The hits are coming hard and fast for the NFL and for the New England Patriots in the wake of the Deflate-Gate scandal which no one in the Patriots organization seems to know anything about.
The latest piece of evidence that seems to point an accusatory finger at Patriots head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady is a statistical analysis, done by the sports betting information website Covers.
The analysis finds that over the course of the past 12 seasons, the Patriots "have played so well in wet conditions that their margin of victory in those games has exceeded the betting 'spread' - set by a global market that tries to take all known advantages into account - a remarkable 80 percent of the time," according to the New York Times.
Covers' findings reveal that the Patriots, in 20 games played under what the official NFL game sheets define as "rain, light rain, heavy rain and snow" in the past dozen seasons, have gone 17-3 SU (straight up) and 16-4 ATS (against the spread), including their 45-7 shellacking of the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship Game.
"New England's 16-4 ATS record in those 20 games played in wet weather between 2003 and 2015 has produced a remarkable 80 percent winning clip against the spread - a drastic improvement from the Patriots' overall ATS winning percentage of 56 percent in the rest of their games played during that time frame," writes Covers features editor Jason Logan.
Also, of those 20 poor weather games, 17 were played at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass.
"New England averaged 29.3 points per game in those home stands while giving up 13.4 point against - a difference of 15.9 points per game. Put that up against an average home point spread of -7 (never being an underdog in any of those 17 rainy/snowy home games), and it's easy to see why New England has been such a solid bet."
Even in the three away games played in poor weather conditions, the Patriots win by an average score of 37-12 and covered in all three.
This means that - home or away - either the Patriots have some remarkable ability to play better than their opponents consistently for more than a decade in bad weather - or, perhaps the Deflate-Gate scandal has been going on for all of Brady's 11-year career and has helped the team to victory in games played in difficult conditions.
