Did the Patriots Cheating make that much of a Difference?

I often wonder if or how many Super Bowls we missed out on because of the Patriots. Do you guys think other teams cheat or do what the Patriots did or do you think the Patriots cheated way more than other teams? Surprisingly you just don’t here that many former Patriots Players who changed teams or coaches talk about it much or even opposing coaches harp on it much.

Bellichek was and always has been a great defensive mind and Brady is who he is. But with the teams being so close in competitive level and a play here or there can make all the difference in the outcome of a game it makes me wonder. I also wonder does Bellichek still find ways to cheat.

 

Brady has an asterisk behind his name

And personally I don’t think he needed to do any shenanigans to be great

 

Our coaching staff, players, and owners are TOO STUPID to know how or learn how to cheat or push the envelope into "gray area" of rules.
I say this only because some sort of this is in every thread and forum on this site.

Like the following......

 

Only Mangina comes to mind who spoke out.
The Pats were very Krafty and kicked his arse.

 

If they did it like some have said....of course it matters, and makes a difference. Although the hidden conspiracy theorists in Me thinks it's awful funny that a team that never did anything (a red,white, and blue Patriotic team) suddenly got so good after 9-11.

 

The Chargers complained about the Pats cheating them the same way they cheated us. Bellychuck is so good (or bad) at it, I'm surprised he never caught on with Al Davis!

 

Hines Ward said that Ben would call an audible against the Patriots and then whole defense would shift to the side of the field the play was going. If Ben tried to audible out of that play the Patriots would shift again. Ward said that the Patriots knew all of the Steelers audibles and signals.
OT Barrett Brooks said that if Ben called a draw in the huddle, Rodney Harrison would start yelling "Draw! Draw!" before the Steelers even got to the line of scrimmage. Barrett also said that if Ben called a sweep to the right, Tedi Bruschi would yell "Run to right!" as soon as the Steelers broke the huddle.

 

It would definitely give an advantage. It’s not uncommon for players to talk trash to one another and tell them what is coming. However, for the entire opposition to know what is coming ahead of time on every play is a definite advantage. Cowher should accept a lot of the blame on this. The players were vocal about it happening, but cowher et al didn’t change what they were doing.

 

I guess my tinfoil hat sits right next to yours.

 

Is that cheating

If we didn’t change our audible from week to week for the other teams to pick up on this is wise

On the other hand if you do change it week to week do you confuse the crap out of the offense

Some of the offense aren't very bright

 

I mentioned before a major part of one of the playoff game losses wasn’t the Pats cheating it was Plaxico telling/broadcasting the play every time he came out of the huddle

Immediately after and still people who don’t know any better have been calling it cheating

It was just good coaching

 

Then a few years later the Saints win the SB just a few months after Hurricane Katrina devasted New Orleans. Some might call this a tin foil hat conspiracy theory. Others might call it coincidence. If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, can it identify as a chicken?

 

Fate

or

That's too coincidental to be a coincidence.

- Yogi Bear

 

The one poster that said we were to stupid to even push the gray areas...blah blah. If our O is so anemic that the opposing D is shouting the plays before the ball is hiked, that is not a gray area, just our team being pathetic. I don't think there is really that much your opponent does not know, especially in your own division. Where I draw the line is cheating, even if it does not help much, it just taint's and brings such a dishonor.

 

It depends on how they got the information. If they did it through illegal videotaping, then yes, it is cheating. Spygate wasn't even the only time the Patriots got caught illegally getting video of an opponent. That Goodell was so quick to destroy the Spygate evidence was always suspicious to me. I think it was bad and Goodell didn't want it leaking and making the league look bad.

 

Can you pick up audible from videotape at a distance

 

I think what Barrett Brooks was inferring to when Bruschi was yelling out the Steelers play call a split second after Ben called it in the huddle was that Bruschi was also hearing the play coming in on his helmet at the same time Ben was.

 

I often wonder if I was traveling at the speed of light and turned on my headlights would they work?

 

I think it did when they beat the Rams in the Super Bowl in 2001.

 

You can pick up formations and hand signals. The problem is we don't know the extent of what they did. The primary reason we don't know that is Goodell covering for them by destroying the evidence. He never gave a good reason for doing it. That was extremely shady. The Patriots thought they got something out of it or they wouldn't have kept doing it. What we do know for certain is that they cheated. They were caught cheating at least three times that we know about, which makes me think they did it a lot more. i have no idea how much it helped them, but it was a factor in their success. That's not a conspiracy theory. That is a fair interpretation of those events.

 

That was the rumor. Think of all the times there were issues with the technology on the visiting sideline in New England. We truly don't know the extent of what they did. We do know that they were willing to cheat.

 

Chargers players said similar when they played in the playoffs too. IIRC, the Rams alluded to it seemed like the defense knew their plays during the SB.

 

The whole thing stinks to high Heaven. Why would Goodell order the evidence destroyed unless it was inflammatory and made the league look bad as Scribe alluded to? I believe the Pats were busted red handed and it would have made the Astros sign stealing scandal look like a Sunday school picnic. Then there is Deflate Gate and who knows what else they pulled and got away with Scot free.

So, yes. Their cheating mattered in that here we are talking about it. No one can say for sure how many championships it affected, but there is no doubt in my mind, for what it is worth, that it gave them a significant advantage. Otherwise, why do it at all?

 

There were several seasons where other teams didn't need to cheat to know a draw was coming more often than not.

 

Katrina was 2005, saints SB win was 2010.