at the expense of a rich, successful, sitting target.
I want the Pats to fight back once they are formally exonerated of anything they haven't admitted and rip the throats out of the people who did this to them. Those people are expecting nothing else, by the way. They know the game. They know they've overplayed their hand and that Bob Kraft and his billions will be coming after them any day. Stay tuned. It's gonna be our fans' turn to have a little bloodlust sated.