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The New England Patriots and Bill Belichick are back in trouble again. Earlier this week, the Patriots were docked two days of OTA's due to an unknown violation that the team made.
They canceled Thursday's practice, which makes sense as they are forced to miss two days of OTA's.
Some in the NFL world overreacted to the news. One of those people is radio host, Pat McAfee. The former NFL punter thinks the Patriots should be kicked out of the league and should be forced to be put into the USFL:
“They’re cheating in OTAs? Kick em out of the league. Put em in the USFL. We don’t wanna make this decision. You gotta do something though, Rog. How many gates are we gonna have out of New England? OTA-gate now is a full thing.”
McAfee is known for his humorous personality even on the mic, and was likely just joking about the matter. However, the Patriots still will lose valuable training in the off-season due to the violation.
Why were the New England Patriots and Bill Belichick docked two days of off-season activities?
ESPN insider Mike Reiss, who covers the New England Patriots broke the news earlier this week that Patriots would be losing two days of organized team activities. Head coach Bill Belichick was also fined $50,000 for the violation.
The Patriots violated a team meeting rule. Per ProFootballTalk, they made a voluntary meeting mandatory by accident:
"According to the source, an observer from the NFL Players Association believed that one of the optional early offseason meetings was a violation, because the 15-minute meeting in question (a special-teams session) was made visible on the internal schedule."
This according to the opinion of the NFLPA saw the meeting as mandatory rather than optional, resulting in the violation.
New England is one of seven franchises in NFL history to be hit with violating off-season rules. The other six teams include the Seattle Seahawks (2018) Dallas Cowboys (2021, 2022), Chicago Bears (2022), San Francisco 49ers (2021), Jacksonville Jaguars (2021), Baltimore Ravens (2018)
The Patriots have been notorious for receiving fines/punishments due to violating league rules such as Spygate and Deflategate.
New England will lose two days of OTA's as a result of their recent violation.
If you use any of the above quotes, please credit Bill Belichick, Pat McAfee, the Pat McAfee Show, ProFootballTalk, and H/T Sportskeeda
