Brace yourselves — another New England Patriots conspiracy theory from the Bill Belichick era has hit the internet.
This one, however, may be the most diabolical one yet.
For starters, I don’t know how these things start. Or where they start. Or why they started. The internet is the Wild Wild West at this point. It’s a vast landscape, and I, frankly, can’t keep up with it. Nor do I want to.
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But, here we go …
A viral post on X claims the Patriots, and Belichick, used the team’s home scoreboard at Gillette Stadium to mess with opposing kickers during field goals. How?
By showing the goal posts live on the scoreboard right behind the goal posts, thus creating four yellow lines right in the view of the kicker.
The claim was made by Ryan Paganetti, who previously worked in the analytics departments for the Raiders, Jags and Eagles.
“Much has been made of the Patriots’ mysterious ‘Pink Stripes.’ How about yellow ones?” he said in a now-vrial post that has nearly 10 million views.
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“I went through more than a decade of TV broadcasts and uncovered a diabolically clever piece of Patriots gamesmanship. When opposing kickers lined up at Gillette Stadium, the video board displayed a reverse view of the kick, placing a second, offset set of yellow uprights directly behind the real ones.”
Paganetti continued.
“I found dozens of examples. In the same games, I reviewed 52 Patriots field goal attempts. The illusion appeared on Patriots kicks exactly zero times.
“We actually tried copying the idea when I was in Philadelphia, but the location of the video boards at Lincoln Financial Field made it nearly useless. It is the perfect encapsulation of the Patriots dynasty. No detail was too small, and no possible edge was left unexplored.”
Incredible. Again, this is all just fan-fodder at the moment, but boy, is it straight out of the Bill Belichick handbook if true.
And before anyone says it — no, this is nothing like the Spygate or Deflategate stuff. Don’t be silly. This is called using your homefield advantage … to your advantage.
The Miami Dolphins renovated their stadium years ago so the opposing sideline would always be in the sun. The Buffalo Bills, I’m fairly certain, are still complaining about it to this day.
Anyway, Paganetti used this below highlight of Billy Cundiff’s famous miss in the 2012 AFC title game as a prime example:
Look at the goal posts in the background of the replay at 1:07. Amazing.
Again, none of this is confirmed. The Pats haven’t said a thing, and probably won’t. It’s also fair to note that college teams have been known to utilize this tactic, too.
For example, Oklahoma State famously attempted it with its ridiculously large scoreboard against Texas back in 2020.
It was … not quite as subtle:
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Amazing.
Love them or hate them, the 2001-2019 Patriots dynasty gave us some wild moments.
Add this to the list.
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