http://sports.yahoo.com/news/allege...tons-parties--the-patriots-way-191617766.html
"Several [Patriots coaches and employees] acknowledge that during pregame warm-ups, a low-level Patriots employee would sneak into the visiting locker room and steal the play sheet, listing the first 20 or so scripted calls for the opposing team's offense. (The practice became so notorious that some coaches put out fake play sheets for the Patriots to swipe.) Numerous former employees say the Patriots would have someone rummage through the visiting team hotel for playbooks or scouting reports."
Wait, wait, wait … so the Patriots were flat-out breaking into locker rooms and visiting team hotels to physically steal play sheets and other material?
And we just spent millions of dollars on PSI levels? These acts are possible felonies and, by far,
the most damning thing ever alleged against the team, or maybe any NFL team. This isn't videotaping opposing coaches from the sideline rather than the stands, which was allowed. This isn't a question over whether the Deflator just needed to take a leak.
This is straight up, big-time cheating, like holy-smokes-level cheating.
If true, there are no excuses or explanations for this. Every other item ever brought against Bill Belichick and the Patriots is minor compared to it. This is a monster of a charge.
Which speaks to how wild the "As the Patriots Turn" soap opera really is? That item – that bombshell item – came 2,834 words into the ESPN story.
When it takes nearly three thousands words to get to
that, you're having quite a morning. But, hey, it's the Patriots – nothing and everything makes sense at the same time.
Like any good drama, the entire morning begs a million questions. Here are a few:
• If the Patriots were covertly sending low-level employees into opposing locker rooms to steal play sheets, how in the world did New England ever lose a game? The Patriots had a defense featuring Tedy Bruschi, Willie McGinest,
Richard Seymour,
Ty Law, Rodney Harrison and other all-time greats. They also knew the plays the other team was running. Yet they didn't win each game 77-zip? Why did they always need
Adam Vinatieri to bail them out?
Someone might want to fire Belichick for being such a lousy coach.
• Other teams were so certain that someone was breaking into their locker room and stealing their play sheets that they created fake play sheets to trip up the Patriots. (Can you imagine how bad Buffalo's
fake plays were?) Why didn't they just set up a camera and catch New England's thieves in the process and get Belichick banned from football forever? Or have a security guy pop out of a locker in an otherwise empty locker room?
Honestly, if the AFC East is so incompetent they couldn't bust this, they deserved to lose every game.
• Of course, later in the story it was revealed New England considered the Dolphins and Bills in particular as being "less sophisticated" and thus easy targets. So it all kind of adds up in the end.
* Do you know one of the Dolphins coaches during that era? Belichick's close friend Nick Saban. Awkward.
