New England Patriots

Kyle Shanahan loses playbook ahead of Super Bowl LI

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 6:12 p.m. ET

Fansided, Brian Miller/FanSided via Phin Phanatic

The New England Patriots are winners! Or maybe they are “Cheaters”. Either way they may by the end of the week have more Super Bowl trophies than any other NFL team in history.

Offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan may have helped in that department unknowingly when he sat down to speak with the media in Houston and left his backpack containing his offensive playbook out of reach. It was picked up by a San Francisco media member and returned sometime later.

Profootballtalk.com broke the story about how Shanahan stayed 30 minutes after the presser had ended as he searched for the missing back-pack. It was later returned but it’s likely that the reporter made a quick stop to Kinko’s for one Bill Belichick.

Luis Sung of PhinManiacs.com dubbed it “BackPackGate” on Twitter a short while ago after I tweeted the article from PFT. It’s unusual for NFL fans to find out how the Patriots are going to cheat “before” a game. That is usually reserved for after the game has completed.

Bill Belichick going to sleep after Shanahan lost his backpack – NFL_Memes

So now we know! Deflategate, Spygate, Filmgate, Practicegate, AlarmGate, HeadsetGate, and now, Backpackgate. G.O.A.T!

So while this is totally supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, it does add yet another quirky little twist to the legacy of the New England Patriots even if nothing actually happened. As one astute Twitter user responded, maybe Shanahan had a decoy playbook in the bag and now the Patriots have the wrong one.

Of course the news of Shanahan misplacing the bag is true the rest of this is very tongue-in-cheek unless of course later it’s learned to be true in which case I take full credit for breaking the story…lol.

Guess we will find out on Sunday when the Super Bowl kicks-off. Go Falcons!