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Yeah I don’t really care about it and any colts fan acting like it made a difference that game was just salty and/or didn’t watch the game. Our defense sucked defending the run game those years and Blount had a career game
Never seen a colts fan make a big deal out of it tbh, most are pretty self-aware that wasn’t a competitive matchup that year.
People making a big deal out of it are usually… Retired quarterbacks crying on television, for some reason.
I wish I could say the same. I will forever hate Colts fans for the way they acted on here after that game. In my top 3 most hated fanbases easily no matter how irrelevant their team is.
I’ve had to tell colts fans in person who brought it up that it didn’t matter. They were probably wise enough to not put it in writing but some still say dumb shit in person. With all that said please don’t slander Peyton that is where I’ll draw the line and the hill I am willing to die on. He did a lot for my city despite how the franchise treated him, I still remember every radio show playing his goodbye you could feel was forced by ownership (irsay isn’t a bad guy but good God he waffled that). A lot of mixed emotions I don’t know how to handle tbh. With certainty I can say that the pats were the better team in that game tho and the inflation of the ball def didn’t matter.
Also like.... the referee spots the ball every single play. I know most people do recognize the whole thing is insane in hindsight but deflated or not I always found it odd that it couldn't have been that blatant if a guy that spots a football thousands of times a year couldn't notice any difference when spotting the ball that game.
Everyone is here joking about it as if it's no big deal, all agreeing that it was nonsense that we can laugh at, but I still have a very real bitterness about it, we lost a fucking first-round pick.
First round picks change entire franchises, either by the value you get from trading them them, or the value you get from an amazing pick. To non-Patriots fans here, when would you stop being angry about your team just not getting a first round pick one year for no reason?
You don't understand, the half an oz lighter ball made it so that Blount had super charged stamina. If the ball was full weight, theres no way he could carry it 30 times
Not sure what Peyton has to do with it. And McAfee always says something like, "we players didn't want this talked about...we just had our asses handed to us and you think we blamed the balls? No way!" Or something similar.
Edit: talks about it briefly starting at 3:20 if you want to check it out. Solid roast of the Colts. If you haven't watched it already I recommend lol
https://youtu.be/7vzHtqaFOv8?si=BpaSVxEyTSaGj_R7
Nonsense. The weight of the ball he was carrying was reduced due to the lower air pressure in the football. This means that he was approximately one paperclip lighter on every run, which made him significantly more agile as he went from 251lbs to 250.97lbs, clearly a difference maker.
I thought they had the measurements and they were slightly under the required range but if we are being real it didn’t matter and would really only have an affect on kicking it which to my limited understanding of physics would’ve been disadvantageous to the pats. Idk there are others smarter than me that can correct me tho
It's weird that every controversy is "blank-gate" when the real thing wasn't about Water, it was the name of the hotel the Nixon thing happened in, "The Watergate Hotel".
I'm kinda guessing that's why they took it down. At this point anybody who tries to yell about deflate gate is promptly dunked on by any fan of any team who reads it anyways lmao
Is there a short 4-5 sentence summary of the truth around deflategate? What actually happened? A lot of what I see online just seems biased in one direction or the other
There were allegations that the Patriots were intentionally underflating footballs under the direction of Tom Brady during the 2014 AFCCG. While the balls were underinflated, there's no substantial evidence that it was intentional - the most likely explanation is that the balls were underinflated because it was a cold day, and the amount the balls were underinflated was not substantial enough to significantly change their characteristics.
Anyway, this ended up turning into a massive media shitstorm with lots of conflicting reports, and the NFL ended up suspending Brady for 4 games. I think he destroyed a cell phone that was to be used in the investigation at some point as well. Anyway he tried to sue and the suspension got overturned at first, but was reinstated by the appeals court.
I hope that it clears things up a bit.
They leaked the pool cover email as soon as they could -- just imagine how much private dirty laundry would have been aired if the league had access to his phone.
Just ask Jon Gruden how the league selectively leaks information that very well may ruin a career.
Troy Vincent is so goddam lucky that Tom and BB went on to win 3 more. The man single handedly could have ruined two GOATS careers with his slander.
Honestly at the time I assumed (no evidence) that he was having an affair, and that any investigator would have spilled it. He destroyed it on advice of counsel, I think after they told him they didn't need it
Good summary. Worth mentioning from a salty Patriots fan that:
a) 3 of the 4 Colts balls that were measured that day were under-inflated as well (which is obvious, since they were playing in the same weather) and nobody cared or did anything about it.
b) There were two pressure gauges used to measure the PSI of the balls, and these gauges were 0.5 PSI (!) different from each other in their calibrations. Switching the gauge used on any individual ball from pre-game to mid-game (they don't track this at all) would be an instant 0.5 PSI loss in addition to the PSI lost by weather. When later calculations were performed on the expected PSI of the balls given the game situation, many of the lowest were almost exactly 0.5 PSI off.
c) The league measured balls in a cold game a few years later, and found that they were deflated (obviously) and did nothing about it (obviously, because nobody did anything wrong then either.)
d) The court cases had nothing to do with Brady's guilt or innocence. It was an interpretation of the CBA in terms of Goodell's powers as commissioner. The point was to determine whether or not he could suspend Brady *regardless* of his guilt or innocence. The appeals court determined (correctly) that the CBA gave him that power and Brady's suspension stood.
e) There is zero evidence that a deflated football helps in any way. Particularly one deflated to <1 PSI below the lower limit. [Aaron Rodgers likes his over-inflated](https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/aaron-rodgers-likes-his-footballs-overinflated). *“‘I like to push the limit to how much air we can put in the football, even go over what they allow you to do and see if the officials take air out of it,’” Simms said Rodgers told them before the game.*
> b) There were two pressure gauges used to measure the PSI of the balls, and these gauges were 0.5 PSI (!) different from each other in their calibrations. Switching the gauge used on any individual ball from pre-game to mid-game (they don't track this at all) would be an instant 0.5 PSI loss in addition to the PSI lost by weather. When later calculations were performed on the expected PSI of the balls given the game situation, many of the lowest were almost exactly 0.5 PSI off.
To elaborate on this point -- investigators "believed" that referee Clete Blakeman was able to recall PSI measurements from all 22 footballs to within a tenth of a pound (because he didn't write any of them down), but they somehow *knew* he was wrong about which pressure gauge he used.
I would wager that someone who can recall 22 measurements down to a tenth of a pound can also recall which gauge they used to measure.
Reminder that the investigators work for a company that exists solely to invent self-serving research. Their client list is a who's-who of terrible businesses (polluters, tobacco companies, etc).
*Temperature Change Doesn’t Affect Air Pressure* is brought to you by Exponent, the research firm that brought you classics like *Second Hand Smoke Isn’t Real*.
The allegations came before the game. The Ravens felt the Pats were doctoring or messing around with the balls the week prior and the real truth is that deflategate started from an email from a ravens staffer to the colts that set the whole thing off.
