While much of the information in the new ESPN report detailing the Patriots’ Spygate-era portrays the team has engaged in something akin to espionage, there are also charges that they were into more common forms of larceny as well.
Among the charges outlined in the Outside the Lines report include one so brazen and blatant that it seems hard to believe.
Several former Patriots coaches and employees alleged that the team would send “low-level” employees into opposing locker rooms during pre-game warm-ups to “steal play sheets” from teams which scripted their offenses.
The report also says the team would send employees to “rummage through the visiting team hotel for playbooks or scouting reports.”
Such tactics were apparently suspected by other teams, who would leave dummy play sheets sitting around in hopes of throwing the Patriots off their trails.
Along with the jamming of radio signals — something many coaches around the league have complained about for so long it seems desensitized — the story paints a picture of the lengths the Patriots would allegedly go to.