PatsPropaganda

An Independent Patriots Blog

A look back at “NEInsider”, connecting Spygate to Deflategate

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Four years ago I put together this post about an ESPN messageboard poster calling themselves “NEInsider” who claimed to have a lot of inside knowledge that he shared. He didn’t make many posts, but he certainly seemed knowledgeable and well-spoken enough to consider he might actually be a New England Patriots insider.

Last night, @eomrules sent me this thread from PatsFans.com that reposted one of NEInsider’s posts that seems even more interesting now in retrospect. Remember this was posted many years ago, in the wake of Spygate.

The Kraft family was a Goodell supporter and will never openly criticize him but they are livid over the way Spygate was handled and the fact Goodell hung them out as “Cheaters” when he absolutely knew it never helped during a game and then on national TV aknowledged frivilous accusations like phone tampering etc. when he stated more punishment would be added if necessary instead of doing the right thing and stating such claims were baseless without proof since he knew we could never tamper with phones since we never knew what system or what frequency was availbale to us until game time. 

This certainly raises the question of why did the Kraft’s decide to start trusting in Goodell again. Obviously Spygate happened very soon after Goodell first started so maybe they were just giving him a second chance?

I highly recommend you read the entire post, because it has a lot of interesting comments on Spygate, especially this one:

We taped defensive signals and offensive formation signals and we still have video of other teams taping us. They are of little value since no team uses the same signals even from game to game, quarter to quarter, and sometimes from series to series. We do it to FORCE the opposition to stay on thier toes and change signals hoping they mix up signals and have a bad play that results in a big play for us. There are no offensive signals only formation signals which are useless and they were taped at the same time as offensive signals and WERE possibly even on the Spygate tape. Any claims are baseless on this.

Again, this guy could be full of shit, but as you can see he doesn’t sound like your regular messageboard troll.

Tweets of Note from Friday’s Patriots Training Camp Practice

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Today was one of those practices where each new tweet seems to be bad information, with LeGarrette Blount suffering an injury that forced him to leave practice being the headline. And that wasn’t the only injury, on top of a total of 21 Patriots not practicing. Yes, the battle of attrition in camp is real and has a huge effect on who makes the team. Here are the tweets of note from Friday…

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sawyoulingeringstill:

Brady to Gronk at Patriots Training Camp today. 

That’s Jordan Richards covering Gronk and although the pass is completed, Richards does it about as well as you could hope, especially for a rookie, not to mention one that allegedly shouldn’t have been drafted as high as he was. Gronk’s gonna Gronk, but nice effort by Richards.

(Source: http://sawyoulingeringstill.tumblr.com/)

https://www.patspropaganda.com/sawyoulingeringstill-brady-to-gronk-at-patriots/

Less than a week until the NFC Finalists come to town. What are you going to be watching for? I’m interested in: 1. Top CB play vs. Rodgers and his weapons; 2. Run defense against Lacy; 3. Rookie guard play; 4. Pass rush from the #1s (including Sheard) all the way through the rookies.

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Important things to talk about here and I’ll probably have to go back and link to this during the game, but here are some thoughts on yours and a couple of my own.

1. CB play vs. Rodgers – We might only see a series or two from Rodgers and their top offense, but the important thing to remember is that the Patriots are going to play a vanilla defense. What that means is Cover 1, Cover 2 or Cover 3. I expect they’ll play a lot of man to man just to see how guys do, not because that’s the coverage they’re planning on playing primarily this season. 

So much of the Patriots’ strength on defense is their disguise and mixing of coverages. So in no way will this game tell us how good they’ll be as a defense. What you’ll be able to see is how good guys are in their individual matchups and then that will inform how they’re actually used when the Pats start gameplanning.

2. Run defense is very important but let’s remember with limited tackling in practice now we can expect the tackling will be sloppy, and that will unfortunately continue into September as we saw last year. But still, stopping the run when the defense is evolving to more athletes than size will be an interesting thing to watch.

3. No question, it will be fun to watch the rookie guards. I’m excited to see Shaq Mason pulling in the running game, but I’m more curious to see how he holds up in the passing game, especially with a big tackle or linebacker bearing down on him.

4. Pass rush is kinda the same thing as the coverage, it’s going to be four guys rushing one on one probably and not any disguise to open up blitzers. Still, this is important from an individual physical performance point of view, but we’re not going to learn how good the 2015 Patriots pass rush will actually be in the regular season. Of course, the best pass rushers are the ones who can win one-on-one so we will get a sense of potential on some guys, especially the rookies. It’d be nice to see Easley launch through the line into the backfield a couple of times.

For me I’m most excited to see the rookies out there and see how their games translate at the pro level. Do they look lost? Or do they look like they’re immediately playing at real speed?

Jordan Richards is one I am very curious about.

Finally I want to see the running backs and how well they do at everything. I’d love to see Jonas Gray put in a strong showing, I think we need him to step up into a significant role now that it doesn’t look like Gaffney’s going to do much at least for now.

Do you find exact wording of the Sullivan email strange? It seems contrived to me. The fact that it went to the NFL and they didn’t notify the Patriots (likely averting DeflateGate completely) really sticks in my craw.

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Here it is for those who don’t know what he’s talking about…

This is probably worthy of its own investigation because you’re right, it makes no sense. On the surface the two are not related – because the K balls he references are handled by the league and supposed to be new. 

Even if they were the wrong balls, how is that related to the Patriots or playing in New England? That’s a ref issue. And why would the Ravens care to relay something insignificant like that to the Colts?

Then he segways into the rumor of the Pats deflating balls as a rumor that should be investigated, which seems like the real purpose of this email.

So perhaps mentioning the Ravens, albeit for something completely unrelated in any way except under the general topic of footballs, it gives the appearance of credibility I guess.

But is the Colts special teams coach really this much of a factor in the whole thing that he was singlehandedly able to get his GM to notify the league offices of a long-held rumor?

This whole thing is very strange and Ravens fans and management seem apoplectic about it. I don’t know what is true, but I’m more focused on the Colts’ blame in this than the Ravens.