Spygate: I Believe Bill Belichick

it pretty much created in the first place; Specter complained that Roger Goodell and the league weren't willing to give full disclosure: "If they had wanted [former Patriots video assistant Matt] Walsh to talk, it would have been done a long time ago. They are not helped by keeping him on ice, unless they intend to [permanently] keep him on ice."

Reportedly, New York Jets officials and Damon Huard (!) have refused to speak with Specter on the matter. Specter wanted testimony from these guys because of their former affiliation with the Patriots, but one can't help but wonder if Jets, Chiefs, and folks from about, say, 29 other franchises would prefer to go the Barry Bonds route and duck hearings altogether.

The truth is, in the high-pressure world of big-money football, anyone and everyone will use any advantage at their disposal to stay (or get) on top and there is just no way every NFL team outside of New England is playing 100 percent by the rules. Doesn't anyone remember Brian Billick's accusations against the Jets on similar grounds early this season?

Yeah, the Michael Vick thing was terrible, but at least it was an easy call morally speaking—except for banal cultural relativists like Whoopi Goldberg, it seems. Who really wants the stickiness of seeing one team after another go under senatorial inspection on C-Span?

And trust me, I know how unsavory it is to have to buy The Hooded One's Nixonesque trash talk. But look at the players: Let's see, we can side with grandstanding politicians led by Specter, who is not at all motivated by his legendary love for the Philadelphia Eagles; the NFL commissioner, a figurehead whose primary job consists of protecting the rights of a few dozen billionaires against a few hundred millionaires in the quest to soak you of as much of your hard-earned cash as possible; the owners, who, to paraphrase Lieutenant Worf, "don't allow themselves to be ... probed"; and ol' Romulan commander Belichick himself.

"I have never authorized, or heard of, or even seen in any way, shape, or form any other team's walkthrough," said the coach in The Globe. "We don't even film our own. We don't even want to see ourselves do anything, that's the pace that it's at. Regardless, I've never been a part of that."

Guess I have to buy it—I'm not that big a fan of congressional hearings.

Ready, willing, and waiting to probe throughout the year at RealFootball365.com

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