You're Backing the New England Patriots Into a Corner and They're Just Going to Win Their Way Out

You fools. You, poor, dumb, ill-advised, stupid fools. You've really done it now. Look. Look at what you have done! You have accused the New England Patriots of dirty pool as the playoffs approach. Don't you know how what happens next? They're going to come together and rally around each other in the locker room and they are going to win it all.

You've left them with no alternative. And you have no one to blame but yourselves. Your dumb selves. Why couldn't you leave well enough alone? They were perfectly complacent, leading their division and headed for a first round bye again, but now they have motivation. It is them against the world. And they didn't even do anything wrong. They never actually do.

See, yesterday news broke that the Patriots had (allegedly) been caught illegally recording an opponent (again). Would they ever knowingly do that? Of course not. Via ESPN:

""We're competitive and we'll try to be competitive in every area," Belichick said during a conference call with Cincinnati media on Tuesday morning. "But we don't knowingly, intentionally want to do anything that's across the line."

These things just kind of happen all the time and the Patriots should be upset about it. The world is out to get them. One camera crew armed with nothing but plausible deniability shoots some footage of the sideline of the team's next opponent and suddenly the Patriots are the bad guys. It's sickening.

The fans and the media have backed them into a corner and they will have no choice but to fight back. Now they are motivated. Now they really want to win football games.

Before this latest nonstory, the Patriots hadn't even clinched the AFC East yet. Now when they do, it will be because they finally have something to prove. Something they only accidentally proved by winning 16 of the previous 18 AFC East titles. And when they win the AFC Championship for the 10th time in 19 seasons, you will know they were finally driven to prove the critics wrong. And when they win their 7th Super Bowl in 19 seasons, you'll finally understand.

The New England Patriots are finally united. They are finally be motivated. All those stories about Tom Brady being competitive? They are nothing because he didn't really care about winning until just now. Two days ago it didn't matter to Brady or Belichick or the team content creators or anyone else in the Patriots franchise how the team did this year. But now? Now they're pissed. They are dogs and giants and anything else that was asleep but is now awake and the rest of the NFL is really in trouble.

How dare you accuse the Patriots of needing to cheat against the 1-12 Cincinnati Bengals? It makes no sense that a team would go through an entire season winning 10 of their first 13 games and then start cheating for some reason. Against a team in an important game when they only have a 1-game lead in their division and clinging to a first round bye. It just doesn't add up.

The only thing that adds up is the 53 guys in that locker room and the documentary film crew who will be attending Sunday's Steelers - Bills game. And the equally-motivated winners who don't need to cheat. At least not intentionally. So stop hating.