If any franchise in the history of professional football deserves the benefit of the doubt, it’s the New England Patriots of this era.
No, I’m not talking about scandals and –gates, real or accidental. The Patriots lost the benefit of the doubt in those sorts of matters with the original Spygate, when they got busted taping the Jets’ defensive signals from an unauthorized location after the league sent a memo saying, hey, guys, don’t do that stuff or there will be consequences.
That’s led to common exaggerations of what they actually did, magnification of future alleged transgressions (we still don’t know the whole truth and nothing but the truth about Deflategate, and I doubt commissioner Roger Goodell wants us to), and a notion shared among other fan bases that malfeasance has its own section in the Patriots playbook.