Recap of cheating scandals by Patriots:
Illegal Sideline Videotaping (Spygate)
After Belichick and Mangini engage in mutual gamesmanship in taping signals, Mangini decides to tattle tale to his parents. The Patriots acknowledge immediately that they were involved in taping opponents signals to decipher tendencies, though they don’t think it’s a big deal.
Verdict: Guilty, of something much less nefarious than the headlines and punishment suggest. Patriots immediately cooperate and acknowledge their practices. Many former coaches say this is gamesmanship, and it’s widely believed that Mangini had taped them the previous season; Mangini himself calls the scandal overblown and regrets reporting incident after media sht storm.
Rams Practice/Walkthrough Taping
John Thomase prints article on even of SB42 claiming to have evidence that the Patriots taped Rams practice in SB36. League is outraged and even congressional discussion takes place.
Verdict: Not guilty. Matt Walsh (the source) who claims to have the Rams video shows up with a nothingburger.
Headset Gate
Mike Tomlin btches and moans that headset communications frequently go out in Foxboro and accuses the Patriots of cheating.
Verdict: Not guilty. In a much less circulated story (as usual) it is establishes that NFL staffers, not the Patriots, are responsible for headset communications. In addition, both teams are required to shut down headsets if one team’s does not work. Several reports show these communications are very common and there is no evidence that it happens more often in New England.
Ideal Gas Law Compliance (Deflategate)
We could write a novel about this, but the immediate report by Mortensen is inaccurate and never corrected; the leaks to the media re: ball pressures are fake. The report that the Colts balls showed no pressure loss is fake.
Verdict: Not guilty. Virtually every scientific analysis, with the exception of the fake propaganda “science” firm called Exponent, proves the Patriots deflation is minor and fully explained by ideal gas law. The entire report is a complete rail road job; the league admits through leaks that this isn’t about deflated balls but as an add-on to the sideline taping from 7 years ago (lol). The Deflategate curse destroys everyone involved in this fake scandal, as every team gets crushed by the Patriots, culminating in the outspoken Arthur Blank’s 28-3 collapse to Tom Brady in the outspoken Bob McNair’s stadium.
Wickersham’s Sham (ESPN hit piece)
Seth Wickersham sets Guinness Book of World Records for longest article without a named source. At least a dozen “unnamed sources” gossip and complain about possible Patriots infractions, most of them not even against the rules. These range from the other team’s Gatorade being warm to digging through trash cans to find playbooks.
Verdict: Not guilty. Not a single accusation is actually proven. Belichick addresses the report in a snarky response pointing out the obvious cowardly attack.
Marty Hurney’s Conspiracy Theory
With absolutely zero evidence, the spineless weasel known as Marty Hurney, GM of the Panthers during SB38, accuses the Patriots of cheating. He has no evidence to support his claim but hops on the excuse bandwagon.
Verdict: Not guilty. Beyond there being no proof, further review shows the entire Panthers offensive line was using PEDs via a shady team doctor. Hurney acknowledges this but brushes it aside as not “cheating” but an unfortunate choice.
Documentary Gate (SpyGate 2)
The Patriots, filming a documentary on advanced scouting, film the sidelines of their upcoming opponent, the 1-12 Bengals. The documentary crew is not part of team operations and is in plain view of Bengals security. Rather than accepting the misunderstanding and moving on, the big, bad Bengals kick and scream to the league, leak the part of the tape that looks damning out of context, and troll the Patriots by playing music during the game alluding to foul play and spying. The Patriots of course kick the sht out of the joke team.
Verdict: Not guilty (it appears.) While a rule violation occurred, Belichick denied any wrongdoing, and continues to be undefeated in the honesty department. The Patriots will almost surely get a massive, overblown penalty, since they’ve “been past offenders.” It’s incredibly ironic since they’ve had a cavity search full-time since 2007 while many other teams have gotten virtually no penalty despite being caught for greater, intentional infractions.
