Asante Samuel claps back at Ben Roethlisberger’s accusation of Tom Brady’s Patriots cheating in 2004 AFC Championship Game: “Are you crazy?”
Asante Samuel clapped back on a pair of former Pittsburgh Steelers players who claim that the New England Patriots defeated the Steelers in the 2004 AFC Championship by cheating. The most recent accusations came from quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and running back Jerome Bettis.
"90 years later, you guys decided to be sore losers and say we cheated the 2004 AFC Championship.", Asante Samuel said. "You claim that on a critical play on fourth down, you lined up and we called the timeout because we knew the play that was coming. We knew the signs. Do you call that cheating? Are you crazy?
"This is what determined the outcome of the game: Tom Brady was better than Ben Roethlisberger, Rodney Harrison was better than Troy Polamalu, Corey Dillion was better than Jerome Bettis and Asante Samuel was better than Deshea Townsend. As simple as that and no more to be said. We were better than you in pretty much everything."
The play happened in the first quarter, with the Patriots calling a timeout to better prepare for a Fourth-and-1 play which they knew the signals. Asante Samuel clapped back at the assumptions made by Roethlisberger and Bettis, saying that New England was simply better than Pittsburgh that season.
Asante Samuel refutes cheating concerns: what is Patriots' Spygate scandal?
Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots were found guilty of taping the signals of New York Jets defensive coaches during their Week 1 game back in the 2007 season. This scandal was called Spygate. The Jets were coached by Eric Mangini, a longtime Belichick assistant who joined the Patriots' main rivals in 2006.
The event was considered one of the biggest controversies in NFL history, and the punishment was harsh. The Patriots were fined $250,000. Bill Belichick was fined $500,000, the biggest-ever fine for a coach. The team was also stripped of its first-round pick in the 2008 NFL Draft.
Later that year, New England was the first - and only team to this day - to get a 16-0 record in the regular season. However, the Patriots suffered one of the biggest upsets of all time as they lost Super Bowl XLII to the New York Giants.