The worst part is not the act itself. The worst part is the New England Patriots, of all people, get to indulge a heapin' helpin' of self-righteousness now.
This upon the news that the Indianapolis Colts, who outed the Pats for Deflategate, were a bunch of scheming cheaters, too, and were frankly way more blatant about it. A smidge or two of air getting taken out of a football is pretty minor stuff, except that it came from a team that had been caught spying multiple times on other teams. But equipping your offensive linemen with crowd-muffling hearing aids so they can better hear their quarterback's snap count?
That is absolutely, positively against the rules. And according to former Colts offensive lineman Tarik Glenn, it was line coach Howard Mudd who supplied the illicit goods back there in 1998 when Peyton Manning was a rookie.
“We were playing on the road, it might have been Peyton’s rookie year, and it was really loud,” Glenn told Clifton Brown of the Indianapolis Star in a recent profile. “Peyton [Manning] hadn’t mastered the silent count, so [former offensive line coach] Howard Mudd had us wearing these hearing aids that were supposed to muffle the crowd while projecting the quarterback’s voice.”
You can hear the howls of outrage from all those Sullys in their Tom Brady jerseys from here.
Yah, they're accusin' US of cheatin', and they're a buncha cheatin' bastahds, too. Buncha Indiana hilljacks ...
Or something like that.
In any case, there is egg on a few faces down in Indy now, and the only defense available is that, even if the Colts blatantly cheated, it sure didn't help 'em much. They went 3-13 in 1998.
Of course, the question is whether or not this was an isolated incident, or if it was something they continued doing after '98. Glenn didn't say, so let the speculatin' begin.
In the meantime, if you're a Colts fan, forget the hearing aids. Best wear earplugs to block out all the derision from Boston.
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