The conspiracies never end for the New England Patriots. Just a week after Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh accused the team of engaging in “trickery” in an AFC divisional playoff game comes the charge that New England illegally deflated the football during their blowout win over the Indianapolis Colts in Sunday’s AFC Championship game.
At this rate, we can probably expect a new accusation leveled at Patriots head coach Bill Belichick after every big game. Here are a few modest predictions on what exactly will be levied on Belichick and company throughout next season:
RobotGate (Week 1)
After a 31-7 win over Buffalo, new Bills head coach Rex Ryan alleges that the “Tom Brady” the Patriots put on the field was in fact an indestructible robot. This cyber-Brady, Ryan alleges, could toss the ball with laser-like accuracy, mostly because it was literally using lasers to guide its throws.
During a follow-up press conference Patriots owner Robert Kraft brushes the story aside. “Okay, I know that Brady’s interviews are full of monotonous corporate drone talk, but that doesn’t mean he’s a robot.” Kraft then shifts gears — no pun intended — and welcomes the team’s newest corporate sponsor: Skynet.
ChemtrailGate (Week 2)
During the traditional opening day flyover at Gillette, the planes release a suspiciously long-lasting condensation trail that ominously lingers above the stadium for most of the game. The Patriots defeat the Philadelphia Eagles 23-21, thanks to the benefit of a few iffy pass interference calls.
This time it’s Eagles head coach Chip Kelly who questions the win’s legitimacy. His post-game rant raises the possibility that the Patriots were employing mind-controlling chemtrails to affect the judgment of the officials.
After an internal investigation by the league, including consultations with the world’s top neuroscientists, the NFL determine that a) chemtrails aren’t actually a real thing and b) generally speaking, the referees’ grasp of the rulebook is so muddled that any potential mind control would be ineffective and counter-productive. The decision is announced by veteran referee Ed Hochuli who explains it in complete detail over the course of several hours, stopping only occasionally to show off his muscles.
BackToTheFutureGate (Week 7)
After several weeks without any breaking scandals, the Patriots are accused of engaging in time travel in this 14-7 squeaker against the Miami Dolphins. Bizarrely enough, Belichick openly admits that his future self had been traveling back in time to the past, meaning our present, a strategy which allows him to know everything that the Dolphins were planning to do because it had already happened in Future Belichick’s timeline.
“I got the idea from the Bill and Ted movies,” Belichick admits during his weekly interview with Boston sports radio station WEEI. When Roger Goodell attempts to fine Belichick and take away draft picks, Belichick successfully argues that since his Future Self was the one who committed the violation, it’s not fair to penalize Present Him for things he hasn’t done yet.
MKUltraGate (Week 17)
Not all of Belichick’s schemes are successful. For instance, in the last week of the regular season, he spikes the New York Jets’ Gatorade with copious amounts of LSD. The strategy backfires as the Jets actually start to play better once the hallucinogen kicks in. The mind-expanding drug helps players unlearn nearly everything about football they’ve learned in the dysfunctional Jets organization, allowing them to play crisp, mistake-free football. They roar back from a 14-point halftime defect to demolish the Patriots 45-14, denying them the chance to be the AFC’s number one seed.
Inspired by the moral victory, the Jets decide to schedule mandatory peyote-fueled vision quests for all players during the next preseason.
FlagGate (AFC divisional playoff)
No opponents or league officials protest the Patriots’ road win over the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC divisional playoff, but the conspiracy theorists over at INFOWARS do. They present evidence, mostly in the form of in-game screencaps filled with randomly placed circles and arrows, that they claim show Patriots assistants on the sideline throwing their own flags to draw calls from officials and confuse the opposing team. “This is literally a false flag organization,” radio host Alex Jones says, “OPEN YOUR EYES SHEEPLE! HOW STUPID DO THEY THINK WE ARE?”
The Patriots, the NFL and that game’s officiating crew all deny that anything of the sort happened, which only proves they are all hiding the real truth.
OutscoringGate (AFC Championship game)
For the second straight year, the Patriots demolish the Indianapolis Colts 45-7. This time, critics note that New England is scoring more points than their opponents, which many believe gives them a clear-cut advantage over the teams they face. “The numbers show that the Patriots win every single time they have the most points at the end of a game,” says Colts head coach Chuck Pagano, “that’s just too often to be a mere coincidence.”
