New England Patriots

Warren Sapp implies Patriots started cheating in 2000, have been ever since

Published Dec. 4, 2015 5:47 p.m. ET

foxsports

Tell New England how you really feel, Warren Sapp.

The Hall of Fame defensive tackle isn’t one to hold back his opinions, especially when it comes to Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots. But he took that to a whole new level Friday during an interview with WEEI’s Rob Bradford.

“They cheat,” Sapp told Bradford at Boston Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz’s Celebrity Golf Tournament in the Dominican Republic. “But, if you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying to win.”

And how does Sapp know this?

“When Tony Dungy took us, the 2000 Tampa Bay Buccaneers up there for Week 1, we dumped all our playbooks in Tampa,” Sapp said. “We had a bin outside the bus. (Dungy) said throw all your playbooks in here. So all our offensive players threw their playbooks in there. ... We went out and got off to a 14-0 lead and (they) came rumbling back after the second half.

“How many people come to Foxborough and have a 14-point lead? It’s usually the other way around, right? That’s how y’all cheat.”

Sapp certainly isn’t the first one to accuse the Patriots of cheating, especially after the ongoing Deflategate saga this past offseason. In addition, he believes New England continued to cheat this season when there were headset issues in Week 1 against the Pittsburgh Steelers, although the NFL cleared the Patriots of any wrongdoing.

“The latest example would be [the season-opening Thursday] night when Mike Tomlin was sitting there listening to y’all’s radio broadcast in his headphones,” Sapp said. “How do you explain that? And then they tell people it was raining and it wasn’t raining at that point, you know that right? At the beginning of the game it wasn’t raining and that was the narrative that came out the next morning.

“I remember Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth -- because I’ve worked with Cris -- I remember his face going, ‘Well, how do you explain this?’ Tomorrow morning we’ll put a spin on it. We will tell you it was raining, the communication and something went wrong.”

Despite his apparent issues with the Patriots, Sapp did say this about the team:

“Listen, man, I don’t have any problem with [Bill] Belichick and anything they are doing up there,” Sapp added. “They are winning. I believe in cheating. If you ain’t cheating you ain’t trying to win.”

He wasn’t done there. Sapp also was asked why the Patriots are successful, and he gave a bizarre answer to that, too.

“Belichick has a bunch of dudes that have never played the game as coaches,” Sapp said. “The guys who have played the game think they already know. The guys who didn’t play, they are uncovering every stone unturned. He is calling Nick Saban at Alabama, he’s got a bunch of coaches -- he has an allegiance of coaches all around the country that are giving him ideas.

“Other coaches do too, they just don’t open their ears. Bill is a good dude at that. He’s like Solomon, the smartest man on Earth. Solomon said, ‘In great numbers there is great wisdom.’ Bill knows that. Bill knows that.”

Patriots fans probably agree with Sapp on Belichick’s wisdom, but that’s most likely where the agreement ends.

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