I took it slow over Labor Day weekend. With Deflategate appearing to be in the rearview mirror until at least after the season and the Patriots about to kickoff another season with a Super Bowl banner-hanging, it was nice to take a little break when it felt like there was non-stop Patriots news all offseason.
But what do I wake up to? Both ESPN and SI.com drop new articles that both rehash Spygate, but also play up every single silly rumor of anything the Patriots ever might’ve done.
The bottom line, the Patriots are firmly entrenched in the minds of every other NFL team.
But it’s extremely curious that two major outlets come out with essentially the same story, rehashing the same details, without any real new information, at the same time.
With all the NFL’s leaks during Deflategate, this certainly feels like their handy work in some part, because when you can’t attack someone’s argument, you attack their credibility. The NFL lost in court and now it’s a hard tack to “HERE’S EVERY RUMOR WE COULD EVER FIND ABOUT THE PATRIOTS MAKING THINGS HARD ON THEIR OPPONENTS”.
The ESPN article would almost have you believe it’s about how Deflategate was payback for Spygate. That’s interesting, and not surprising. But instead of really hitting on that, instead the focus is all the rumors that have built up over the years.
Now, there’s no actual proof nor are any of them technically against the rules, but that doesn’t mean everyone can’t cry about them? No one questions that the Patriots are ALWAYS competing. Always. Whether it’s at the scouting combine or Wednesday’s injury report. Everything they do has purpose toward winning.
Now where’s the line between gamesmanship and cheating in professional sports? It’s easy to get the hyper competitive asshole out of your men’s pickup basketball game, not so much in the NFL. To lose a job in the NFL you have to lose, and the Patriots don’t lose very often.
I really don’t want this to now take away from the start of the Patriots season. I worry that the team might be as tired of these media firestorms as I am and that it could affect their play. But there’s also some fun in being the big bad wolf.
None of the items mentioned in either article won any games for the Patriots, but the perception of them, a perception which these articles will cement in everyone’s minds, has certainly caused opponents to spend more time worrying than preparing and that’s what their effectiveness is.
Once again it feels like things are coming full circle. I started blogging roughly because of Spygate, and my first published article was about embracing the dark side. Here we are eight years later and not much has changed.