Patriots Dismiss ESPN Allegations as Whining from Sore Losers

The New England Patriots dismissed an ESPN report accusing the team of cheating as sour grapes over the team’s unrivaled success in the 21st century.

The report from ESPN accuses the Patriots of stealing game plans from opponents, jamming their communications inside of Gillette Stadium, and compiling a larger library of videos chronicling the defensive signals of opponents than previously acknowledged by the NFL after the Spygate controversy.

Here is the statement the #Patriots issued in response to today’s ESPN report. Strong stuff pic.twitter.com/NPAAAmcz2M

— Ben Volin (@BenVolin) September 8, 2015

The report’s reliance on anonymous sources from rival teams and its unverifiable claims on videotapes destroyed by the league raises alarms for Patriot backers. So, too, does the network’s history of false reporting involving the franchise.

ESPN’s Chris Mortensen pushed an entirely baseless report in the wake of Deflategate that 11 of the team’s 12 balls used in the first half of the AFC Championship Game measured at more than two pounds below the legal limit and the network more recently retracted an erroneous report that the Patriots taped the walk-through of the St. Louis Rams prior to Super Bowl 36.