Liegate Continues: ESPN is Still Claiming the Patriots Filmed Other Teams' Practices

If you want to argue that Bill Belichick is not the best football coach of all time, be my guest. If you’re partial to Bill Walsh or want to point to Don Shula’s win total or have a warm place in your heart for old Vince Lombardi footage, by all means. Let’s hear it. I mean, I’ll think you’re wrong. Dead wrong. Wronger than vegan bacon. But legitimate arguments can be made.  And to be honest with you, I hate the feeling that comes with agreeing with Max Kellerman on anything. But you’re entitled to your opinion.

What you’re not entitled to are your own facts. Which is exactly the raw material that keeps being fed into the ESPN Lie Factory. This time in the person of Molly Whatshername, here’s Roger Goodell’s Minstry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment just casually throwing it out there that the Patriots were “filming other people’s practices, etc.” Again. For the quadrillionth time. Stating a complete and utter falsehood that was disavowed by the very man who first reported it 10 and a half years ago. A retraction was printed. Apologies made. Even ESPN themselves have had to issue corrections when they fake reported this fake piece of fake news. Usually at 12:30 in the morning when no one was listening. But still.

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And yet here we have the hostette of SportsShouting throwing it out there. Perpetuating this Liegate. And not one guy on the panel can be bothered to waste their breath to say “That never happened. Even our Illustrious Fuhrer doesn’t believe that happened.” And I’ve corrected the record so many times I’ve almost run out ways to say it. So I’ll put it this way:

Back in my misspent youth, Danny Ainge got into a fight with Tree Rollins of the Hawks. And it was a legit fight. Not just a lot of shoving and “hold me back”s, but haymakers flying everywhere. Bodies on the ground. Just a vicious 1980s, low-def alley fight:

Afterwards, Ainge said that when they were on the ground, Rollins bit his finger and showed everybody the teeth marks to prove it. And you didn’t have to take his word for it or have Matt Hooper measure the bite radius on the victim to prove it exactly matched Rollins’ massive jaws. Because cameras caught it happening. Rollins’s mouth around Ainge’s unmistakably Caucasian digit:

But in the immediate aftermath, going forward and to this very day, the belief is that Danny bit Tree. Ask anyone over the age of like 45 and they’ll tell you Ainge was the biter, not the bitee. Because Danny wasn’t well liked, quit baseball to join the Celtics, was a classic “rat” player and a pain in the ass and so everyone’s confirmation bias kicked in despite what they’re lying eyes told them.

That is exactly what this “The Patriots Taped Other Teams’ Practices” fiction is. It’s here. It’s permanent. It’s never going away. But as long as the world keeps repeating it like it’s not 100 percent pure, Grade A horseshit like it’s true, I’ll keep firing back. #DefendtheWall? I never left my post.