The Patriots made some major NFL news on Sunday when the league decided to hand down its punishment from its investigation on the New England video staff’s illegal filming of the Bengals sideline.
According to ESPN’s Mike Reiss, the Patriots are going to lose a third-round pick in 2021, pay a $1.1 million fine and be barred from having team TV crews film games next season. But you may have needed to navigate other Patriots news to see that because minutes earlier — literally, 17 minutes — the Patriots let ESPN’s Adam Schefter know that they were signing free agent quarterback Cam Newton.
If there ever was a time to announce the signing of a former MVP quarterback, doing so just before a decidedly negative news dump would be the way to do it. This was just amazing execution by the Patriots.
They had this hit Twitter …
Just before this …
That’s a classic Patriots move if we’ve ever seen one: Trying to cover news of getting caught cheating (again) with news of a huge signing. And plenty of people caught on to the trick.
But I appreciate the brazenness of this effort. It’s so on brand for the Patriots.
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