Everyone knows about SpyGate. Eric Mangini left New England and out’d his former boss, putting the NFL onto the Patriots’ serial videotaping of opposing teams signals so that they could decipher their plays. The NFL found them guilty, fined Belichick 6 figures and the Patriots lost a Round 1 draft pick. Famously, the league also destroyed the evidence as part of its attempt to bury the past and move on.
One day a few years later, I heard from Mike Francesa on WFAN how the Patriots had a monstrous (illegal) advantage over the Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI. We blogged about it 3 years ago.
I have been pointing out here and on twitter my karma-based belief that the Patriots are cursed and will not win another Super Bowl with Belichick as penance for their past. How else can you explain the Tyree helmet catch? How else can you explain how Eli got free from an imminent sack from a gaggle of Patriots on the same play? How else can you explain the Wes Welker drop in XLVI and a seemingly endless number of pieces of divine intervention blocking another Pats title? Maybe I am just fabricating this version of history, only to be found wrong next Sunday in XLIX. The Giants won two titles at the expense of the Pats. Did they have help from above. We shall see.
The Belichick legacy continues with new allegations surfacing about “DeflateGate.” Apparently 11 of 12 footballs were found to be inflated to 2 psi less than they should have been. You can try to minimize the effect/impact of the move given the 45-7 result. But does that matter when potential wrongdoing took place? The naysayers want to marginalize Belichick’s involvement. But that is specious because the Head Coach sets the tone for his organization and its culture. We know the culture of the Patriots. Apparently, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
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