The New England Patriots are no strangers to NFL rules violations and the latest, this time in the offseason, has cost the team two OTA practices.
For any New England Patriots fans hoping to get a first report of what the team is looking like this offseason from the media at OTAs, you’re going to have to wait.
Thursday, May 25 was supposed to be the first scheduled OTA practice open to the media. Instead, that practice was surprisingly canceled on Wednesday afternoon. It seemingly came out of nowhere, but a few hours later, we found out why it was canceled.
According to Mike Reiss of ESPN, the Patriots were docked two OTA practices for a violation of offseason rules. Thursday’s practice is the first they lost and there will be another next week that will no longer be taking place.
Filed to ESPN: The Patriots are losing two days of voluntary organized team activities due to a violation of offseason rules, per league sources.
— Mike Reiss (@MikeReiss) May 25, 2023
That explains the team's announcement about Thursday's practice being called off.
Another OTA next week has also been taken away.
Fans think Patriots are winning Super Bowl after being punished for ‘cheating’
Perhaps the two biggest cheating scandals in NFL history both involved the New England Patriots with Spygate and Deflategate. Of course, after Spygate came to light in September 2007, all the Pats did was reel off an undefeated regular season before falling to the Giants in the Super Bowl. Then, in 2015 when Deflategate’s subject matter occurred in the AFC Championship game. Belichick and Co. went on to win another Lombardi Trophy.
So with the Patriots back to “cheating”, fans were quick to joke (or maybe not so much) that Belichick and New England were definitely back and going back to the Super Bowl.
Oh LFG we are cheating again. Ring #7 on the way
— PRZ (@prztweets) May 25, 2023
Last time Belichick blew his nose with the rulebook, good things happened for us pic.twitter.com/FyGUyYYVjI
— Canal street Luda 🇩🇴🇭🇹 (@burnt_paradise_) May 25, 2023
Dynasty is back pic.twitter.com/HFKMj4AgX6
— Joel (@joel_roblesss) May 25, 2023
Back to cheating? Finally. We winning it all this year! LFG
— DB (@TheDon2174) May 25, 2023
Lets goooo we're trying to win again
— Sean (@seankolo99) May 25, 2023
https://twitter.com/LuiHard/status/1661548005227372546
Perhaps the funniest addition to the conversation was a response to the question of what the rules violation was, to which one quick-witted individual replied “Drafting a punter and kicker in the same draft.” That is, indeed, worthy of punishment.
Alas, we don’t know what rule the Patriots actually violated to receive this punishment. And while the jokes are great, the fact of the matter is that New England appears to have a ways to go before they are actually back in the Super Bowl conversation.