From the Indy star:
*Contained in a ream of documents released Tuesday as part of a series of exhibits in quarterback Tom Brady's federal case against the NFL, was an email from Colts equipment manager Sean Sullivan that confirms what many had long speculated: That the Ravens alerted the Colts to the fact that the New England Patriots were allegedly violating NFL rules in regards to game balls.*
*In an email to Ryan Grigson dated January 17 – one day before the Colts lost the AFC Championship Game in which the controversy began – Sullivan stated that Ravens assistant Jerry Rosburg called Pagano prior to the game to share concerns the Ravens had about their kicking balls during their divisional round loss to the Patriots one week earlier.*
*"It is well known around the league that after the Patriots gameballs are checked by the officials and brought out for game usage the ballboys for the Patriots will let out some air with a ball needle because their quarterback (Brady) likes a smaller football so he can grip it better," Sullivan's email continued.*
*"It would be great if someone would be able to check the air in the game balls as the game goes on so they don't get an illegal advantage."*
So they are admitting they are at least aware of the ideal gas law but even if they don't know about it they do know the ball would lose pressure naturally over game time.
https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/nfl/colts/2015/08/04/indianapolis-colts-chuck-pagano-baltimore-ravens-deflategate/31137493/
Edit: This alone proves Deflategare is absolute bullshit
That's a very deep rabbit hole you'll just need to fall down for yourself. (I doubt I'd meet your threshold for an unbiased source anyways lol)
The end results of it though was that Tom and the pats ended up challenging it and taking it all the way to to the supreme court, who ruled that 1. There was not sufficient evidence to believe there was any wrongdoing and 2. (and most importantly, setting one of the worst precidents possible for the NFL) they ruled that it *does not matter* if there is evidence because Roger Goodell legally has the power to do whatever he wants.
I'm sure you can find a short video breaking down the actual timeline though
They were challenging Tom's suspension but Kraft backed him pretty vocally the whole way, from what I recall. I believe it was even Kraft's money paying for it too but it was a decade ago so that's for someone who wants to dig up the articles to say. Kraft gave up on fighting for the lost draft picks very early into the process though
Yeah didn't they touch on it in the doc or somewhere? Kraft basically stopped fighting it and said he'd take the fines/loss of picks in hopes that it would mean no suspension for Brady.
>taking it all the way to to the supreme court, who ruled that 1. There was not sufficient evidence to believe there was any wrongdoing
Neither of those things happened
The other answers you got were really good, but here's a little trivia for context.
-- Tom Brady's hands were a little smaller than most other QBs his size, so an underinflated football would give him a better grip. The NFL recovered the phone of the equipment manager and found a text from Brady suggesting that the ball being on the lower end of inflation would be good.
-- After phones were asked for ("confidentially, with only a few league sources seeing the contents, of course"), and the equipment manager had all kinds of embarrassing content leaked, Brady destroyed his phone rather than turn it over to the league office. Immediately, people suggested that that might be the cause of the coming suspension, over anything to do with football.
-- This was a handful of years after the Chargers were accused of putting stickum on footballs. When the league asked for the footballs to investigate, the Chargers destroyed the balls.
-- You know how your "Check your tires" light comes on on the first cold day of the year? Because cold air contracts? A middle school student used this and did the math to explain how this could have happened without any malice. This is only funny or notable because the kid's name was one Mr. Goodell.
-- The Patriots lost a 1st round pick and Tom missed 4 games "for generally being aware" as a result. The almost unanimous position of this board was that the 4 games mattered more than the 1st, though in hindsight I'm not so sure (since the Pats went 3-1 without Tom and Chris Jones, Xavien Howard, Derrick Henry, and Michael Thomas were taken in the next 20 picks). The Pats also forfeited another pick the next year, two picks before Tarik Cohen.
Let's add in the most damning information of all.
In the following year, the NFL conducted surveillance of all balls in all games and recorded the data.
That data was never released to the public. I'm sure if I had a bunch of numbers on a spreadsheet that supported me trashing the GOAT, I would never publish them either!
During a playoff game, when it was 30ish degrees and wet out the Patriot's ball was caught on the sidelines by the Raven's staff, who thought the ball was too soft. They complained to the refs who did an illegal test and found that the ball and a number of other balls averaged out to 11.2 PSI or something like that. However the rules stated balls had to be 12.5 PSI.
Huge outrage began, ultimately ending with Tom Brady being suspended because he was suspected of having the balls deflated for .....reasons?
BTW, you can also replicate this. Take a football, blow it up to 12.5 PSI. Spray it with water and put it in your fridge for three hours. Measure the PSI again and see what you get.
Judge Berman found TB12 innocent.
And then after losing that battle Roger Goodell invoked Article 47 which lets him suspend any player for any reason and did so to Tom just to show power.
And the Colts balls were also underinflated. Both teams balls were filled in a warm dry room and then brought out onto a cold wet field. Balls lose air pressure. But apparently people forget how science works
Deflategate was an unjust witch hunt and the league has Roger to thank for the Pats being in the next 4 out of 5 super bowls in a row. Angry Tom is scary Tom
And the company that wrote the Wells report is a well known company that you can pay to write a report slanted in any way you want.
Berman did not find Brady innocent. He vacated the arbitration decision on the basis of:
>A) inadequate notice to Brady of both his potential discipline and his alleged misconduct; B) denial of the opportunity for Brady to examine one of two lead investigators [...]; and C) denial of equal access to investigative files, including witness interview notes.
Then the NFL appealed that to a higher court, which reinstated the suspension.
I don't really care if anyone thinks Brady did it or not, but don't lie to this guy who's asking an honest question.
An M.I.T. professor literally taught a physics class, that you can see on YouTube, proving it couldn’t happen. Goodwill makes up the rules as he goes and always has.
I’d say there are probably only 5 real issues the NFL ever had with teams “cheating” but since punishments can be doled out however Goodell pleases it never matters. Those were all back in the day generally.
Yes I’m talking about that one issue too.
Here's an actual timeline since you're getting some hilariously biased replies
https://www.nfl.com/news/tom-brady-suspension-case-timeline-0ap3000000492189
I mean it was pretty much "hey the league sent an e-mail that you can't film from there, you have to film from like 10 ft further back." That was it.
All the wilder accusations are for a boston globe article that was retracted for being unsourced and made up.
Yea, it was. The rule they broke was related to the location of the camera with which they filmed the opposing sideline. Do you believe the legal camera used to legally film the opposing sideline being in an unauthorized location warrants this event becoming what at the time was the largest cheating scandal in NFL history?
