Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh was furious on the sidelines in the contest between his team and the New England Patriots on Saturday.

Reacting to what he called a substitution trick by the Patriots, in which they lined up only four offensive lineman at the line of scrimmage, and declared either a running back or tight end as ineligible, the coach ran onto the field of play in the third quarter to share his anger with the refs, drawing an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.

“Do you have any idea what they’re doing? I don’t! Does somebody? What is happening?!’’ —The Boston Globe

“It was clearly deception,’’ Harbaugh said after the game, noting that the Patriots’ formations didn’t allow the defense time to adjust. “That’s why I had to take the penalty, to get their attention so they would understand what was going on because they didn’t understand what was going on…’’ he said of his defense. “That’s why guys were open, because we didn’t ID where the eligible receivers were at.’’


“The league will look at that type of thing, and I’m sure that they’ll make some adjustments and things like that,’’ he added.

Told of Harbaugh’s response, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady responded in characteristically glib fashion. “Maybe those guys gotta study the rulebook and figure it out,’’ he said. “We obviously knew what we were doing and we made some pretty important plays.’’

While Harbaugh was too classy to get into any sort of name-calling or excuse-making, plenty of Baltimore fans were happy to do so for him. “Patriots cheating? Who would have guessed?’’ read one typical comment on ESPN.com. “Welcome to playing the cheatriots,’’ another. “Deception and cheating is something they’re experts at. It’s why very few people outside of New England take them and their tainted title seriously.’’

Let’s not forget, only a short seven years ago, the Patriots were caught pointing cameras at the field from a different angle than they were supposed to.

In fact, while this ineligible receiver formation is getting all of the attention, it was far from the only instance of skullduggery perpetrated by Bill Bellicheat, as iconic Miami Dolphins coach Don Shula called him the other day.


In the first quarter, with the Patriots trailing 14-0, Tom Brady lined the team up on their own 40-yard line with LeGarrette Blount as the lone back, and two receivers split wide. Then, perhaps sensing an opportunity to catch the Ravens defense off guard, Brady sent tight end Michael Hoomanawanui running across the field, to the opposite side of where he began, forcing a Ravens linebacker to completely change his positioning.

On top of that, Brady snapped the ball, then feigned as if he were going to hand it off to Blount, who pretended he had, in fact, received the ball, and proceeded to “run’’ with it. All the while the Patriots real plan was unfolding, with Rob Gronkowski streaming down the middle of the field, where he caught the ball for a 46 yard gain.

Not exactly old-school style smash mouth football at work.

A few plays later, Brady snapped the ball from the Ravens 5-yard line, and dropped back as if he were intending to pass it to one of his receivers sprinting toward the end zone. Instead, the quarterback tucked the ball and rushed headlong into the end zone himself, splitting two Ravens defenders. There was no way the Ravens could have ever reasonably expected the 37-year-old, not exactly fleet-of-foot Brady would run with the ball, something I’m sure the league might want to review going forward this week. To make matters worse, the Patriots had been lined up with an overload to the right side of the line, tricking the defense into moving most of their players over to that side. Where did Brady go with the ball? The other way.

Tom Brady running for a touchdown instead of passing for one will likely be a hot topic for the officials in the offseason. —Getty Images


Later on, with the Patriots again trailing by 14 points, Brady marched the team down to the 5-yard line, where he found Gronkowski spread wide in one-on-one coverage. He raised his hand in the air, signaling to Gronkowski in some sort of coded message – one which the Ravens defenders were not privy to prior to the play, it’s safe to assume – at which point the tight end changed his route, and streaked toward the middle of the field for a score. Harbaugh was not happy on the sidelines after that one, needless to say.

TB: “Rob, if I raise my hand at the line, that means I’m not going to hand it off, but will throw it to you.’’ Rob: “But isn’t that …’’ TB: “ROB!! Just watch for my hand!’’ —AP

Last-minute duplicitousness aside, one has to consider the fairness of even using Gronkowski on such a play in the first place. Expecting any defender to hold his own against a player that fast and large, and with such soft hands, just doesn’t seem sportsmanlike.

All of which pales in comparison to the biggest instance of deception the league saw all weekend, perhaps all year, when in the third quarter, with receiver Julian Edelman spread wide, Brady threw the ball backwards toward him, which is the opposite direction one normally throws the ball, at which point Edelman himself looked down the field, falsely assuming the role of a quarterback, and threw the ball again to Danny Amendola, who raced fifty yards into the end zone. Two passes in one single play. Amendola had been left uncovered by the Ravens because the first pass from Brady tricked them into thinking it was going to be a screen. That was not the case, as it turned out.

It was the two passes on one play that might be the greatest deception of them all. Illegal? Probably not. Sneaky and deceptive? You bet. —Getty Images

It wasn’t just on the offensive side of the ball that the Patriots were emptying out the ethically dubious bag of tricks. On the deciding play of the game, Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco threw a pass to Tory Smith, who, at the time of its release, was in single coverage against backup corner Logan Ryan. Little did Flacco known, however, that Duron Harmon was also, covertly, with no prior indication to the offense of his intentions, patrolling that side of the field. Harmon slid over and easily intercepted Flacco’s pass. Game over.

Now, is any of that stuff technically “illegal’’? Who’s to say, as the NFL’s rulebook is infamously byzantine. But I think we can all agree it’s definitely not the type of straight-up mano a mano football you’d like to see come playoff time. Asked after the game whether or not the Patriots had done anything cheap or illegal, Harbaugh was diplomatic. “I’m not going to comment on that,’’ he said. He doesn’t need to. The rest of us know what we saw. Unlike the Patriots, the tape doesn’t lie.