Sometimes, as the old saying goes, success breeds contempt. There's no denying that the Patriots have been the NFL's most successful franchise this century. There's also no denying that questions loom about how they went about achieving that success.
A week after a federal judge vacated Tom Brady's four-game suspension for his involvement in Deflategate, the Patriots were again the focus of possible gamesmanship after Steelers coach Mike Tomlin complained of malfunctioning headsets during the first half of Thursday's season opener.
Belichick was asked about the seemingly never-ending string of scandals.
"I think overall it's kind of sad, really, to see some things that obviously have an agenda written to them," he said Friday, via the Providence Journal. "Writing about warm drinks and trash cans? It's kind of sad. It goes to a pretty low level."
Belichick wasn't talking about Tomlin, but an ESPN report published on Monday that alleged the Patriots, among other things, videotaped at least 40 teams from 2000-2007.
"Our program is built on competition and working hard and not built on excuses," he continued.
As for Tomlin's remarks, Belichick seemed unsurprised because he's been in a similar situation.
"It's pretty common," he explained. "There's a lot of stuff going on down there, offense/defense, coach/quarterback, a line to the press box. There's a lot of stuff going on."
Tomlin said that for much of the first half, Steelers coaches could only hear the Patriots' radio broadcast in their headsets. Belichick, meanwhile, said the Patriots had issues late in the game.
"We got to the end of the game and the most problems we had were on the last two possessions," Belichick explained. "You go to the blue or purple hats [technical staff] and they fix it...we ended up hard-wiring some of our head sets. It's not an uncommon problem."
We'll repeat what we've written several times already: The league -- not the home team -- is responsible for the headsets.
"In the first quarter of tonight's game, the Pittsburgh coaches experienced interference in their headsets caused by a stadium power infrastructure issue, which was exacerbated by the inclement weather," the league said in a statement released after the game. "The coaches' communications equipment, including the headsets, is provided by the NFL for both clubs use on game day. Once the power issue was addressed, the equipment functioned properly with no additional issues."
That said, it's hardly surprising that the Steelers -- or 30 other teams -- remain skeptical.
