New England Patriots Cheating: Real or conspiracy?

There has been a lot of history involving cheating allegations and the New England Patriots. Do the claims have actual substance?

Super Bowl XVIX is all set and the matchup couldn’t be more appealing.

On one side we have the defending NFL Champions in the Seattle Seahawks. They are a rough, tough, in your face defense who intimidated the Denver Broncos right off the field in last year’s big game in New Jersey.

MORE: Top 10 QB/Head Coach Duos of All-Time

On the other side we have the legend that is Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots. They return to this stage yet again, for the sixth time since their blissful marriage began back in 2001. No team can face the bullies that are the Seahawks better than the Pats, for they are bullies themselves.

It couldn’t be more perfect.

That was until “Deflate-Gate” hit our homes late Sunday night after the pathetic AFC Championship game came to an end.

Bob Kravitz of WTHR was the first to report the controversy, and Pro Football Talk has confirmed that the league is probing the situation.

Via Bob Kravitz on Twitter:

"“Told if a league investigation confirms deflated footballs it will result in lost draft picks. Stay tuned.”"

Yet again, the Patriots have surrounded themselves in a cheating controversy and the possibility of being punished. And far worse than just a plain old controversy it is coming at the worst possible time, right before the Super Bowl.

The all-mighty question is this: Throughout all the years of of this great league, and considering there are 32 cities that host NFL teams, why is it the Patriots who always get the finger pointed at them for cheating?

MORE: Top 32 Franchises Ranked by All-Time Greatness

Patriots fans and players themselves will always bring up the jealousy factor. They’ll claim their greatness is always the target for others to point at and find something unsavory.

They will always point to three championships and six Super Bowl appearances as the reason for the unfounded claims.

If that’s the case, then how come other dynasties haven’t had to stew in the same controversy?

I don’t remember Jimmy Johnson’s Dallas Cowboys having to deal with anything of this nature. Or how about John Elway’s late 90’s Denver Broncos teams? Where in the world are the “Spygate” claims against Bill Walsh and his brilliant San Francisco 49ers teams in the 80’s?

All NFL fans, whether you like Belichick or not, need to come to grips with the way they do business in Foxborough: which is very sketchy.

It doesn’t mean he’s still not a great coach, but when there’s this much smoke, there has to be at least a little fire.

While the NFL probes the current situation surrounding “Deflate-Gate,” the one thing that needs to be placed on the table right now is the fact that Andrew Luck and his Indianapolis Colts had zero chance in the game. They had no business on the same field as the Pats. If Ryan Grigson and the rest of the Colts front office brass doesn’t get a real team around their prized quarterback, he’ll really start to remind the world of John Elway’s career in the 80’s.

The fact that the Pats haven’t won a Championship since 2004, before the “Spy-Gate” allegations came out means very little to me. What means the world to me though is the fact that so many people and teams have pointed the finger at this organization. Also, that so much substance is still alive as it relates to their less than tasteful tactics.

In 2007 Eric Mangini and the New York Jets blew the lid off of “Spygate.”

During an early regular season game, Mangini turned his old boss in for videotaping Jets defensive coaches while they sent signals onto the field.

Belichick was fined $500,000, the maximum and the most in NFL history. The Patriots organization was fined $250,000 and docked their first-round draft pick during the upcoming draft.

This lead to the NFL confiscating all video tapes in New England’s possession. Leaking out from this would be the most critical piece of evidence which lead to Matt Walsh’s claim that the Pats video taped the St. Louis Rams walk-through prior to their first Super Bowl Championship.

Walsh was of course a video assistant for New England up until 2002.

What the NFL did next would create more controversy than anything the Pats ever did: they destroyed the tapes without allowing anybody to see them. They quickly took the duck and hide strategy rather than facing this thing head on.

The unknown of how bad these tapes were is what had everybody up in arms about their tactics.

Why would Roger Goodell and the league so quickly get rid of those tapes if they were no big deal?

Not only that, but why would Belichick continue to tape defensive signals after their were multiple reports of other teams reporting this tactic to the league office? Why would he continue to do it, and especially do it against a guy who knows about it in Mangini, if it didn’t provide a distinct advantage?

