It’s been 16 years since the Patriots’ dynasty began with an upset win over the Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI. It’s been 10 years since the Boston Herald reported that the Patriots taped the Rams’ walk-through practice the day before that Super Bowl. And it’s been nine and a half years since the Boston Herald apologized for that report and said it was false.
But through all that passage of time, many Rams players have remained angry at the Patriots. The latest is Hall of Fame left tackle Orlando Pace, who said this morning on PFT Live that he still doesn’t like the Patriots and still wonders if their superb game plan was aided by cheating.
“There’s a little bit of suspicion there. I think guys all feel that way,” Pace said. “They had a pretty solid game plan for us, so I don’t know. . . . They knew exactly what we were going to do down there.”
All these years later, no evidence has emerged that the Patriots actually did film the Rams’ walk-through. So why do so many Rams players think it happened? Pace hinted that the reason may just be it’s hard for them to accept, as such a talented team, that they never won another Super Bowl after bursting onto the scene as the Greatest Show on Turf in 1999.
“You look at all those Hall of Famers and you just saw missed opportunities, and that was one of them because we should have had multiple championships,” Pace said.
Heading into that Super Bowl, no one would have thought that the Rams were already done winning Super Bowls, while the Patriots were just beginning the greatest dynasty in NFL history.
