Patriots Jets Football

The NFL playoff picture has football's sharpest minds at work. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

With a chance to lock up home field advantage through the NFL playoffs on the line, the New England Patriots dropped a hard-fought overtime game against the New York Jets on Sunday. The win gives the Jets a major boost in the AFC playoff picture, especially given the Pittsburgh Steelers' surprising loss to the Baltimore Ravens.

However, it didn't take long for the Twitter conspiracy theorists to come out with their own ideas of what happened. To some, Sunday's loss wasn't an example of the Jets rising up with a big win, it was Bill Belichick playing mind games with the rest of the NFL. That's right: Some fans are claiming the Patriots lost on purpose to manipulate playoff positioning.

In recent weeks, the Steelers have emerged as a dark horse in the AFC playoff picture. With quarterback Ben Roethlisberger back from injury, the Steelers offense has developed into one of the most dangerous in the AFC. Meanwhile, the Jets are not as considered as potent a threat, especially if the Patriots were to get a playoff rematch with multiple key players back from injury.

The Steelers hold a tiebreaker over the Jets, meaning that New York needs a full game to edge Pittsburgh out of the playoffs. With the Steelers (9-6) losing and the Jets (10-5) winning, that's now the case.

So how strong is the belief? Here's a quick roundup of 30 fans who are convinced they're onto something here, and that Belichick is playing some sort of 3D cosmic chess while everyone else is playing checkers (or something like that):