Skip to main content

Marshall Faulk: Patriots cheated to beat Rams in Super Bowl

Former Rams running back Marshall Faulk believes the Patriots cheated in the 2002 Super Bowl. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images Sport)

Former Rams running back Marshall Faulk believes the Patriots cheated in the 2002 Super Bowl. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images Sport)

Former St. Louis Rams running back Marshall Faulk said he believes the Patriots cheated to win the 2002 Super Bowl, reports CSNNE.com's Tom Curran.

Faulk told Curran he thinks the Patriots videotaped St. Louis' walk-through before the game.

"Am I over the loss? Yeah, I'm over the loss," Faulk said. "But I'll never be over being cheated out of the Super Bowl. That's a different story."

Since the Spygate scandal in 2007, when the Patriots were caught videotaping the Jets' signals during a game, theories that the Patriots illegally taped the Rams have floated. But there has never been any evidence.

The Rams, heavily favored in the game, fell 20-17 to New England on Adam Vinatieri's game-winning kick. It was the first of three Super Bowl wins in four years for Tom Brady and the Patriots.

Faulk said his experience playing in the game is what has him convinced New England cheated.

"I understand Bill (Belichick) is a great coach," Faulk told Curran. "But No. 13 (Kurt Warner) will tell you. Mike Martz will tell you. We had some plays in the red zone that we hadn't ran. I think we got to fourth down -- we ran three plays that we hadn't ran, that Mike drew up for that game - Bill's a helluva coach . . . we hadn't ran them the whole year (and the Patriots were ready for them)... "I know, in that game, in the red zone, the plays we ran, most of them we hadn't ran most of those plays that year. And a couple of plays on third down that we walked through also . . .  Any time that I was offset, I was always stationary. And we had creating motioning in the backfield at the same depth on the other side of the field. And they created a check for it. It's just little things like that. It's either the best coaching in the world when you come up with situations that you had never seen before. Or you'd seen it and knew what to do."