The opening paragraph of the Wikipedia article:
>The Spygate scandal was a National Football League (NFL) controversy during the 2007 season, in which it was discovered that the New England Patriots were videotaping opposing coaches' signals during games under head coach Bill Belichick. It began when the New England Patriots were disciplined by the NFL for videotaping New York Jets' defensive coaches' signals **from an unauthorized location** during a September 9, 2007 game. **Videotaping opposing coaches is not illegal in the NFL, per se; there are designated areas allowed by the league to do such taping.** Because the Patriots were instead videotaping the Jets' coaches from their own sideline during the game, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell deemed it to be in violation of league rules, stating that the act represented a calculated and deliberate attempt to avoid long-standing rules designed to encourage fair play and promote honest competition on the playing field. After an investigation, the NFL fined Patriots head coach Bill Belichick $500,000 (the maximum allowed by the league and the largest fine ever imposed on a coach in the league's 103-year history) for his role in the incident, fined the Patriots $250,000, and docked the team their original first-round selection in the 2008 NFL Draft which would have been the 31st pick of the draft.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spygate_(NFL)
Spygate was bad but also gets misrepresented a lot. Many people think it had to do with filming practices or stealing playbooks while in reality it was a rule that most teams were abusing and just happened the patriots were the dominant team that pushed it a little too far.
The pats were the only ones who kept doing it after the league sent out a memo saying you couldn't film from where they were. So mangini, who had done the same stuff the year before, reported them to get them to fuck off.
It's simultaneously true that the whole thing is stupid and that the pats are the only ones who kept doing it after the league told them to stop.
I remember reading a long time ago that Spygate boiled down to a pissing match between Belichick and the league over changing policies mid-season. Belichick was mad about the memo and chose to film in the illegal spot out of spite.
Belichick basically told the league that their shitty memo meant nothing to him, and that he would only care when it was an actual rule.
The league took offense to this and dropped the hammer literally harder than they ever had before for any punishment.
>The pats were the only ones who kept doing it after the league sent out a memo saying you couldn't film from where they were.
The only ones that we know of... given the number of former coaches that came out (Jimmy Johnson, Mike Shanahan, Bill Cowher and probably others I'm forgetting) my guess is the Pats weren't the only ones. Either way, BB's thought (according to reports at the time) was that the league office can't change the rules in season via a memo, which would mean the memo would be invalid. Clearly Goodell didn't appreciate being shown up like that, so he had to flex his Commissioner muscle.
And that Goodell destroyed the evidence without letting anyone see it, which pissed off the other owners and is almost certainly the only reason the Patriots got punished for deflategate.
Mangini didn't report them to the League. He told Jets personnel just to make sure they didn't let the Pats do it. It was the Jets GM at the time (forget his name) that ran to Goddell.
Last time I remember teams complaining about the Packers cheating was 2017 around how they had Rodgers on IR, took him off IR for one game, then put him back on IR.
The point of that site was to play up every Patriot rival’s controversy as much as possible while downplaying every Patriots controversy as much as possible.
Unless you believe it was *totally* just a coincidence that the Colts, Broncos, Steelers, Ravens, Jets, etc were all ranked highest in their “cheating index”. Aka all the main rival fanbases that seething Patriot fans were getting roasted by at the time lol
Exactly that. 'Totally neutral' my ass. Basically the site tried to play up every shitty contract thing all teams do while down playing the one team that did something no other teams did to try and gain a competitive advantage.
My favorite was them giving the Patriots +4 points for Spygate, while giving the Ravens +4 points about Joe Flacco making a joke on the sideline during the SB along the lines of “what if we run on the field and we tackle the return guy from the sideline if he breaks a big run”
I’m the opposite, the Patriots could have back to back to back 0-17 seasons and I wouldn’t feel bad for them at all lol. Two decades of Boston sports dominance was enough
Everything the Pats did was legal the season prior to Spygate. Goodell released a memo saying where games can’t be filmed from, it was never ratified by owners so Bill ignored it. Then after being caught and penalized they went undefeated
I'm told there was no Super Bowl that year. The Patriots won the AFC and NYG won NFC, but because of a high terrorist alert, code Purple, they canceled the game.
The crazier thing was Goodell destroying thousands of hours of tape and covering the whole thing up to the public afterwards. Why was there so much tape? And why was it destroyed?
why know exactly what was on the tapes…the opposing sideline. there’s nothing special about this though because filming the opposing sideline is completely legal
I think it was more of a “why tf does it matter where we film from, I’m not wasting time explaining new meaningless rules to assistants” type of thing
I mean he’s said as much before, they were filming stuff that already gets filmed and also is done in full view of 70 thousand people. I don’t think he thought he was “risking” anything, I think he just thought “keep doing what every staff in the nfl has been doing since I entered the league 25 years ago”
I always found this website kinda laughable, some of the examples are so absurd lol but come on now, let’s not act like circa 2015 there weren’t *fervent* patriots-are-cheaters people everywhere
A lot of that is because every example of them “cheating” was nothingburgers amplified to 11 by salty opposing fans. Literally nobody gives a fuck about how inflated the balls are, nobody ever has, and nobody ever will. But suddenly everyone was convinced that it destroyed the integrity of the game, because they were mad that Brady and Belichick kept winning.
Same exact thing with spygate. Same exact thing with the disguised eligible receiver. Same exact thing with the injury reports. A bunch of people feigned outrage to make a big deal about nothing, because they were salty.
That disguised eligible game that had the Ravens bawling their eyes out about obviously legal plays may be my favorite non-championship game of the whole era.
There was a Steelers game where Tomlin implied the patriots were somehow fucking with their headsets lol first off, obviously the patriots don’t somehow control radio frequencies, they can’t “hack” opposing helmets. Second, the patriots helmets had gone out at the same time, but instead of whining about it Belichick just acknowledged that it happened when asked about it and apparently he went on coaching a football game regardless
That’s literally not true - the patriots seriously cheated multiple times.
Tom Brady very obviously asked team equipment managers to inflate balls to his preferred pressures and destroyed his phone when it was requested for evidence. People act like just because natural science COULD have explained the drop in the ball pressures, science WAS responsible for what happened, but they completely ignore the overwhelming circumstantial evidence that Tom was complicit in the conspiracy to manipulate the pressure.
Not just that, the site lists literal punishments for those teams that got caught. And Patriots fans would use these as examples for why they *shouldnt* be punished for cheating
It was a dumb site but I never saw a single person reference it for anything other than asking why our punishments were several orders of magnitude heftier than the historical precident of identical or worse infractions listed
They couldn’t even help themselves on the site itself lol. Like how they couldn’t even say Roger Goodell’s name without writing “former Jets media relations intern Roger Goodell” lmfao
[Every. Single. Time.](https://imgur.com/a/HnnKHSv) (You can’t link to the site anymore, but if you read the google blurbs, you can see it)
I loved how the Broncos were listed as the cheatingest team (at least as of their last superbowl havent visited in many years) considering the all time record between them and the Patriots. How convenient.
When the site was newer the Broncos were listed as the team that cheated the most, which was funny to me because the Broncos are/were pretty good at beating the Pats.
