The New England Patriots, former head coach Bill Belichick, and legendary quarterback Tom Brady built up their fair share of NFL enemies during the 21st century.
Sure, a lot of that had to with fact Patriots won six Super Bowls during the Belichick-Brady era, but the animus also came from several cheating scandals involving the franchise.
A new alleged scheme involving the video board in the Patriots’ home Gillette Stadium may give opposing fans even more ammunition for hate after it was highlighted by a former NFL strategy and analytics coach in a viral social media post on Wednesday.
Former NFL strategy and analytics coach Ryan Paganetti, who actually helped stopped Brady and Belichick from winning another Super Bowl as a member of the Philadelphia Eagles staff in 2018, posted a series of photos from the TV broadcasts of Patriots games.
In the photos, it showed that the Patriots used the video board when road teams were kicking field goals at Gillette Stadium to broadcast a reverse camera angle of the goal post.
By showing this reverse camera angle of the goal post in the direct sightline of the opponent’s kicker, it could have potentially distracted the kicker because the video board camera angle of the goal post was off centered from the actual goal post.
Examples of the potential video board distraction can be seen in Paganetti’s viral tweet below. He even said that the Eagles tried to steal the trick from the Patriots while he was on staff, but it did not work because the video board in Philadelphia was not positioned in a place to affect the kicker’s vision.
While it could be explained away as fair if this same camera angle was also used when the Patriots kicker was attempting field goals, Paganetti also posted a series of photos that showed when New England was attempting a field goal the reverse live camera angle of the goal post was not displayed on the video board.
Just how big of an impact the video board displays had on opposing kickers may be difficult to quantify because of multiple factors involved with making or missing a field goal, but given the Patriots’ history of attempting to skirt NFL rules, social media users were quick to categorize this as another instance of New England gaining an unfair advantage.
“Biggest cheaters in sports,” TV broadcaster Vic Lombardi wrote on X about the Patriots’ video board displays.
Fans online also located statistics to try to buttress the argument that the Patriots gained an advantage, showing that opponents made just 76.8% of their field goals compared to the Patriots’ 86.3% (a 9.4% difference) from 2001-2019; the next highest difference for a team was the Indianapolis Colts at just 3.8%.
It should be noted, though, that this data was not broken down into home versus away splits, and it is not exactly known how long the alleged video board scheme was used by the Patriots.
The Patriots may not have also been the only team to try this tactic, as veteran NFL kicker Graham Gano noted on X. Gano played in 123 NFL games over 16 seasons, including the last six with the New York Giants before the team released him in March.
“This used to happen a lot in different places over the years,” Gano wrote. “One stadium used to zoom in on your face, can’t remember which one but it was always interesting to see what opposing teams would do.”
Gano and his former team, the Carolina Panthers, accused the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of using a live video angle of the goal post on video board to distract him during a game in 2017, but at the time the NFL said no rules were violated by Tampa Bay, according to the Charlotte Observer.
At the time, NFL rules reportedly prevented things like extreme close-up shots of the kicker’s face on the video board and fast zooms in and out.
An ESPN report released in 2015 detailed the intricacies of the Patriots’ “Spygate” cheating scandal that resulted in fines for Belichick, the team, and a loss of draft picks. The team used employees to record opponents defensive signals on the sidelines dating back to at least 2000, and then the tapes of the signals were later decoded and used to help Patriots coaches attempt to know what play was being called by the opposing defense during games.
During the NFL’s investigation of Spygate in 2007, the league sent people to the Patriots facility and obliterated tapes and notes involved in the yearslong scheme.
The fact that potential physical evidence to show just how deep the Patriots’ Spygate scandal went was destroyed created angst among NFL executives. Those hard feelings were still around when the 2015 Deflategate controversy occurred eight years later, which reportedly put increased pressure on commissioner Roger Goodell to levy a harsh penalty.
In a 2015 AFC Championship Game victory over the Indianapolis Colts, the Patriots were accused of deflating footballs below the standard level allowed by the NFL. After an investigation, New England was fined $1 million, docked two draft picks, and Brady was suspended four games; the Patriots defeated the Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl to end that season, and Brady, who sued the NFL over the penalty, eventually served the suspension to begin the 2016 season.
Brady left the Patriots after the 2019-20 NFL campaign to join the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where he immediately won a seventh Super Bowl without Belichick in 2021.
The legendary head coach and the Patriots struggled to recapture the success of the Brady era without him, which finally culminated in a parting of ways with Belichick in 2024; Belichick is now in his second season as college football head coach with the North Carolina Tar Heels.
Now that the video board scheme has gone viral, it will be interesting to see what is displayed on the screen if the opposing kicker lines up for a field goal during the Patriots’ 2026 home opener against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sept. 20.
