Seriously, guys? Now we’re talking about imaginary Super Bowls from alternate universes?

For reasons that are entirely beyond me (and I’m sure beyond EmbattledEaglesCoach Andy Reid), half of his starting secondary (I’m shocked they didn’t get Michael Lewis on a conference call from San Francisco) has begun speculating to reporters that the Patriots might have cheated in Super Bowl XXXIX. Sheldon Brown and Brian Dawkins both offered the sort of quotes that reporters can transform into headlines like “Opinions on Pats’ tactics mixed among holdovers from Eagles’ NFC title team.” Of course, given that it’s Philly, half the city probably believes this now as well.

Sigh.

So if it comes out that the Pats broke the explicitly stated rules, I’m on the Carson Palmer plan: they should be disciplined just as severely as the players who’ve been stung by the Commish this summer. Full stop. If you play the game and break the rules, you have to accept the punishment. All this other crap sauce about how everyone does it is and the Pats are getting a hard time because the rest of the teams are jealous is just that: crap sauce. If they broke a rule, they get punished.

But the nonsense and speculation about old games and what ifs, I mean, I guess that’s why we have sports-talk radio? The Pats are/ were really good at football and they won a lot of games. If this stuff is true, we won’t take any of that away, but we also shouldn’t have to listen to breathlessly delusional tributes to “the Patriot way.” Folks are going to call the Pats cheaters, and they’ll be right to call them that (since they got caught cheating).

Mostly I hope the Eagles stop pushing F5 on PFT and start thinking about how they’re going to score many many touchdowns on Monday night against Washington.

(Also, when do we get a Charlie Weis update on this story? Wouldn’t he have been intimately involved in this scheme as well?)

Links:
Patriots cheated in Super Bowl XXXIX? [Inside the Iggles]
Philly wants its Super Bowl back [AOL Fanhouse]