But how can you "safely" assume something when you grant that the premise on which that assumption is based is your personal opinion, and not immediately corroborated by any data.
Let's look at the 2007 Patriots, we know for a fact that the only game in which filming took place was Week 1 against the Jets, a game they won by 24 points. (this is setting aside whether filming could help them during the game itself, a dubious proposition). They went on to win the rest of their regular season games, many by similar or even larger margins. This would seem to argue strongly against there being any provable, tangible benefit to filming, since their best statistical season came in the one we KNOW they weren't filming.
Furthermore, since you yourself admit that the advantage might not be as large as you posit, and in fact suggest that the advantage would vary from game to game (a point I concur with) what is the point in singling out the three Super Bowls as games the Patriots would have lost? In fact, let's grant your premise that there is a variable advantage gained by the taping. Wouldn't it be fair to say that such an advantage would be GREATER in games in which the Patriots had already played the team once that season (this would seem to follow, given what we know about the nature of the practice, and that teams change signals from year to year). Well in the three Super Bowl wins, the Patriots were meeting the particular opponent for the first time that season, so doesn't that seem to argue that the advantage would be minimized, if anything, in those games?
Seems it would benefit your argument more to go back through the past 6 seasons and check the games in which they played a team for the second time (division games or playoffs) where the advantage would have arguably manifested to a greater degree, and see whether even a 5 or 6 point swing would have made the difference there?
