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DAN SHAUGHNESSY

Why Deflategate is really the Patriots’ friend

Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

Memo to Patriots fans: Deflategate is your friend. It has given birth to absolute truths that serve only to magnify and solidify that local notion that Bill Belichick and the Patriots are 10 times better and smarter than every other NFL team.

The first-place, 3-0 Patriots will enjoy a well-deserved day of rest Sunday, but a message has been delivered to NFL America. It is not a comforting missive for the 31 franchises that hoped to prosper when NFL commissioner Roger Goodell dropped the hammer on the Team Everyone Loves to Hate. The Patriots are on a mission. They are kicking butt and taking names. The 2016 Patriots are waging war on the rest of the NFL and the commissioner who overly punished them for driving 68 in a 65-mile-per-hour zone.

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More than a year ago, empowered and encouraged by 31 NFL owners who are tired of being spanked and embarrassed by the “cheatin’ ” New Englanders, intent on flexing muscles supplied by a management-friendly collective bargaining agreement, Goodell slapped a ridiculous four-game suspension on Tom Brady. Goodell no doubt figured this would make the Patriots finally pay for their arrogance, hubris, and shifty ways.

It has backfired magnificently.

Using his second- and third-string quarterbacks, Belichick has bested the Arizona Cardinals, Miami Dolphins, and Houston Texans in the first three games of the 2016 season. Without Brady, the Patriots will take a 3-0 record into Game 4 against Buffalo Bills next Sunday at Gillette.

It is the ultimate revenge. After giving the NFL the finger with institutional intransigence, noncooperation, and calculated countercharges, the Patriots have gone on the football field and proven that none of it matters. You can deflate their footballs, beat them in court, and strip Belichick of Brady (and every other quarterback on his roster), and the Hoodie will still win every game. He will do it wearing the gladrags and baggy pants of Mr. Bojangles and then insist that these games are no different than all the other games he has coached since taking over the Cleveland Browns a quarter of a century ago.

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Not true. These Brady-less games are Belichick’s Sistine Chapel. In the first three weeks of the season he has beaten a couple of playoff teams. He has been an underdog two times and won both of those games. And he has done it without Brady. He won on the road in Arizona on “Sunday Night Football.” He won when his backup got hurt at home against the Dolphins. Then he humiliated the Texans on “Thursday Night Football” when his team was favored to lose because the Patriots were starting a 23-year-old kid who’d never started a game in the NFL.

So, here we are. The Patriots are off Sunday and the rest of the NFL is still trying to catch up to New England. At this hour, the Patriots have zero healthy quarterbacks on their 53-man roster. Brady is serving a suspension. Jimmy Garoppolo has a Grade 2 sprain of the AC joint in his throwing shoulder. Third-stringer Jacoby Brissett has a torn ligament in his right thumb.

It does not matter. The system is bigger than any player, even Tom Brady. It’s Next Man Up. Louis C.K. or K.C. Jones could be the QB of the Patriots when New England’s season resumes next Sunday, and the Patriots will be prohibitive favorites to beat the Bills. This means that the Patriots will be 4-0 when a fresh, rested Brady returns to the team in Cleveland Oct. 9. Then comes The Reckoning. That’s when the Bill Belichick, scorched-earth revenge tour goes into overdrive.

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Bottom line: Deflategate has been good for the Patriots. This has nothing to do with The Wells Report in Context, the Ideal Gas Law, Fanboy Judge Berman, or the legion of sympathizers who are part of the vast New England sports media cartel.

No. It’s not about the sycophantic defense or countercharges of Deflategate. At this hour it’s about the opportunity this has afforded, and what Belichick has done with it.

Deflategate cost the Patriots $1 million, two draft picks (one a first-rounder), and a quarter of a season of Tom Brady. It gave New England’s enemies more weaponry. When the Patriots play at Pittsburgh and New York, there will forever be signs about “Cheat-triots.’’

But Belichick was spared from the scandal. Protecting the Hoodie best explains New England’s strategy after the first whispers of Deflategate. On the heels of Spygate, the team could not afford to have this scandal attached to Bill. So the Patriots allowed Brady to take the hit and needy Bob Kraft paid the fine and sucked up the loss of his draft picks in order to keep his seat at the NFL owners’ Big Boy Table.

Belichick has emerged as the big winner. With Tom on the shelf, Bill got a clean look at Jimmy G and enhanced the value of his backup. Ditto for Brissett. And the Patriots won every game.

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This cannot be a great feeling for Brady. Deflategate has established that any Jimmy, Jacoby or Matt can play quarterback for the Patriots and still win. Belichick and the Patriot Way are the big winners.

The Patriots at this hour have no quarterback, but they are going to go 4-0 without Brady. As a bonus, when Tom comes back, he will be rested, full of rage, and intent on taking out his revenge on Goodell and the rest of the NFL.

Feel the fire. Embrace the hate. Deflategate is the Patriots’ friend.


Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at dshaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Dan_Shaughnessy.