In the past the Patriots were illegally filming signals and were told to stop. They did not, and were caught again, resulting in “spygate”. They also were caught using a second helmet radio frequency to circumvent the rule that helmet radios are shut off when the play clock hits 15 seconds. With a secret second frequency the coaches could keep talking to Tom Brady right up to the snap and even after it, potentially notifying him of open receivers, coverages, etc). Now the balls. There is a pattern of skirting or outright disregarding the rules by this organization. They have lost all benefit of the doubt.
It was determined during the Spygate fiasco that there was absolutely no competitive advantage gained by filming your opponents bench.. NONE! The fact is, the Patriots have been one the most successful NFL franchises in history. They have beaten a lot of teams and the owners and GM’s and to some extent, the players of those teams are perplexed. They assume there must be some excuse or reason why their teams aren’t able to do what the Patriots have done.
The reason why they are being beat has nothing to do with filming benches, or deflating balls, or the radio frequencies ‘Kenneth’... They are being beat because Tom Brady is one of the best QB’s to have ever played this game, and Bill Belichick can out coach any of the other 31 coaches in the league on any given day... PERIOD!
It would be nice to have an excuse, but essentially there are no excuses for guys like Ryan Grigson... The team is the General Manager of (the Colts) and the ones he used to work for (the Rams and the Eagles) were all beaten fair a square and accepting that is something he’s going to need to get used to... Because there will NEVER be an asterisk on any of the Patriots wins.. EVER! PERIOD!