Anyone old enough (over 15, let’s say) to remember Super Bowl XLIX must have seen the same image play over and over again this week, either in the closed mind or through a visit to YouTube, or both: Malcolm Butler’s interception of Russell Wilson at the goalpost with less than a minute to play, giving the New England Patriots victory over the Seattle Seahawks in Glendale, Arizona. One of the most questionable and discussed game choices in the history of this championship rich in symbols and controversies.
What would you have done? The short pass to surprise the defense or the throw to the running back who ran for the most touchdowns during the regular season? The question, it seems, resurfaced this week among journalists assigned to cover a Super Bowl LX that resembles a revenge game. In 2015, the Patriots were not the only ones to triumph. A 30-year-old singer, Katy Perry, took advantage of this biggest publicity stunt in the known universe, the Super Bowl halftime show, to fly to glory.
While rewatching Butler’s play, I happened to suspect that the Patriots cornerback had benefited from a good old signal theft, as his movement towards the line of scrimmage seemed so fluid and precise. After all, “Spygate,” which continues to cast a shadow over the longest dynasty in history (2002-2019), was only a few years old at the time. But I stuck my finger in my eye, very deep.
The Patriots could not have spied on the gestures of the Seahawks offensive coordinator for the good reason that 11 years ago, the offensive signals had already been replaced by encrypted communications picked up by headphones planted in the quarterbacks’ helmets. And since the regulation that authorizes this practice dates from 1994, my suspicions from 2015, as outdated as old yogurt frozen into lumps, now make me ashamed when I think about it.
The 2007 Spygate was all about defensive coordinator signals. As early as 2008, the helmets of the captains of the defensive units of the National Football League (NFL) found themselves equipped with earpieces. In American college football, it will be necessary to wait until 2023 and the scandal raised by the championships of the Michigan Wolverines for the powerful NCAA to also renounce the complicated pretenses of its coaches in favor of a technology worthy of the third millennium.
You have to watch « Sign Stealer » (2024), an episode of the exciting Netflix documentary series entitled Untoldon the underside of the wonderful world of sport, to understand to what extent espionage is consubstantial with football itself, this Sunday war game whose allegorical nature no longer needs to be demonstrated. What Connor Stalions, the geek who orchestrated the Wolverines’ “special operations”, is basically telling us is that yes, “football is war”, and therefore the only rule, the only moral, is to win at all costs.
War knows no concept of cheating. Otherwise, Churchill, so proud of the dirty tricks of his commandos and the findings of the intoxication specialists of his secret services, would have gone down in history as the king of cheats. The decoding of German transmissions by English codebreakers played an important role in the final victory of the Second War. And the deciphering of the opponent’s signals by the spy network set up by Stalions, with its tentacles spanning several states, its undercover agents and its paid informants, may well have played an equally crucial role in the rise of the Wolverines during the first half of the decade, crowned, in 2023, with the national championship.
More secure, are sound emissions protected from any interception system? When will there be “Earbudsgate”? In the meantime, we’re still talking about Spygate and Deflategate, and the legacy of the Patriots continues to be controversial. Would anyone have bet brownie reimbursed by the Liberal Party that Bill Belichick, the man with six Super Bowl rings and nine appearances, would see, in his first year of eligibility, the Hall of Fame thus slam the door in his face? Unthinkable.
It is certain, speaking of college football, that when Bill, in his new role as coach of the University of North Carolina Tar Heels, walks on the arm of a former Miss Maine pageant candidate and former pom-pom girl 50 years younger than him, making a fool of himself in the eyes of many, he may not be helping himself.
And Robert Kraft, the owner with 11 appearances in the big game, claiming three more Finals than any other NFL franchise? A builder, you say? Shunned by the Temple, too… and a good friend of Trump moreover.
The legacy of the Patriots is certainly contested, but not all black. There’s Tom Brady, always him, who bursts onto the screen in his analyst costume. This intense look that melts the camera, this big smile of a happy kid. My family has come to believe that I love him with love, while I only enjoy the relevance and clarity of his words. This guy is just incapable of being bad at what he does.
Another positive legacy: tomorrow, Mike Vrabel, the former linebacker of the great Pats team from 2001 to 2008, could become the first athlete to win a Super Bowl as a player, then coach of the same team.
Sunday, in Santa Clara, in a stadium that bears the name of a brand of jeans, in the suburbs of the very liberal and Democratic San Francisco, we could well witness the most politicized Super Bowl in history. Vilified by the president, will Bad Bunny take advantage of an audience of 200 million souls to openly challenge the White House? Paid for by a group called American Sovereignty, billboards appearing on the walls of the host city qualify the ICE militia as the defensive unit of the year… Football, an allegory of the civil war?
The Seahawks will win 24-20.
date: 2026-02-08 05:34:00
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