A former NFL analytics staffer says the Patriots spent more than a decade using a subtle visual trick at Gillette Stadium to throw opposing kickers off their line.
Ryan Paganetti, who spent 10 years in the league and worked in analytics for the Eagles, Jaguars and Raiders, said he went back through more than a decade of TV broadcasts and found that when visiting kickers were setting up for field goals, the video board behind the uprights showed a reversed angle of the kick. In that version, a second set of yellow uprights appeared offset behind the real ones.
Paganetti said the effect could get even stranger in windy conditions, when orange streamers on the screen seemed to blow the opposite way from the streamers actually hanging on the uprights. He said he found dozens of examples of the illusion being used on opponent kicks.
He also said the setup never showed up on Patriots field goal attempts. Looking at the same games, Paganetti checked 52 New England field goal tries and said the trick did not appear once on those snaps.
The former NFL analyst, who is from Bedford, Massachusetts and played running back at Dartmouth, posted the findings on X and drew plenty of attention. Pat McAfee called it “a great piece of intel” in a post that has drawn more than a million views.
Reaction to Paganetti’s claim has gone in different directions. Some viewed it as a legal, sharp use of the stadium setup. Others saw it as a loophole that crossed the line into gamesmanship.
Gillette’s video board has already been tied to kicking issues before. The Patriots installed a new 370-by-60-foot board in 2023, and Bill Belichick said then that the larger screen was altering wind patterns inside the stadium and impacting kickers.
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