Six days after losing to the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LII, the New England Patriots fell victim to a classic online prank.

Not only the Eagles quarterback Nick Foles lead his team to the franchise’s first Vince Lombardi trophy, but the 29-year-old also became the owner of the Patriots for a brief period of time Saturday — at least according to the internet’s most popular search engine.

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For several hours Saturday, a keyword Google search for “New England Patriots owner” or “Patriots owner” auto-generated Foles as the answer atop the list of results. Actual Patriots owner Robert Kraft must have been none too pleased.


A Google spokesperson attributed the comedic glitch, which had been fixed as of Sunday, to an edit made on Wikipedia, the crowd-sourced — and notoriously prank-able — online encyclopedia.

“This was caused by a change on Wikipedia that was briefly reflected in our results,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “It’s been fixed on Wikipedia, and we have fixed it on our end as well.”

In fairness, Foles did in a sense at least own the Patriots defense for a few hours last Sunday, having passed for 373 yards and three touchdowns in the Eagles’ Super Bowl win.