The Patriots utterly destroyed the Jets defense on Sunday. I found this quite surprising. Not so much because the Jets are a great defensive team, but they don’t usually get routed like that. I merely chalked it up to Tom Brady being a great QB and doing what great QB’s do: win games.

Now, however, we have solid proof that the reason the Patriots were able to pick apart the defense is because they cheated, and that isn’t some cooky theory coming down from a web site; it’s the official word from the NFL.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has determined that the New England Patriots violated league rules Sunday when they videotaped defensive signals by the New York Jets’ coaches, according to league sources.

NFL security officials confiscated a camera and videotape from Patriots video assistant Matt Estrella on the New England sidelines when it was suspected he was recording the Jets’ defensive signals. Sources say the visual evidence confirmed the suspicion.

Goodell is considering severe sanctions, including the possibility of docking the Patriots “multiple draft picks” because it is the competitive violation in the wake of a stern warning to all teams since he became commissioner, the sources said. The Patriots have been suspected in previous incidents.

The NFL is now faced with a tough call. How do you punish a team when you catch them cheating red-handed?

Here are two ways you can make it right:

1. Give the Jets the win. Seeing as the Patriots cheated, they don’t deserve to have that win.

2. Replay the game. This should be the minimum remedy, seeing as anything else still leaves the Jets with a loss and the cheating Patriots with a win.

Bob Kraft, owner of the Patriots, was quick to dismiss the charges:

“There is an investigation going on now, and perhaps an adjudication of it, and I think it would be inappropriate at this time to make any comment,” Kraft told reporters at a charity appearance Tuesday. “When you’re successful in anything, a lot of people like to try to take you down and do different things. We understand that.

Wait, the league found you out Bobbo. This isn’t some grand conspiracy by some homebody writing a blog. This is the NFL saying, definitively, that your team cheated. Let’s not play the oppression card, okay?

It’ll be interesting to see how the NFL does react, simply because they spend a lot of time trying to level the playing field and keep the competition equal (they’re the only sport with a tiered schedule), and now one of the “faces” of the league has been busted. Badly.

Here’s to hoping that the NFL does the right thing about it.

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