If you’re not accusing the New England Patriots of cheating, you’re doing it wrong.
That appears the motto these days, as NFL players and coaches suddenly have recalled several instances of suspicious Patriots activity since the Wells Report into Deflategate was released last Wednesday.
Cleveland Browns linebacker Karlos Dansby — who spent his first six seasons with the Arizona Cardinals — was the latest to hop on board Thursday with a particularly bold claim: that New England somehow sabotaged the Cardinals’ headsets during a late 2008 game at Gillette Stadium.
“My headset was working fine, every game,” Dansby told Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio. “Until the very last game of the year. We get in Foxboro, they couldn’t get my headset fixed, for nothing in the world.
“I didn’t have not one problem until I went into Foxboro. You can ask anybody on that team that year. We didn’t have no problems with my headset until I got to Foxboro.”
Apparently quarterback Matt Leinart had issues as well, telling reporters after the game — a 47-7 Patriots win — that all he could hear was static.
“It was like I had earphones on listening to music really loud,” Leinart said, via AZCentral.com.
Now would be a good time to mention that it snowed steadily throughout the game while temperatures hovered in the low 30s, creating a cold, wet environment that easily could have caused the electronic communication system — which the NFL had just installed earlier that season — to malfunction.
But don’t tell that to Dansby, who apparently believes the Patriots dropped paratroopers behind enemy lines to snip a few wires before slipping stealthily into the night.
“C’mon, man. C’mon,” Dansby said. “It’s not a secret. They gotta do what they gotta do to win, man. They gonna do what they gotta do to win. It’s just how they operate.”
Thumbnail photo via Mark J. Rebilas/USA TODAY Sports Images
