Patriots are great, sure, but they're also confirmed cheaters

Bill Belichick is one of the greatest coaches in NFL history. And a cheater.

Tom Brady is one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history. And probably a cheater.

Both statements can be true of both men, the most successful coach/quarterback combo in league annals and the duo the Tennessee Titans must defeat Saturday to reach the AFC championship game. Because things are rarely as simple as we want them to be.

No, Patriots fans, the fact that Belichick is incredibly good at his job does not invalidate the evidence resulting from the “Spygate” investigation of 2007, in which the Patriots were found to have illegally videotaped Jets coaches’ signals. The scope beyond that is up for debate – charges that the Pats videotaped a Rams walk-through before Super Bowl XXXVI were not proven – but the Jets transgression and punishments are on the books and Pats owner Robert Kraft has apologized for it. It’s real.

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No, non-Patriots fans, “Spygate” and “Deflategate,” the case of Brady using slightly deflated footballs for better grip in the cold of a 2015 AFC title game blowout of the Colts, does not invalidate any of the achievements of Belichick and Brady. They’re both in the Hall of Fame the minute they become eligible, and the only way “gate” is uttered in Canton is if someone makes fun of the way Brady runs (yes, I know it’s spelled “gait.”)

Now, Patriots fans will tell you the NFL totally botched the “Deflategate” investigation, and they’re right, and Roger Goodell deserved his usual skewering for it. But if you studied all available information on that situation and concluded Brady was totally innocent, you’re probably a Patriots fan.

Which means you probably think the recent ESPN report on internal Patriots fracturing is made up. To briefly sum, it contends, citing anonymous sources, that tension has developed between Brady and Belichick, and that owner Robert Kraft mandated that Belichick trade backup quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.

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Kraft told Peter King of Sports Illustrated the story is a “total fabrication and fiction,” which is hard to believe, because Seth Wickersham is a respected reporter and because editors carefully vet sources in situations like this. Also, the story makes sense.

But Kraft can play to his constituents and they’ll gobble it up because they want to believe him. It happens. And it’s the downside of using and protecting anonymous sources who don’t have to be accountable for their words.

Saturday’s AFC divisional game at Gillette Stadium will be the Patriots’ first time on the field since the report came out. They’ve said little else about it, but there’s a feeling in Boston that they’ll play angry because of it.

For the record, “Spygate” came at the start of an unbeaten regular season (the Pats were stunned by the Giants in Super Bowl XLII). And “Deflategate” preceded a win over the Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX, and Brady’s four-game suspension for it last season preceded a win over the Falcons in Super Bowl LI. Controversy seems to fuel the Pats.

Is corner cutting still part of their formula? This is a good time to mention the Pats have plenty of company, in the NFL and elsewhere. I mean, John Wooden will always be regarded as one of the greatest coaches and humans in sports history, yet his UCLA program was the playground of Sam Gilbert, a Dirty Booster Hall of Famer.

We now have an FBI investigation into college basketball cheating, and we have performance-enhancing drugs in just about any sport you can name. Probably not curling. But who knows? Those brooms don’t move themselves.

In the NFL, a long list of gotcha moments includes former Jaguars defensive end Renaldo Wynn claiming in 2014 that the Titans had their playbook in 1999. The Titans beat the Jags three times that season, including in the AFC championship game for the only Super Bowl trip in franchise history. And Wynn said then-Titans defensive coordinator Gregg Williams told him years later that the Titans had the Jags’ playbook.

Williams later said it was a “joke story.” Both fan bases will believe what they want to believe. Point is, few prominent sports teams are free of any such allegations.

But when a team is actually caught, you wonder if they’re a bit more brazen than others. And you wonder how much they got away with before they got caught.

Which brings me to a funny conversation I had recently on 102.5-FM with Willy Daunic, “3D” host and Nashville Predators TV play-by-play announcer. We were talking about the Titans’ 17-14 playoff loss at New England in 2004. It came a week after a win over the Ravens – which was the franchise’s most recent postseason win before last week’s 22-21 comeback stunner at Kansas City.

One thing Daunic remembered about that game is being impressed with the way Brady threw the ball around despite temperatures as low as minus-5.

Hmmmmmmm.

We’ll never know on most of this stuff, but we do know that in the wake of “Spygate,” several coaches and players on other teams revealed measures they had taken to avoid Pats spying. Clearing out trash cans in the team hotel so Pats operatives couldn’t find anything, whispered game-plan discussions in Gillette Stadium hallways in case the locker room was bugged, and so on.

Now the Titans are back to try to beat a team that is undeniably great, potentially ornery and often under suspicion.

“I don’t know how true that stuff is,” Titans tight end Delanie Walker said of the Pats and cheating. “I think they get a lot of negativity because they win a lot. Everyone’s always going to have a reason why. I don’t think it’s a big concern, I don’t think the NFL watches them different because of that. They just beat teams, and people make excuses for it.”

And no, he’s not a Patriots fan.

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Contact Joe Rexrode at jrexrode@tennessean.com and follow him on Twitter @joerexrode.