Patriots Accused of Being Too Lucky

The New England Patriots are one of the most hated teams in sports. Part of that is that they win... a lot. The other part are things like Spygate, and Deflategate. They've been caught cheating before, and certainly stretching the rules to gain an advantage. But now they're being accused of being too lucky?

The latest Patriots cheating scandal has to do with, of all things, the coin toss. Coming into this weekend, the Patriots had won 19 out of the last 25 pre-game coin tosses. You might say to yourself, "Wow! That's just lucky." Others say it's impossible. The probability of winning 19 of 25 coin tosses is .0073, less than three-quarters of 1 percent! Are the Patriots are rigging the coin toss?

How on earth could they do that? Yes, the number seems odd. However, researchers at Harvard crunched some more numbers and found that the odds the head coach Bill Belichik would have a coin toss winning streak like this in his coaching career is a very attainable 38.7%. Not quite so scandalous now, is it? By the way, New England LOST the toss yesterday -- but somehow still managed to win the game.