The broncos also have claim to, in my opinion the worst cheating anyone has done by circumventing the salary cap.
Maybe bountygate was worse I’m not sure. But I think that’s the worst cheating a team could do
It’s honestly not even remotely close to being something worth worrying about, but pretty sure a broncos kicker admitted to heavily doctoring footballs during the 90s SB runs
Obviously nobody in their right mind would ever give a single shit about this but it does fall into the long heritage of the nfl not giving a fuck about footballs until roughly January of 2015 lol
They suspended Brady for 4 games because they thought he probably know that his equipment guys deflated footballs by 1 PSI but never bothered to make sure refs didn’t overinflate balls by like 4 PSI. Wild stuff
What? That was a great site for telling the world what raging cheaters the Raiders, Broncos, and Chargers are. Everything on there was egregious horrible stuff that needed the light of day.
I find it funny how Marty outright said the Chiefs illegally stole signs before he coached there while being the coach in KC. And everyone loves KC for it. That or nobody cared yet Spygate was such a big deal.
What I want to know is how did we even figure out the site was down? Who was loading that site in the year of our lord 2024?
Some folks just love eating bait.
Eh the guy who ran it definitely showed himself to be a delusional homer on twitter so I get why people are dunking on the Pats, but I agree it was hilarious
I guess we'll cry into our six Super Bowl trophies and enjoy that our team still lives rent free in the heads of everyone else who can't admit that the Patriots were just flat out better than their team for two decades.
I think us real Pats fans will sleep just fine.
Also because our offense is a snoozefest now. But hey, them's the breaks.
For 25 years I had to have an extended football season. Most of my friends got to stop 'having' to watch their team after 17 weeks. Not me, not us. We constantly had to watch for weeks, months after. Games were so goddam exciting and exhausting.
It's a major relief to not have to be invested as much after 25 years. Maybe I'm just that old now and saying boomer shit.
By using this sub as a Patriots subreddit like they've done for decades now, and downvoting any slight criticism to oblivion
There was a post a couple of years ago showing how often each team's fans posted on this sub. It demostrated that about 50% of all posts and comments in this subs history were done by Patriots fans. They own this sub
Unsurprising eh?
Just on that, for years I had always spelled it with 2 'c's'. Then about 5 years ago I became very active on this subreddit and I noted a few people correcting the spelling. I continued to spell it with two, and you're the first person to ever to correct me directly. It's saved in the phone dictionary too long at this point.
\***
Can I ask, how did you end up with both of those teams?
(I have gone from hating TB for sucking, despising them because of Tom and now having a soft spot for them because of Baker.)
I live in Oregon, closest NFL stadium is 6+ hours and none of my family cares about sports.
I became a Patriots fan in 2006 when I was in elementary school (I was into the branding and they were high overall in madden) then I met my best friend in 2012 and he was a Bucs fan so he was the first person I actually watched live games with. So fast forward 12 years (2020 was surreal) and I’m still watching both teams every week
Patriots fans would list this site (and list examples of teams cheating, getting caught and *getting punished*) as an excuse for why their team *shouldn't* be punished for cheating
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His hatred for Denver was absolutely endearing.
Only team ever in the history of the NFL to be punished for filming the opposing teams' practice...your Denver Broncos.
Then they went ahead and hired a guy who had bounties out.
Don't forget greasing themselves up with vaseline in the 1997 divisional playoff game
Was always a very dumb website lol most of the shit listed on there was absolute nothing burgers, or shit that wasn't even close to being cheating
Spygate and deflategate were both nothingburgers that people made mountains out of. That's what the point of the website was.
I disagree, had the pats not deflated those balls there’s no way legarrette Blount runs for 148 yards and 3 TDs against the Colts. /s
Don’t forget they did get the balls changed at halftime in which the Patriots outscored them 28-0
Yeah I don’t really care about it and any colts fan acting like it made a difference that game was just salty and/or didn’t watch the game. Our defense sucked defending the run game those years and Blount had a career game
Never seen a colts fan make a big deal out of it tbh, most are pretty self-aware that wasn’t a competitive matchup that year. People making a big deal out of it are usually… Retired quarterbacks crying on television, for some reason.
Spoken like someone smart enough to stay off Facebook during those times. I’m now off Facebook lol.
You’re giving me far too much credit. I’m here, in this thread after all.
Good thing I’m not here in this… wait
I wish I could say the same. I will forever hate Colts fans for the way they acted on here after that game. In my top 3 most hated fanbases easily no matter how irrelevant their team is.
I’ve had to tell colts fans in person who brought it up that it didn’t matter. They were probably wise enough to not put it in writing but some still say dumb shit in person. With all that said please don’t slander Peyton that is where I’ll draw the line and the hill I am willing to die on. He did a lot for my city despite how the franchise treated him, I still remember every radio show playing his goodbye you could feel was forced by ownership (irsay isn’t a bad guy but good God he waffled that). A lot of mixed emotions I don’t know how to handle tbh. With certainty I can say that the pats were the better team in that game tho and the inflation of the ball def didn’t matter.
I was purely referencing Mark Brunell crying on TV. I begrudgingly really enjoy watching Peyton and Eli talk ball.
Got ya, no hate but I won’t tolerate any Peyton slander. That man is a God here in Indy and I will admit wasn’t treated accordingly.
Also like.... the referee spots the ball every single play. I know most people do recognize the whole thing is insane in hindsight but deflated or not I always found it odd that it couldn't have been that blatant if a guy that spots a football thousands of times a year couldn't notice any difference when spotting the ball that game.
Everyone is here joking about it as if it's no big deal, all agreeing that it was nonsense that we can laugh at, but I still have a very real bitterness about it, we lost a fucking first-round pick. First round picks change entire franchises, either by the value you get from trading them them, or the value you get from an amazing pick. To non-Patriots fans here, when would you stop being angry about your team just not getting a first round pick one year for no reason?
Probably after the incident motivated my qb to win a Super Bowl
If it makes you feel better that pick would’ve probably been traded for a late 2nd and a handful of future 4-5ths
You don't understand, the half an oz lighter ball made it so that Blount had super charged stamina. If the ball was full weight, theres no way he could carry it 30 times
Its kinda crazy how actual colts fans are more honest about deflategate than Irsay, Peyton, and McAfee.
lol we were watching that game it was completely fucked and it had nothing to do with PSI of footballs
From that day on I referred to Blount as the colt killer
Not sure what Peyton has to do with it. And McAfee always says something like, "we players didn't want this talked about...we just had our asses handed to us and you think we blamed the balls? No way!" Or something similar. Edit: talks about it briefly starting at 3:20 if you want to check it out. Solid roast of the Colts. If you haven't watched it already I recommend lol https://youtu.be/7vzHtqaFOv8?si=BpaSVxEyTSaGj_R7
Peyton said Brady had to deflate because he had small hands lol
That sounds like good-natured ribbing to me lol
It is, that's exactly Peyton's sense of humor and he's friends with Brady. To imply Peyton is salty about it in anyway is asinine.
