The bottom line is that the Patriots have *some* history. But so does the entire league. This is like calling the Red Sox cheaters because they probably had some players use PEDs. Every team has problems here and there. The league is full of teams who have won games with PED users, injured opponents through headhunting, circumvented the salary cap, and everything in-between. Not to mention the off-field crimes, albeit those don't have any on-field "cheater" advantage.
Spygate was real - but it has been exaggerated by 100x over the years. Hardly anyone can recall the details outside of New England. If you polled, I bet 90% of people think they got caught taping the Rams before the Super Bowl. Didn't happen and was a totally made up rumor. Did other teams do it? So much so that there was a league-wide memo. The Pats got caught, paid a heavy price, and that was it. It hardly contributed to their decade of success relative to about 10,000 things that have happened around the league.
And what exactly is their 2nd infraction? There is none. Deflategate has been an epic fail of a witch hunt, filled with rumor after made-up rumor.
The Colts player didn't feel a difference as originally reported. Oops, rumor.
The balls were swapped at halftime anyway. Oops, doesn't appear to have helped the Pats.
The refs may not have actually tested the balls properly before the game. Oops, the league might the ones who screwed up. Even if the balls were a couple tenths low, which certainly wouldn't be the result of a conspiracy, it would influence the results later.
There is video for all but 90 seconds in a bathroom (which isn't proof of innocence, but the idea that it supports tampering requires you to already assume guilt).
The balls may have only been 1 PSI low, not 2. Which is within the expected range for the weather and possibly unravels the whole incident.
The whole thing may have been set up by prior opponents to try and expose the Pats... the same teams who have, for example, cried over totally legal offensive formations. The same people who keep claiming that the Pats ran a hurry-up formation to skirt the rules, when they huddled every time. Pesky facts.
Numerous other quarterbacks have spoken up to confirm that teams always maximize how the balls are prepped, and that it's a normal practice monitored by the refs. Rodgers over-inflates. Other guys like it softer... but there is a basic process at every game where they get checked by the refs, and it's never been an issue until one team gets "randomly" inspected in the middle of the AFC Championship.
The list goes on... what a joke.