The absolute gall Belichick displayed by continuing to videotape signals even though he knew Mangini was aware of the tactics was extraordinary.

It has led to very bitter feelings. One guy who remains bitter to this day is former Rams running-back Marshall Faulk.

Via CSNNE:

"“Obviously, the commissioner gets to handle things how he wants to handle them but if they wanted us to shut up about what happened, show us the tapes. Don’t burn ‘em,” Faulk said.“I understand Bill is a great coach,” Faulk said. “But No. 13 [Kurt Warner] will tell you. Mike Martz will tell you. We had some plays in the red zone that we hadn’t ran. . . . And a couple of plays on third down that we walked through also . . . And they created a check for it. It’s just little things like that. It’s either the best coaching in the world when you come up with situations that you had never seen before. Or you’d seen it and knew what to do.”“Am I bitter about how the league handled them taping people? If Bountygate was that bad and Sean got suspended for a whole year? If we want to talk about some unfair assessment of how we’re assessing things? Man. If you lost a game and your brother cheated you, you’ll remember that.”"

The beat rolled on for Belichick and his organization. Their fans stood by them while others pointed to the fact that they hadn’t won since “Spygate.” They continued their winning ways.

The NFL also later implemented defensive radio communication to the game. No longer would hand signals be necessary on the defensive side of the ball. Instead, one member of the defense would be the man, like the quarterback on offense, to receive audio from a coach.

This was a direct rule to oppose “Spygate.”

Bryan O’Leary, author of the book Spygate: The Untold Story also added more fuel to the fire when his book was released to the public.

Former backup quarterback for the Pats, Doug Flutie, claimed in the book that he uncovered something very interesting regarding Brady’s radio helmet during the 2005 season.

Via the New York Post:

"“He was amazed that the coaches kept right on speaking to Brady past the 15-second cutoff, right up until the snap,” ­according to O’Leary.“The voice in Tom Brady’s helmet was explaining the exact defense he was about to face.”"

Considering the Patriots dominant home record in the Belichick era, this claim only infuriated people more.

Since Gillette Stadium opened in 2002, the Patriots have a ridiculous 101-19 combined record in the regular season and playoffs.

Does this indicate mere dominance or something a little more fishy?

Also in the O’Leary book was former Patriots linebacker Ted Johnson’s claims of new-found audibles when he had no clue of them during the week of preparation.

"“He claimed that an hour before game time, a list of the opposing team’s audibles — the signals a QB would use at the line of scrimmage just before a snap to change the play — would sometimes appear in his locker. He had no idea where the lists came from.”"

So many instances of interesting tactics.

Now, they are facing this new claim about deflated footballs.

When deciphering for yourselves whether there is something really legit about all of these claims and suspicious activities is this: How in the world are the Patriots the only team in the league that constantly get the finger pointed at them?

There are 32 professional football teams in the NFL, and yet the Pats are the only ones that face these issues.

How could that be?

Is a simple case of bad luck and jealousy, where so many people are coming together to conjure these claims against Brady and Belichick? Has their dominance created such a hate that forces this stuff to come out?

That’s a very far fetched belief.

The fact that it’s not just one team or two teams that have made allegations towards this franchise for cheating, but the fact that several teams and individuals have, makes you sit and wonder what is going on.

We’ve seen many dynasties in the history of the league, and they don’t have black marks on their ledger like this team does.

Belichick seems like a guy who simply cannot help himself.

In most cases, he doesn’t even need to tinker with the idea of cheating, yet he does these things anyway. Yesterday they played a Colts team that had no business on the field as them, yet these allegations come out. And, in the second half of the game, the Pats are still running their “eligible-ineligible” stuff in a lopsided blowout.

Completely unnecessary.

The findings by the league for “Deflate-Gate” could turn out to be damaging or harmless. Either way though, because of past actions by the league, the questions surrounding their findings will now be questioned even further.

The damage has already been done.

And because of the history of Belichick, Brady and the Pats, regardless of their findings, this only adds more fuel to the cheating fire.

Next: Where does Bill Belichick fall on the all-time coaches list?