Jerome Bettis, Ben Roethlisberger Detail How Patriots Allegedly Cheated During 2004 AFC Championship Game
"It's only a game, you'll get over it!"
Yeah, tell that to former Pittsburgh Steelers Jerome Bettis and Ben Roethlisberger who nearly 20 years later are accusing the New England Patriots of cheating during the 2004 AFC Championship Game.
'THEY HAD OUR SIGNS'
"To be fair, the Patriots cheated," Roethlisberger brought up while Bettis and him were sharing old memories on his 'Footbahlin with Ben Roethlisberger' podcast.
Bettis agreed and broke down how he 100% knows that the Patriots were cheating because Belichick is going to Belichick.
During one play imparticular, Bettis said that the Patriots called a timeout while the Steelers were facing a 4th-and-1 at New England's 39-yard line.
“Who normally goes to the sideline on timeouts? The defensive captains, right? They told the nose guard - they pulled him to the sideline. Big 400-pound guy, he don’t want to go to the sideline and come all the way back,” Bettis explained. “What does he want to go to the sideline for? They are yelling at him, made him go to the sideline and I always thought 'Where is he going... He went all the way to the sideline and back.”
BELICHICK CALLED OVER PLAYER BEFORE SNAP
The next play, Bettis tried running it up the middle and was stuffed and the Pats got the ball. The very next play Brady threw a 60-yard touchdown pass and the Pats would ultimately win 41-27.
“They stopped us on fourth down. That’s a critical play in the game. They had our signs and they called a timeout to get them ready for that play because they knew it was coming. No questions in my mind. I remember vividly because I thought, ‘Why is this big dude going to the sideline?" Bettis continued.
Although Bettis got some of the facts wrong - there was no one named Washington on the Patriots at the time and it wasn't a timeout but rather they called for the chains to see how short the previous play was, when you look back at the clip you do see that it appears the Pats knew what was coming.
WHY DIDN'T THE STEELERS DO SOMETHING?
Now technically it's not cheating if the other team has figured out your signs; that's on you. But it's how they went about getting the signs that could be cheating - just ask the Jets about SpyGate. And if Ben and Bettis had any suspicions whatsoever, they should have called an audible or changed it as the game progressed.
During an interview with The Athletic in 2021 Steelers head coach at the time Bill Cowher agreed. "I always thought we never lost the games to New England because of Spygate. If got the calls because we didn’t do a very good job of making sure we signaled those in, that’s on us, it’s not on him. Because we’re always looking for competitive edges," the Hall of Fame coach said.
Despite Ben and Bettis wanting to blame their loss on the Patriots alleged cheating, the Pats were so damn dominant that day that it didn't matter what the Steelers did there was no way they were winning that game.