After every New England Patriots game this season, there seemed to be a good number of players from whatever team they just beat complaining about either how the Patriots won the game or how the officials called the game. Inevitably, the Spark Notes version of their comments would be, “They won because the league wants them to win.” At least after this happened, the media could be sure that they would have another story on Thursday when the league handed out its weekly fines. Officials would then make their obligatory remarks about how they are not one-sided, and analysts would go over the tape to show that the opposing team actually did commit pass interference against Randy Moss or Wes Welker. Most think that it would be insane for the league to do something that would compromise their integrity by telling the officials to call the plays in favor of a single team. Before even getting into whether or not the league would benefit from the Patriots winning out, one has to consider the kind of hit the league would take if it were discovered that they were actually trying to throw games for ratings or financial reasons.  

It probably was beneficial to the league for the Patriots to go undefeated in the regular season. This is not to say that the league did anything to sway the result, but every time the Pats played, the ratings went up.  They made news nearly every week for having had the highest ratings in the NFL the previous weekend. This was especially true because they were almost always shown in one of the NFL’s prime time slots (on Sunday and Monday night). Some were even claiming that this will be the season of not one, not two, but three Super Bowls.  

The first was the match-up between the Indianapolis Colts and the Patriots in the middle of the season, when they were both undefeated. The second would have been the Patriots’ possible rematch with the Colts in the AFC Championship Game (which didn’t happen because of the Colts’ loss to the San Diego Chargers). The third would obviously be the real Super Bowl. Perhaps the league wanted the Patriots to win all of these games, but the same argument could be made for the Colts. Had the Colts won the game against the Patriots, which was close throughout, they would be the team at which the fingers would be pointed. At this point in the season, one could argue just as much for the league having wanted the Colts to win as it wanted the Pats to win. 

Nonetheless, people seemed to jump all over the Patriots mainly because they were not just beating teams; they were manhandling them. They were routinely putting up over 40 points per game and challenging every single season offensive record conceivable.  From this logic, it was great for the league for the Pats to go undefeated during every game of the regular season, but what about the playoffs?  

Ratings continued to go up as the playoffs went along because of the Patriots pursuit of perfection. Also, because of the cheating scandal, “Spy Gate,” it seems that more people root against the Patriots every week (even though there also seemed to be a push to make Mercury Morris and the other members of the 1972 Miami Dolphins stop popping champagne).  

Earlier in the playoffs on SportsCenter, comments were made about how the Jacksonville Jaguars had more fans during their playoff game against the Pats than they had ever had before. As they progressed through the playoffs, ratings rose just as they did in the regular season. Records continued to be broken, which was illustrated by the Super Bowl which was the second most watched show in television history behind the finale of M*A*S*H. 

From this perspective it looked like the league had nothing to lose and everything to gain from the Patriots winning out. So, why would the league want the Patriots to get to the Super Bowl, but not win it? If the Pats would have run the table and earned their fourth title, there will be a lot of people claiming that the season should not count or that it should have an asterisk because the team was caught cheating during the first game of the season.  

By the time the Patriots got to the Super Bowl, there were a lot people who either jumped on their bandwagon, as so many seem to do for the frontrunner, or decided to root against them because they cheated.  The League would have had a big problem on its hands if Tom Brady is holding the Lombardi trophy at the end of the season. The League probably would not have done anything about the record, but people would’ve always said that they should have done something, or that they should have done more when the Pats were caught cheating. Since New England did not make it through the Super Bowl, according to Giants receiver Amani Toomer, “[Spygate] don’t matter no more.” One would have to believe that it was in the League’s best interest to have the Patriots lose on Super Sunday, especially after the new spying allegations reared their ugly head. 

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