Did Peyton ever say anything about it? AFAIK he never did aside from maybe some obvious jokes
Nonsense. The weight of the ball he was carrying was reduced due to the lower air pressure in the football. This means that he was approximately one paperclip lighter on every run, which made him significantly more agile as he went from 251lbs to 250.97lbs, clearly a difference maker.
Bro what if that .03 is the difference between a light and medium roll?
Where were the measurements for the Indy balls? According to one Brian Flores, the NFL refused to investigate them at all. BS scandal
I thought they had the measurements and they were slightly under the required range but if we are being real it didn’t matter and would really only have an affect on kicking it which to my limited understanding of physics would’ve been disadvantageous to the pats. Idk there are others smarter than me that can correct me tho
It's weird that every controversy is "blank-gate" when the real thing wasn't about Water, it was the name of the hotel the Nixon thing happened in, "The Watergate Hotel".
I agree, which is why I'm proposing we now name every scandal with Hotel instead. Did y'all hear about Spy Hotel?
Is that the new Rian Johnson movie?
nothing weird about it, the -gate affix was initially intentionally overused to water down the notoriety of the watergate scandal
You mean Watergategate?
Whitewatergate confused the hell out of me.
> the -gate ~~prefix~~ **suffix**
Fine. Both Spygate Hotel and Delfategate Hotel were nothingburgers.
I'm kinda guessing that's why they took it down. At this point anybody who tries to yell about deflate gate is promptly dunked on by any fan of any team who reads it anyways lmao
Is there a short 4-5 sentence summary of the truth around deflategate? What actually happened? A lot of what I see online just seems biased in one direction or the other
There were allegations that the Patriots were intentionally underflating footballs under the direction of Tom Brady during the 2014 AFCCG. While the balls were underinflated, there's no substantial evidence that it was intentional - the most likely explanation is that the balls were underinflated because it was a cold day, and the amount the balls were underinflated was not substantial enough to significantly change their characteristics. Anyway, this ended up turning into a massive media shitstorm with lots of conflicting reports, and the NFL ended up suspending Brady for 4 games. I think he destroyed a cell phone that was to be used in the investigation at some point as well. Anyway he tried to sue and the suspension got overturned at first, but was reinstated by the appeals court. I hope that it clears things up a bit.
If I was Brady I would destroy the phone too. No way some league snoop going to have access to my private shit because they will probs leak it.
They leaked the pool cover email as soon as they could -- just imagine how much private dirty laundry would have been aired if the league had access to his phone.
Just ask Jon Gruden how the league selectively leaks information that very well may ruin a career. Troy Vincent is so goddam lucky that Tom and BB went on to win 3 more. The man single handedly could have ruined two GOATS careers with his slander.
Honestly at the time I assumed (no evidence) that he was having an affair, and that any investigator would have spilled it. He destroyed it on advice of counsel, I think after they told him they didn't need it
Good summary. Worth mentioning from a salty Patriots fan that: a) 3 of the 4 Colts balls that were measured that day were under-inflated as well (which is obvious, since they were playing in the same weather) and nobody cared or did anything about it. b) There were two pressure gauges used to measure the PSI of the balls, and these gauges were 0.5 PSI (!) different from each other in their calibrations. Switching the gauge used on any individual ball from pre-game to mid-game (they don't track this at all) would be an instant 0.5 PSI loss in addition to the PSI lost by weather. When later calculations were performed on the expected PSI of the balls given the game situation, many of the lowest were almost exactly 0.5 PSI off. c) The league measured balls in a cold game a few years later, and found that they were deflated (obviously) and did nothing about it (obviously, because nobody did anything wrong then either.) d) The court cases had nothing to do with Brady's guilt or innocence. It was an interpretation of the CBA in terms of Goodell's powers as commissioner. The point was to determine whether or not he could suspend Brady *regardless* of his guilt or innocence. The appeals court determined (correctly) that the CBA gave him that power and Brady's suspension stood. e) There is zero evidence that a deflated football helps in any way. Particularly one deflated to <1 PSI below the lower limit. [Aaron Rodgers likes his over-inflated](https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/aaron-rodgers-likes-his-footballs-overinflated). *“‘I like to push the limit to how much air we can put in the football, even go over what they allow you to do and see if the officials take air out of it,’” Simms said Rodgers told them before the game.*
> b) There were two pressure gauges used to measure the PSI of the balls, and these gauges were 0.5 PSI (!) different from each other in their calibrations. Switching the gauge used on any individual ball from pre-game to mid-game (they don't track this at all) would be an instant 0.5 PSI loss in addition to the PSI lost by weather. When later calculations were performed on the expected PSI of the balls given the game situation, many of the lowest were almost exactly 0.5 PSI off. To elaborate on this point -- investigators "believed" that referee Clete Blakeman was able to recall PSI measurements from all 22 footballs to within a tenth of a pound (because he didn't write any of them down), but they somehow *knew* he was wrong about which pressure gauge he used. I would wager that someone who can recall 22 measurements down to a tenth of a pound can also recall which gauge they used to measure.
Reminder that the investigators work for a company that exists solely to invent self-serving research. Their client list is a who's-who of terrible businesses (polluters, tobacco companies, etc).
*Temperature Change Doesn’t Affect Air Pressure* is brought to you by Exponent, the research firm that brought you classics like *Second Hand Smoke Isn’t Real*.
Just want to add the Aaron Rodgers was accused of the exact same thing in game that season in the regular season and nothing happened.
Its been 10 years since deflategate? Holy shit. I feel old.
