The New England Patriots easily dispatched the Cincinnati Bengals 34-13 on Sunday. And they probably didn’t need to cheat to do it.
But the NFL is investigating whether they did just that after a baffling sequence a week earlier, when someone credentialed on behalf of the Patriots was caught taping the field from the press box during the Bengals-Browns game, in violation of league rules.
The situation is, in many ways, silly: why, of all teams, would the Patriots have done this against the lowly Bengals? But the ramifications are potentially explosive because of long-standing tensions between the team and the league over this very topic.
That’s because the Patriots have been accused of cheating before. Those accusations have resulted in fines,
Tom Brady’s suspension and
the forfeiture of draft picks. But not all of those moments have been the same. They have included clear violations, completely unsubstantiated ones and others so contentious that the situation resulted in a destroyed cellphone and physics debates. Years later,
the phrase “Deflategate” is still taboo in Foxborough, Mass. because New England executives
still maintain that the team and Tom Brady were railroaded by the NFL’s investigation of that situation.
The fallout from those previous investigations has both bestowed a queasy reputation on the greatest dynasty in the modern NFL history and strained relationships between that same team and the league. Now, the Patriots’ history in this space will be considered when doling out any potential punishment—which is according to the league’s commissioner.
Of course,” Roger Goodell said, “that’s a factor.”
The situation arose during the Dec. 8 game between the Bengals and Browns in Cleveland, a week before the New England and Cincinnati were set to play. The Patriots made a request to send a video crew to film its advance scout at the game for a feature called “Do Your Job,” which shows the life of team staffers. The Browns approved that request. The Bengals weren’t informed that it would be happening.
But controversy arose when that same three-person video crew was seen shooting the field during the game from inside the press box—a violation of league rules because that tape could be used to decode a team’s sideline signals.
The Patriots acknowledged that the video crew overstepped its bounds by shooting the field, but said that this production team was completely independent of the football operation. Coach Bill Belichick said he had no knowledge of it.
