The Patriots are back in the Super Bowl with a new team. But the most nefarious dynasty in NFL history is still attached to its scandalous past.
Amid all the winning and on-field excellence, the Patriots never stopped their grievances. Every alleged impropriety fueled resentment among fans and media types alike, who whipped themselves into feeding frenzies over the NFL world’s apparent animosity towards the greatest coach and quarterback of all-time.
Those hard feelings have carried over to this week. But in a plot twist, a lot of the venom is being directed towards Tom Brady himself. The regional icon refused to pick the Patriots in the big game and said he “doesn’t have a dog” in the fight.
TB12 not siding with the Patriots hurts even more than Bill Belichick’s and Robert Kraft’s Hall of Fame snubs.
It also propels the notion that the Patriots will never be respected, even by their own football messiah. The city’s sports radio stations have happily stoked the outrage.
“If you’re a Patriot for life, you know what it is. Don’t gibe me that poltical bullcrap”
Vince Wilfork CALLS OUT Tom Brady for saying he doesn’t have a dog in the fight on Sunday 👀😳 pic.twitter.com/17DF7o8nnC
— WEEI (@WEEI) February 4, 2026
For three years, I had a front row seat for the most chaotic and vindictive period of the Patriots dynasty. As a host on WEEI, I covered Deflategate, three Super Bowls, Trump, Aaron Hernandez and the bitter feud between Belichick and Brady.
The Patriots were at their apex, and the disconnect between their local and national image had never been greater. For most of the country, the Patriots are a powerful and unstoppable force.
Meanwhile, Patriots fans view their team as a perpetual victim. This polarization simmered over a 20-year period and continues to boil over today.
“Us vs. Them”
Spygate started the alternative reality. A 2015 ESPN story outlines how other NFL owners thought it was suspicious that Roger Goodell ordered the evidence destroyed.
“Goodell didn’t want anybody to know that his gold franchise had won Super Bowls by cheating,” said a senior exec. “If that gets out, that hurts your business.”
Don Van Natta Jr. and Seth Wickersham reported that many owners thought “Goodell, Kraft and Belichick had acted like partners.”
In New England, a different story was told. Former Jets coach Eric Mangini was cast as the villain for ratting on Belichick, his one-time mentor. For years, voices like WEEI legend Glenn Ordway obsessed over the pedantic story and berated opponents for not grasping nuances.
They would say that videotaping opposing coaches wasn’t illegal. The Patriots just taped in the wrong place, one time.
In a true mask off moment, Belichick presented a version of that argument at his infamous “Mona Lisa Vito” press conference, when he was defending himself over another scandal, Deflategate.
In regards to Spygate, Belichick said there was nothing illegal about it.
“The guy’s giving signals in front of 80,000 people, OK?,” he said. “So we filmed him making signals out in front of 80,000 people like there were a lot of other teams doing at that time, too. Forget about that.”
Nearly 20 years later, people have not forgotten. When Belichick’s name was brought forward for the Hall, Spygate and Deflategate were mentioned, according to Van Natta. Belichick may be exonerated in New England. That’s not the case nationally.
Deflategate and radicalization
The last time the Patriots played the Seahawks in the Super Bowl, they were gearing up for a broadside against the league to push back on Deflategate. The NFL’s Wells report determined it was “more probable than not” the Patriots illegally deflated footballs against the Colts and that Brady probably knew.
A week later, the Patriots released their own 20,000-word rebuttal to the NFL’s findings. The laborious document contested everything the NFL alleged and was mandatory reading for those defending the wall.
“I was wrong to put my faith in the league,” said Kraft after Brady was suspended for four games.
Around that time, WEEI morning hosts Gerry Callahan and Kirk Minihane invited on adversaries and bludgeoned them with facts about the Ideal Gas Law and specific text exchanges between team low-level employees.
“Did you read the Wells Report?!,” was one of their common refrains.
The answer was usually, “no.” The national press followed the story’s broad strokes and then ran with the narrative. Patriots diehards wanted them exposed.
Perhaps nobody understood this mission better than Dave Portnoy. He literally got arrested at NFL headquarters.
During the Deflategate era, Goodell clown towels were ubiquitous at Gillette Stadium. Barstool produced them.
“It’s Brady, Belichick, Portnoy,” said Kraft.
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Tens of millions of dollars later, Portnoy is in lockstep with the Patriots’ owner. He enjoyed a game this season from the owner’s box.
Feeding the frenzy
The drama that followed Deflategate heightened the fervor to a fever pitch. The Patriots transitioned into their most tumultuous era, when Belichick and Brady battled for control.
Wickersham’s annual exposes about the their dysfunction were dissected down to the punctuation, and Barstool bloggers launched a full-on campaign against the heralded journalist.
Salacious stories–Belichick banning Brady guru Alex Guerrero from the locker room, Belichick almost trading Rob Gronkowski, Kraft forcing Belichick to trade Brady heir apparent Jimmy Garoppolo–were reported on a regular basis. They were all denied in real time and turned out to be true.
At close glance, it looked like the Patriots were exploding from the inside. But the rest of the NFL saw a team that just kept winning. They played in three straight Super Bowls when Belichick and Brady were at their worst, winning two of them.
Across the airwaves in Boston, however, there was constant conflict. Evil forces were always trying to bring the Patriots down.
Where do we stand now?
Nobody currently on the Patriots played with Brady and only 16 played for Belichick. There’s been a lot of talk about how Mike Vrabel has changed the vibe around the team and rightfully so. Drake Maye’s babyface is a long way from Brady’s crimson chin.
But the controversies of this week show the resentment still lingers. The Patriots can’t be a feel good story.
The secret is, it’s better for business that way.
About Alex Reimer