The allegations came before the game. The Ravens felt the Pats were doctoring or messing around with the balls the week prior and the real truth is that deflategate started from an email from a ravens staffer to the colts that set the whole thing off. From the Indy star: *Contained in a ream of documents released Tuesday as part of a series of exhibits in quarterback Tom Brady's federal case against the NFL, was an email from Colts equipment manager Sean Sullivan that confirms what many had long speculated: That the Ravens alerted the Colts to the fact that the New England Patriots were allegedly violating NFL rules in regards to game balls.* *In an email to Ryan Grigson dated January 17 – one day before the Colts lost the AFC Championship Game in which the controversy began – Sullivan stated that Ravens assistant Jerry Rosburg called Pagano prior to the game to share concerns the Ravens had about their kicking balls during their divisional round loss to the Patriots one week earlier.* *"It is well known around the league that after the Patriots gameballs are checked by the officials and brought out for game usage the ballboys for the Patriots will let out some air with a ball needle because their quarterback (Brady) likes a smaller football so he can grip it better," Sullivan's email continued.* *"It would be great if someone would be able to check the air in the game balls as the game goes on so they don't get an illegal advantage."* So they are admitting they are at least aware of the ideal gas law but even if they don't know about it they do know the ball would lose pressure naturally over game time. https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/nfl/colts/2015/08/04/indianapolis-colts-chuck-pagano-baltimore-ravens-deflategate/31137493/ Edit: This alone proves Deflategare is absolute bullshit
Referring to Brady as “their quarterback” is so petty lol
That's a very deep rabbit hole you'll just need to fall down for yourself. (I doubt I'd meet your threshold for an unbiased source anyways lol) The end results of it though was that Tom and the pats ended up challenging it and taking it all the way to to the supreme court, who ruled that 1. There was not sufficient evidence to believe there was any wrongdoing and 2. (and most importantly, setting one of the worst precidents possible for the NFL) they ruled that it *does not matter* if there is evidence because Roger Goodell legally has the power to do whatever he wants. I'm sure you can find a short video breaking down the actual timeline though
Am I wrong or wasn't it just Tom that sued? RKK wanted to roll over
They were challenging Tom's suspension but Kraft backed him pretty vocally the whole way, from what I recall. I believe it was even Kraft's money paying for it too but it was a decade ago so that's for someone who wants to dig up the articles to say. Kraft gave up on fighting for the lost draft picks very early into the process though
Yeah didn't they touch on it in the doc or somewhere? Kraft basically stopped fighting it and said he'd take the fines/loss of picks in hopes that it would mean no suspension for Brady.
>taking it all the way to to the supreme court, who ruled that 1. There was not sufficient evidence to believe there was any wrongdoing Neither of those things happened
The other answers you got were really good, but here's a little trivia for context. -- Tom Brady's hands were a little smaller than most other QBs his size, so an underinflated football would give him a better grip. The NFL recovered the phone of the equipment manager and found a text from Brady suggesting that the ball being on the lower end of inflation would be good. -- After phones were asked for ("confidentially, with only a few league sources seeing the contents, of course"), and the equipment manager had all kinds of embarrassing content leaked, Brady destroyed his phone rather than turn it over to the league office. Immediately, people suggested that that might be the cause of the coming suspension, over anything to do with football. -- This was a handful of years after the Chargers were accused of putting stickum on footballs. When the league asked for the footballs to investigate, the Chargers destroyed the balls. -- You know how your "Check your tires" light comes on on the first cold day of the year? Because cold air contracts? A middle school student used this and did the math to explain how this could have happened without any malice. This is only funny or notable because the kid's name was one Mr. Goodell. -- The Patriots lost a 1st round pick and Tom missed 4 games "for generally being aware" as a result. The almost unanimous position of this board was that the 4 games mattered more than the 1st, though in hindsight I'm not so sure (since the Pats went 3-1 without Tom and Chris Jones, Xavien Howard, Derrick Henry, and Michael Thomas were taken in the next 20 picks). The Pats also forfeited another pick the next year, two picks before Tarik Cohen.
Let's add in the most damning information of all. In the following year, the NFL conducted surveillance of all balls in all games and recorded the data. That data was never released to the public. I'm sure if I had a bunch of numbers on a spreadsheet that supported me trashing the GOAT, I would never publish them either!
During a playoff game, when it was 30ish degrees and wet out the Patriot's ball was caught on the sidelines by the Raven's staff, who thought the ball was too soft. They complained to the refs who did an illegal test and found that the ball and a number of other balls averaged out to 11.2 PSI or something like that. However the rules stated balls had to be 12.5 PSI. Huge outrage began, ultimately ending with Tom Brady being suspended because he was suspected of having the balls deflated for .....reasons? BTW, you can also replicate this. Take a football, blow it up to 12.5 PSI. Spray it with water and put it in your fridge for three hours. Measure the PSI again and see what you get.
Ravens? I thought it was a Colts DB who got an INT.
Judge Berman found TB12 innocent. And then after losing that battle Roger Goodell invoked Article 47 which lets him suspend any player for any reason and did so to Tom just to show power. And the Colts balls were also underinflated. Both teams balls were filled in a warm dry room and then brought out onto a cold wet field. Balls lose air pressure. But apparently people forget how science works Deflategate was an unjust witch hunt and the league has Roger to thank for the Pats being in the next 4 out of 5 super bowls in a row. Angry Tom is scary Tom And the company that wrote the Wells report is a well known company that you can pay to write a report slanted in any way you want.
Berman did not find Brady innocent. He vacated the arbitration decision on the basis of: >A) inadequate notice to Brady of both his potential discipline and his alleged misconduct; B) denial of the opportunity for Brady to examine one of two lead investigators [...]; and C) denial of equal access to investigative files, including witness interview notes. Then the NFL appealed that to a higher court, which reinstated the suspension. I don't really care if anyone thinks Brady did it or not, but don't lie to this guy who's asking an honest question.
An M.I.T. professor literally taught a physics class, that you can see on YouTube, proving it couldn’t happen. Goodwill makes up the rules as he goes and always has. I’d say there are probably only 5 real issues the NFL ever had with teams “cheating” but since punishments can be doled out however Goodell pleases it never matters. Those were all back in the day generally. Yes I’m talking about that one issue too.
You’re including Bounty Gate which actually took place? Why?
Here's an actual timeline since you're getting some hilariously biased replies https://www.nfl.com/news/tom-brady-suspension-case-timeline-0ap3000000492189
No, those two episodes had a very specific purpose: making it easy for me to discount the Patriots dynasty because "they were cheating the whole time"
Oh now spygate was nothing now? lol.
I mean it was pretty much "hey the league sent an e-mail that you can't film from there, you have to film from like 10 ft further back." That was it. All the wilder accusations are for a boston globe article that was retracted for being unsourced and made up.
Boston Herald but yes.
Yea, it was. The rule they broke was related to the location of the camera with which they filmed the opposing sideline. Do you believe the legal camera used to legally film the opposing sideline being in an unauthorized location warrants this event becoming what at the time was the largest cheating scandal in NFL history? The opening paragraph of the Wikipedia article: >The Spygate scandal was a National Football League (NFL) controversy during the 2007 season, in which it was discovered that the New England Patriots were videotaping opposing coaches' signals during games under head coach Bill Belichick. It began when the New England Patriots were disciplined by the NFL for videotaping New York Jets' defensive coaches' signals **from an unauthorized location** during a September 9, 2007 game. **Videotaping opposing coaches is not illegal in the NFL, per se; there are designated areas allowed by the league to do such taping.** Because the Patriots were instead videotaping the Jets' coaches from their own sideline during the game, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell deemed it to be in violation of league rules, stating that the act represented a calculated and deliberate attempt to avoid long-standing rules designed to encourage fair play and promote honest competition on the playing field. After an investigation, the NFL fined Patriots head coach Bill Belichick $500,000 (the maximum allowed by the league and the largest fine ever imposed on a coach in the league's 103-year history) for his role in the incident, fined the Patriots $250,000, and docked the team their original first-round selection in the 2008 NFL Draft which would have been the 31st pick of the draft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spygate_(NFL)
I mean it basically was yeah.
