Controversies? Distractions? Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots have mastered the art of tuning them out. AP Photo/Elise Amendola

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Being the subject of a league investigation for a rule violation is not what any head coach is looking for.

Bill Belichick certainly doesn’t want any part of another controversy hovering over his team, especially in December with three games to play, and a tenuous hold on the AFC’s second seed.

Controversies bring media attention, which in turn, bring the dreaded ‘D’ word. Distractions can act like Kryptonite for teams, zapping focus and energy from the football task at hand.

Then, there’s the New England Patriots.

Historically, they’ve been impervious to every disaster or attention-grabber that’s fallen in their collective laps. They’ve proven bullet-proof when it comes to dealing with the added craziness going on around them. They’ve been champions at ignoring the noise.

How will this one play out?

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Belichick has certainly done his best to distance himself and the team from the Patriots’ latest crime, admitting a TV production crew member “inappropriately” filmed the Bengals sideline during Sunday’s game with the Browns, which was a violation of NFL policy.

And when the circus arrived in town this week, the Patriots actually caught a break. There was no circus. The media on hand was tame compared with the mob that seized Foxborough during Antonio Brown’s brief stay and tumultuous departure.

Unlike Brown’s final days, there was no added national or local media present for Belichick’s Wednesday press conference. Only the usual suspects that regularly cover the team. But that didn’t prevent the unwanted questions from being asked. It was pretty clear Belichick had reached his saturation point with the controversy, cutting off reporters numerous times, before hearing the full question.

Belichick interjected his pat answer while the first question was being delivered.

“The football team, the football staff and the coaching staff had nothing to do with what happened,” Belichick said. “Nothing.”

It didn’t stop with Belichick. Players were also quizzed in the locker room about the latest controversy, after the Patriots on Monday admitted the production crew violated NFL policy. The crew was hired to shoot another installment of the franchise’s online series, “Do Your Job,” which provides behind-the-scenes looks at various departments, including advance scouting.

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As the team awaits possible sanctions from the league, this isn’t exactly what the Patriots players needed after losing two straight to Houston and Kansas City, and moving on to Cincinnati. But then again, distractions have been far from Kryptonite when it comes to the Patriots.

They’ve been more like fuel. Spygate? Deflategate? Those scandals didn’t hinder the players from doing their job. If anything, they were motivated by them.

In 2007, with Spygate sanctions being levied after the first game with the Jets, and the world calling them a bunch of cheaters and questioning the merits of their three Super Bowl wins, the Patriots absolutely crushed the Chargers, 38-14, in Week 2 before running the table to 18-0 and then falling short in the Super Bowl.

If Spygate was a distraction, it didn’t show.

As for Deflategate, well, in 2014, when the allegations of letting the air out out of footballs first came to light, they also won the Super Bowl that year.

Then, in 2016, when Tom Brady finally served his four-game suspension, the Patriots survived that, got to the postseason and took home championship No. 5, coming back from a 28-3 deficit to the Falcons.

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Distractions? Patriot killers? Hardly.

As for this latest transgression, it seems like a blip on the radar compared with those prior controversies.

“As players, it doesn’t pertain to us at all. It has zero to do with us,” said defensive captain Devin McCourty. “I remember in ’14, with Deflategate, for guys that played that season, that was kind of a direct shot. Like, we only won because we did that. But, this stuff? That has nothing to do with us as players.”

What about the notion the team wins not because of hard work, but because of other stuff going on behind the scenes? Decoding sideline material from other teams.

McCourty then provided a humorous anecdote, using his wife Michelle, as exhibit A.

“My wife says there’s certain things she does during the game, and if she doesn’t do it, we lose. So, I think that’s way more disrespectful when she says that to me after a game,” McCourty said with a grin. “For us, we go out here, we work hard, and we try to win. You can’t take away from us.”

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Tight end Benjamin Watson said the players were certainly aware of what went down, but agreed with McCourty in terms of impact.

“Coach Belichick does a great job filtering out the noise, a great job of keeping us focused that permeates the entire team from the leadership to the rookies,” he said. “Everything on the outside really has no bearing on what’s going on here. That’s how it has to be.”

Even in the social media era, where players have never been more open to distractions or being attacked or trolled, they say this controversy won’t be an issue going forward to Cincinnati.

“(We) just ignore the noise,” said James White. “Everyone’s going to have their opinions outside of the building. We know what we’re capable of doing. We’re going to go out there and execute and play football.”

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the Bengals, who called attention to this mess, are a 1-12 team just ripe to be run over.


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