While "Deflategate" was seemingly put to bed last Thursday, "Spygate" arose from the ashes on Tuesday.

ESPN released new details about the Patriots' illegal videotaping of defensive signals from 2001-07, which included physical evidence of how they cheated during their win over the Steelers in the AFC Championship Game in January of 2002.

Here's a part of the story, written by ESPN's Don Van Natta Jr.Seth Wickersham:

"Inside a room accessible only to Belichick and a few others, they found a library of scouting material containing videotapes of opponents' signals, with detailed notes matching signals to plays for many teams going back seven seasons. Among them were handwritten diagrams of the defensive signals of the Pittsburgh Steelers, including the notes used in the January 2002 AFC Championship Game won by the Patriots 24-17. Yet almost as quickly as the tapes and notes were found, they were destroyed, on Goodell's orders: League executives stomped the tapes into pieces and shredded the papers inside a Gillette Stadium conference room."

This new evidence confirms many former Steelers' players' sentiments that the Patriots had an unfair advantage in Pittsburgh's two AFC Championship Game losses against New England in January of '02 and '05. Back in 2008, former Steelers linebacker and current linebackers coach Joey Porter said as much while saying the Patriots' "stole" two Super Bowls from his team.

"Two times we could have blown them people out easily. They say, 'Oh, (Bill Belichick is) so smart. This is the best brain-storming coach.' Yeah, because he's cheating. He got caught," Porter said. "They've been videotaping for years, man. You cannot sit up there and honestly tell me if it wasn't working, why was he doing it so much? You're not going to sit up there and tell me if I'm a quarterback in my headset I know where the blitz is coming. I know where my hots and stuff is at before it happens. I know what play you're running on defense. All you got to do is be in the right position, just catch the ball."

Jerome Bettis, who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame this past August, said earlier this year that he has always felt that "Spygate" played a massive role in his team's loss to the Patriots in the 2004 AFC title game.

“The Spygate thing, that was frustrating,” said Bettis, who, according to Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writer Ed Bouchette, believes the Patriots had the Steelers’ hand signals and used them to their advantage in their 41-27 victory. “Looking back, there were opportunities that were blown that was very hurtful,” Bettis said. “But you can’t cry over spilled milk, and we lost those opportunities. We should have played better and we didn’t and we can’t do anything but blame ourselves.”

Bettis is right. No matter how unfair Spygate was and no matter how shady the NFL was in masking their findings over the years, that facts are that New England won those games as well as three Super Bowls during that span. The only thing the Steelers can do for solace is defeat the Patriots on the field, something they will try to do in Thursday's opening game.