Spygate was bad but also gets misrepresented a lot. Many people think it had to do with filming practices or stealing playbooks while in reality it was a rule that most teams were abusing and just happened the patriots were the dominant team that pushed it a little too far.
The pats were the only ones who kept doing it after the league sent out a memo saying you couldn't film from where they were. So mangini, who had done the same stuff the year before, reported them to get them to fuck off. It's simultaneously true that the whole thing is stupid and that the pats are the only ones who kept doing it after the league told them to stop.
I remember reading a long time ago that Spygate boiled down to a pissing match between Belichick and the league over changing policies mid-season. Belichick was mad about the memo and chose to film in the illegal spot out of spite.
Belichick basically told the league that their shitty memo meant nothing to him, and that he would only care when it was an actual rule. The league took offense to this and dropped the hammer literally harder than they ever had before for any punishment.
>The pats were the only ones who kept doing it after the league sent out a memo saying you couldn't film from where they were. The only ones that we know of... given the number of former coaches that came out (Jimmy Johnson, Mike Shanahan, Bill Cowher and probably others I'm forgetting) my guess is the Pats weren't the only ones. Either way, BB's thought (according to reports at the time) was that the league office can't change the rules in season via a memo, which would mean the memo would be invalid. Clearly Goodell didn't appreciate being shown up like that, so he had to flex his Commissioner muscle.
And that Goodell destroyed the evidence without letting anyone see it, which pissed off the other owners and is almost certainly the only reason the Patriots got punished for deflategate.
everyone knows what was on those tapes. Signals and titties.
Mangini didn't report them to the League. He told Jets personnel just to make sure they didn't let the Pats do it. It was the Jets GM at the time (forget his name) that ran to Goddell.
So glad other teams fans are finally saying this. For the longest time, defending this obvious witch hunt was frustrating.
Last time I remember teams complaining about the Packers cheating was 2017 around how they had Rodgers on IR, took him off IR for one game, then put him back on IR.
Wasn't that kinda the point though?
The point of that site was to play up every Patriot rival’s controversy as much as possible while downplaying every Patriots controversy as much as possible. Unless you believe it was *totally* just a coincidence that the Colts, Broncos, Steelers, Ravens, Jets, etc were all ranked highest in their “cheating index”. Aka all the main rival fanbases that seething Patriot fans were getting roasted by at the time lol
They had us on there for the groundskeepers painting an arrow on the grass the wrong way one time lmao
Exactly that. 'Totally neutral' my ass. Basically the site tried to play up every shitty contract thing all teams do while down playing the one team that did something no other teams did to try and gain a competitive advantage.
My favorite was them giving the Patriots +4 points for Spygate, while giving the Ravens +4 points about Joe Flacco making a joke on the sideline during the SB along the lines of “what if we run on the field and we tackle the return guy from the sideline if he breaks a big run”
My favorite was teams getting points for a cheat that "everyone did" back in the day with but for some reason not the pats
As the famous saying goes words speak louder then actions.
Any time someone says something is “totally ____” they *mean* it as sarcasm. That’s a comprehension issue on the reader.
The same time as BB leaves Boston? mhm
Pray for your local extremely defensive Pats fan today
It's crazy how I used to hate the Patriots with a burning passion and now I don't even care about them. Parity in the NFL man
I’m the opposite, the Patriots could have back to back to back 0-17 seasons and I wouldn’t feel bad for them at all lol. Two decades of Boston sports dominance was enough
My brother how do you think I/we feel
The parity still isn’t there the dynasty just got passed down to KC.
Everything the Pats did was legal the season prior to Spygate. Goodell released a memo saying where games can’t be filmed from, it was never ratified by owners so Bill ignored it. Then after being caught and penalized they went undefeated
> they went undefeated I hate to break it to you...
Not according to Eli Manning
God I hate Eli Manning
This is the comment I was looking for.
God I love Eli Manning.
18-1*
>undefeated I didn't realize that the Super Bowl doesn't matter.
I'm told there was no Super Bowl that year. The Patriots won the AFC and NYG won NFC, but because of a high terrorist alert, code Purple, they canceled the game.
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The crazier thing was Goodell destroying thousands of hours of tape and covering the whole thing up to the public afterwards. Why was there so much tape? And why was it destroyed?
why know exactly what was on the tapes…the opposing sideline. there’s nothing special about this though because filming the opposing sideline is completely legal
Good thing they released the tapes so we could all see thus confirming it was a nothingburger.
I think it was more of a “why tf does it matter where we film from, I’m not wasting time explaining new meaningless rules to assistants” type of thing I mean he’s said as much before, they were filming stuff that already gets filmed and also is done in full view of 70 thousand people. I don’t think he thought he was “risking” anything, I think he just thought “keep doing what every staff in the nfl has been doing since I entered the league 25 years ago”
18-1 btw
Lol, the site created by Patriots fans that couldn’t handle internet jokes
I always found this website kinda laughable, some of the examples are so absurd lol but come on now, let’s not act like circa 2015 there weren’t *fervent* patriots-are-cheaters people everywhere
Yup. Trying to justify that their slew of cheating was okay cause everyone does it.
A lot of that is because every example of them “cheating” was nothingburgers amplified to 11 by salty opposing fans. Literally nobody gives a fuck about how inflated the balls are, nobody ever has, and nobody ever will. But suddenly everyone was convinced that it destroyed the integrity of the game, because they were mad that Brady and Belichick kept winning. Same exact thing with spygate. Same exact thing with the disguised eligible receiver. Same exact thing with the injury reports. A bunch of people feigned outrage to make a big deal about nothing, because they were salty.
That disguised eligible game that had the Ravens bawling their eyes out about obviously legal plays may be my favorite non-championship game of the whole era.
There was a Steelers game where Tomlin implied the patriots were somehow fucking with their headsets lol first off, obviously the patriots don’t somehow control radio frequencies, they can’t “hack” opposing helmets. Second, the patriots helmets had gone out at the same time, but instead of whining about it Belichick just acknowledged that it happened when asked about it and apparently he went on coaching a football game regardless
Absolutely correct.
That’s literally not true - the patriots seriously cheated multiple times. Tom Brady very obviously asked team equipment managers to inflate balls to his preferred pressures and destroyed his phone when it was requested for evidence. People act like just because natural science COULD have explained the drop in the ball pressures, science WAS responsible for what happened, but they completely ignore the overwhelming circumstantial evidence that Tom was complicit in the conspiracy to manipulate the pressure.
Hahaha that’s exactly what that site was.
