New England Patriots Need To Get Control of Players' Wives

The New England Patriots are one of the most disciplined teams in the NFL.  Under the leadership of Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft, a major part of the organization has been to keep team disputes out of the public eye and to not cause verbal conflicts with opposing teams.  Their only known pre-game verbal altercation in recent years was when Wes Welker made fun of New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan before their 2010 divisional playoffs matchup.

But in the last two years following the team’s exit, Patriot wives have caused controversy by making unsolicited comments about other players.

Following the Patriots loss in Super Bowl XLVI Tom Brady’s wife, Gisele Bundchen, commented that the fault of the loss is to be placed on Welker, who dropped a key pass during the Patriots final drive.  Despite Brady coming to the defense of his favorite receiver, the comments made national headlines.  That should have been a lesson to all player wives that commenting on football is beyond their bounds, but apparently they are not seeing it that way.

During this year’s regular season Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis announced that he would retire following the season ending a hall of fame career.  That announcement has made Lewis the talk of the sports world as his surprising Ravens knocked off the number one and two seeds in the AFC in back-to-back weeks.  Doing so they also knocked out two future hall of fame quarterbacks in Brady and Peyton Manning.

After the Patriots lost to the Ravens Sunday night Anna Welker posted on Facebook about Lewis having “6 kids, 4 wives” and being “acquitted for murder” ending the post with a sarcastic “a true role model”.  Again, instead of people talking about the players who were actually involved in the game, a player’s wife took most of the attention.

These occurrences so far have not caused any major problems but could if they don’t stop. Keeping the organization away from verbal controversy on and off the field has been something the team has tried continue over the past decade.   This goes for both their public and private lives, and is meant to keep controversy that could create distractions away from the team.  This way of acting seems to have been limited to the players of the Patriots, but should now be adhered to by their wives as well. The organization and its players must get control of their significant others.