Scandal: Belichick Admits to Exploiting a 'Loophole' in the Rules

Source – With the Patriots leading 33-0 in the fourth quarter on Monday night, they took a delay of game penalty with their punt team on the field. After the Jets declined the penalty, the clock started again, and the Patriots’ punt team waited until they were about to get another delay of game, then false started. The Jets declined the false start penalty, too, the clock started again, and then the Patriots finally punted.

When the Patriots’ third-down play ended, 11:05 remained in the fourth quarter. By the time the Patriots actually punted on fourth down, 9:43 remained. The whole point of the play clock is that teams can’t take more than 40 seconds between plays, but the Patriots, thanks to that running clock after their penalties, took 1 minute, 22 seconds.

Patriots coach Bill Belichick [said] that league rules probably shouldn’t allow that.

“No, it was just the way the rules are set up. We were able to run quite a bit of time off the clock without really having to do anything. That’s probably a loophole that will be closed and probably should be closed but right now it’s open,” Belichick said.

Dammit all, Bill Belichick. This is why everyone hates you. Bill Beli-cheat. Of the New England Cheatriots. Always sitting there on your Cheat Seat in your Fortress of Cheatitude, concocting your evil schemes. Writing your cheat codes to cheat like the cheating cheaters that you are.

So how long have you been waiting to spring this nefarious plot? Weeks? Months? Years??? This rule has been available for every other coach in NFL history. And they didn’t bend the spirit of it until it broke the way you did. Not because they didn’t bother to read it or were too simple-minded to see what was right in front of them. But because they’re not cheaters. They’re not looking for an unfair advantage in order to win. They have integrity. Hell, Andy Reid doesn’t even manage the clock with any logic or use his timeouts properly, he’s so dedicated to making football fair and give everyone a chance to win. That’s what I call respect for the game. But Coach Belicheat wouldn’t know a thing about that.

So let’s just do what we always do: Slap a -Gate suffix on the end of this thing and throw it on the pile with all the other Patriots cheating scandals. Let’s call it Delay of Gamegate. And toss it on top of the mountainous rubbish heap along with Rams Walkthrugate, Tuck Rulegate, Spygate, Scoreboardgate, Helmet Radiogate, Bugged Lockerroomgate, Ineligible Receivergate, Warm Gatoradegate, Deflategate and Tampering on Antonio Browngate. And that’s just the ones that gave them an unfair competitive advantage. That doesn’t include all the garden variety scandals like MAGA Hatgate or Asian Handjobgate.

It’ll be interesting to see just how soon the Rules Committee closes this “loophole” now that the one guy smart enough to spot it has already used it to his advantage. My guess is this can’t wait until the end of the season. They’re going to have to be called into emergency session like the Justice League. I mean, this doesn’t matter much in a curb-stomping of the Jets in October. But if he were to use it in a close game in the playoffs, I just don’t see any way the republic would survive.

So it’s a question of “when,” not “if.” And a question of “how many?” As in “How many 1st Round picks will this cost us?”

P.S. When Belichick was in Cleveland, Art Modell reportedly used to go around saying “I’ll pay $10,000 to anyone who can tell me what Ernie Adams does.” This is it. Will Modell’s estate still pay me?