A timeline of Cheating Accusations of the New England Patriots; It is long

Patriots fans think the NFL attacks them for cheating, but it is hard to believe a team that has cheated many times in the past.  Since Bill Belichick has been the head coach of the Patriots, look how many times he was accused or caught in a cheat?  Look at it from the rest of the world’s perspective, not just yours.

1982: The Infamous Snow Plow Game

In 1982 The Dolphins & Patriots played in a blizzard in New England. With about 4 minutes left in the 0-0 game the Schaefer stadium snowplow operator drove onto the field & cleared a spot for the Patriots to attempt a field goal that was good & won the game. The Patriots gave the snow plow driver a game ball.

While not covered in the rules at the time (who would think ahead to the Patriots deceptive practices?) Dolphins coach Don Shula expected the league to step in & rescind the game as a scoreless tie. The League didn’t so that, but the NFL did ban the use of snow plows in games the following year.

In a 2007  Shula recalled protesting the “unfair” act. Then NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle said he agreed wholeheartedly, but without a rule explicitly addressing the snow plow, there was nothing he could do.

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1986: Using the Injured Reserve as a Punishment

In 1986 the Patriots lost a 3rd Round pick as punishment for illegal use of the injured reserve list.

As things go this was fairly minor, or at least the Patriots organization thinks so, because they have been consistently accused of manipulating the IR by players. Including practicing while on the IR in 2001 and former Patriots saying the IR was used as punishment in 2014.

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2002: Marshall Faulk claims Patriots cheated Rams out of Super Bowl win

Tom Brady won his first championship with the Patriots at Super Bowl XXXVI against the Rams, and Hall of Fame running back Marshall Faulk was the first person ever to call out Belichick for having just a little too much intel ahead of the game. He said,

I understand Bill is a great coach. 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.

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2004: James Harrison calls out the Patriots for more signal stealing

More claims of the Patriots having impossible information about the opposing team’s game plans came in 2004 via Steelers linebacker James Harrison.

He said,

I should have another ring.  We were the best team in football in 2004, but the Patriots, who we beat during the regular season, stole our signals and picked up 90 percent of our blitzes [in the AFC title game].

They got busted for it later, but hey, they’re Goodell’s boys, so he slapped ‘em $500,000 and burned the tapes. Was he going to rescind their Super Bowls?  Man, hell no!

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2007: The videotaping controversy known as “Spygate” rocks the NFL

After multiple accusations of spying on teams, proof of this reality came to light in 2007 when the league finally disciplined the Patriots for recording the Jets’ practices.

Defensive signals, formations and different personnel strategies were stolen and the Patriots were finally punished… Sort of.

The Patriots were stripped of their first-round draft pick the following year and fined $250,000.

Bill Belichick was fined $500,000, but the team still got their shot to play in the Super Bowl.

The Giants ruined their perfect season…..KARMA

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2015: Legendary coach Don Shula calls out Bill Belichick

The former Miami Dolphins coaching legend, who went head-to-head with Belichick, had a hilarious nickname for the Pats coach.

During an interview, he said,

The embers of competition have cooled some. But they’re still warm, if you care to see them. The coach can still can bring it when he wants, like when a forgotten scab is picked with the mention of the current king, New England’s Bill Belichick. ‘Beli-cheat?

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2015: Used illegal plays against Baltimore in divisional playoff game.

The Patriots came back to beat the Baltimore Ravens in the 2015 AFC divisional playoff game after falling down 14 points.

However, with the use of illegal plays and formations that even fooled the refs, they came back to stay in the title hunt, beating their foes 35-31.

Ravens coach John Harbaugh immediately called out the Pats for something that should’ve never happened. He claimed,

It was clearly deception. That’s why I had to take the penalty, to get their attention so they would understand what was going on because [the Ravens’ defense] didn’t understand what was going on.

That’s why guys were open, because we didn’t ID where the eligible receivers were at. The league will look at that type of thing, and I’m sure that they’ll make some adjustments and things like that.

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2015: Accused of deflating balls during AFC Championship game against Indianapolis

Just one game later, the Patriots were accused of even more cheating, and allegedly deflating balls in the AFC Championship game is as low as it gets.

Even though the Patriots demolished the Colts, it was still considered cheating by many. They lost draft picks, but nothing happened to Tom Brady.

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2015: The Steelers headphones do not work throughout the entire first half

In last night’s game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Steelers had problems with the headsets. They were getting the New England Patriots broadcasting system over the speakers instead of the team’s coaching staff. The Patriots waited until the Steelers coaches complained before they stopped using their head sets, which were working properly.

”We were listening to the Patriots radio broadcast for the majority of the first half on our headsets,” Tomlin said after New England beat the Steelers 28-21 on Thursday night in the NFL opener.

Responding to a report on the TV broadcast that the Pittsburgh coaches lost the ability to talk over their headsets, Tomlin said, ”That’s always the case.”

”Here?” a reporter asked.

”Yes,” Tomlin said.