Used to like him, but not any more...

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Well, I'm not really sure it proves it. Didn't they win 14 games last year? They're still a good team. They have lost some players.

I suppose the spygate did help them, but there are a lot of other factors to consider. Assistant coaches leaving, other teams getting clued into what they are doing, injuries, age, different defenses and defensive cooridinators.

There are just too many factors to definitively say that spying was the reason they won three superbowls.

They got to a fourth one and nearly won it after spygate. They also went undefeated that season.

If spygate was such a benefit, why only one undefeated season? Why did it happen after spygate?

You won't convince me that Brady's isn't a great quarterback--most TDs in season (50) all time. That was after spygate, too.

He's leading the league in yards passing this year.

He's consistently near the top in yards, touchdowns, rating, wins, etc. He's a leader, a winner, and great in the clutch.

I just wish he wouldn't act like a jerk so much.

I'm not going to respond to all of that. You say cheating helped the Patriots on one or two plays. How do you know this? Which plays? Can you definitively point to which plays they cheated on to help them win the superbowls? If not, how can you prove it?

Also, the fact that they got so close (but came up just short) shows that spying might not have been such a big boost. They could just as easily won their forth superbowl (had they sacked Eli or had Tyree not been able to come up with that catch). Had either of those things occurred they probably would have done so. It was basically a lucky and unlikely play that beat them.

I look at their demise not so much as a consequence of spygate, but as a natural pattern in the NFL. Teams rise and fall. The league is designed that way. Weaker teams get better draft choices.

The Patriots have fallen for the same reason other teams have fallen: The Steelers of the 1970s, The 49ers of the 1980s, the Cowboys of the 1990s.

In most of these cases, the teams had the same players, the same coaches, the same ownership...but they couldn't maintain their domination beyond a decade. Why? Players age, or leave. Coaches get burned out. Schemes get old. Other teams catch up.

Chuck Knoll was a great coach in the 1970s. In the 1980s he did precious little in the playoffs (when he made it). Same thing is happening to The Patriots.

Tom Landry was an excellent coach, coached until the early nineties. Never won a superbowl in the 1980s.

Don Shula, another great coach. Even with Marino (one of the best quarterbacks of all time) never won a superbowl in the last two or three decades of his coaching career.

Teams rise and fall. Patriots are on the downturn, I believe. And comparing the Patriots to the Bengals of the 1980s is silly. They only made it to one superbowl and they lost.

A better comparision is the 49ers of the 1980s and the Pattiots of today.

So, winning a super bowl comes down to one or two plays. The Patriots, in their undefeated season, lost by one unlikely play. Thus, one could argue, the Patriots were actually better after they stopped spying on teams. Their record was better. They scored more points (having Moss certainly helped).

Also, you mentioned their playoff record. I still contend that this is more a reflection of an aging team (and loss of players like Ty Law) than anything else, but I seem to remember Bellicheck benching Wes Welker for the first quarter of their playoff game vs. the Jets last year for comments Welker made about Rex Ryan's toe fetish.

If Welker plays the whole game, maybe the Pats win. Only one or two plays, right? Their best receiver, close game. Maybe the Pats win, go on to defeat the Steelers in the AFC Championship game (they would have had home field advantage) and make it to the Superbowl again.

Of course, they'd have lost to my Packers, but still, another Super Bowl appearane after spygate.

I won't deny they tried to cheat, but I'm not certain how much it helped them. Maybe you are right, and they wouldn't have won superbowls had they not. But the fact that they are still a contending team, one that nearly went undefeated the entire season, sort of tells me that spying didn't help them that much.

And Brady's still a jerk.