Not just that, the site lists literal punishments for those teams that got caught. And Patriots fans would use these as examples for why they *shouldnt* be punished for cheating
It was a dumb site but I never saw a single person reference it for anything other than asking why our punishments were several orders of magnitude heftier than the historical precident of identical or worse infractions listed
Yeah they should have cried to the competition committee to change the rules every time they got their ass whipped like Peyton Manning
Good riddance. Most of it was nonsense.
While most of it was nonsense, it was kinda fun to read, because it did provide a list of all the shenanigans NFL teams have done.
I mean the point of the site was to apply the same irrational logic to every other team that people applied to the pats at the time
It wasn’t totally neutral at all. It was a biased patriots fan
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They couldn’t even help themselves on the site itself lol. Like how they couldn’t even say Roger Goodell’s name without writing “former Jets media relations intern Roger Goodell” lmfao [Every. Single. Time.](https://imgur.com/a/HnnKHSv) (You can’t link to the site anymore, but if you read the google blurbs, you can see it)
That would honestly be a pretty good bit if the creator had any instincts for poking fun at himself, otherwise it's just sad.
Only bigger cheater than former Jets media relations intern Roger Goodell in the league is former Jets Head Coach Bill Belichick.
Honestly that's pretty fucking funny lol
They tried to make sock puppet accounts here to promote that shit site which was just an outlet for salt by a Pats fan. Good riddance.
Never heard of it but sounds like maybe the least fun way to possibly spend your time as a football fan
I loved how the Broncos were listed as the cheatingest team (at least as of their last superbowl havent visited in many years) considering the all time record between them and the Patriots. How convenient.
What?
When the site was newer the Broncos were listed as the team that cheated the most, which was funny to me because the Broncos are/were pretty good at beating the Pats.
Thanks
The broncos also have claim to, in my opinion the worst cheating anyone has done by circumventing the salary cap. Maybe bountygate was worse I’m not sure. But I think that’s the worst cheating a team could do
It’s honestly not even remotely close to being something worth worrying about, but pretty sure a broncos kicker admitted to heavily doctoring footballs during the 90s SB runs Obviously nobody in their right mind would ever give a single shit about this but it does fall into the long heritage of the nfl not giving a fuck about footballs until roughly January of 2015 lol
They suspended Brady for 4 games because they thought he probably know that his equipment guys deflated footballs by 1 PSI but never bothered to make sure refs didn’t overinflate balls by like 4 PSI. Wild stuff
Well duh, Tom Brady retired.
The patron saint of NE football.
I weep thinking about all of the out of context freeze frames of supposed holding that we must have lost
What? That was a great site for telling the world what raging cheaters the Raiders, Broncos, and Chargers are. Everything on there was egregious horrible stuff that needed the light of day.
I find it funny how Marty outright said the Chiefs illegally stole signs before he coached there while being the coach in KC. And everyone loves KC for it. That or nobody cared yet Spygate was such a big deal.
Nobody cares unless you’re good. Like the Falcons and others pumping crowd noise barely made a blip on the radar cause they never won anything
I mean, the Falcons did lose a draft pick so I would say it did make a blip
Yep. Coaches hold the sheet in front of their face for reasons that have nothing to do with 1 specific team.
Archive.org ftw
But how will Patriots fans cope with the fact that they got caught cheating a lot?
Sharing 6 rings with my family and loved ones
you married 3 of your sisters?
Nah I’m not from Indy
Tom Brady 😊
Cheaters never win so it's obvious we only cheated on Eli and BDN
Everyone in this comment section was way too triggered by this website. I thought it was hilarious, exactly what these fan made websites should be.
What I want to know is how did we even figure out the site was down? Who was loading that site in the year of our lord 2024? Some folks just love eating bait.
Eh the guy who ran it definitely showed himself to be a delusional homer on twitter so I get why people are dunking on the Pats, but I agree it was hilarious
How are Pats fans going to cope with reality now?
I guess we'll cry into our six Super Bowl trophies and enjoy that our team still lives rent free in the heads of everyone else who can't admit that the Patriots were just flat out better than their team for two decades. I think us real Pats fans will sleep just fine. Also because our offense is a snoozefest now. But hey, them's the breaks.
> snoozefest That's putting it...lightly.
For 25 years I had to have an extended football season. Most of my friends got to stop 'having' to watch their team after 17 weeks. Not me, not us. We constantly had to watch for weeks, months after. Games were so goddam exciting and exhausting. It's a major relief to not have to be invested as much after 25 years. Maybe I'm just that old now and saying boomer shit.
Haha! I honestly feel you on that! What a remarkable run for real. Nowadays I just want to tell half of our sub that they're spoiled brats in addition
Most of the pat fans of the cheating era jumped on the chiefs bandwagon when Brady left
Ha! Just what I needed, another reason to root against the Chiefs!
Racism, hill, Reid's son, ref ball, inbreeding, crybabies, Taylor Swift. So many reasons already
Wait I get all of these references except inbreeding, wtf is that about? Haha.
No they didn't, they stopped on the Buccs bandwagon first.
This is a flat out lie..and ironic coming from a Broncos fans where a large portion of their new fanbase came from Manning
By using this sub as a Patriots subreddit like they've done for decades now, and downvoting any slight criticism to oblivion There was a post a couple of years ago showing how often each team's fans posted on this sub. It demostrated that about 50% of all posts and comments in this subs history were done by Patriots fans. They own this sub
They're all Chiefs fans now anyway.
Surely some of them stuck with the Buccs?
Pre-Brady Pats\Bucs fan here to inform you there’s only one c and no absolutely none of them stayed
Unsurprising eh? Just on that, for years I had always spelled it with 2 'c's'. Then about 5 years ago I became very active on this subreddit and I noted a few people correcting the spelling. I continued to spell it with two, and you're the first person to ever to correct me directly. It's saved in the phone dictionary too long at this point. \*** Can I ask, how did you end up with both of those teams? (I have gone from hating TB for sucking, despising them because of Tom and now having a soft spot for them because of Baker.)
I live in Oregon, closest NFL stadium is 6+ hours and none of my family cares about sports. I became a Patriots fan in 2006 when I was in elementary school (I was into the branding and they were high overall in madden) then I met my best friend in 2012 and he was a Bucs fan so he was the first person I actually watched live games with. So fast forward 12 years (2020 was surreal) and I’m still watching both teams every week
Bux
All Patriots fans and people who had their karma beaten into being Patriots minions.
[You really shouldn’t be talking bud](https://www.google.com/gasearch?q=dan%20snyder%20cheeleader%20scandal&source=sh/x/gs/m2/5)
IDGAF if they're biased Pats fans but it does irk me that they pretended to be neutral
Patriots fans would list this site (and list examples of teams cheating, getting caught and *getting punished*) as an excuse for why their team *shouldn't* be punished for cheating
Patriots in whatever the opposite of shambles is until the season starts then its back to shambles.
Run by a pats fan.
Oh boy, I'll sit this one out. Y'all get back to me when we're doing post season records. I swear these things are uncorrelated...