Patriots not covered in glory

Hypocrisy breeds discontent. Just ask the New England Patriots.

The Patriots say they don't do "long-term" contracts, then do just that with Rodney Harrison (who will learn there is more than one definition of long term), Tyrone Poole, and Rosevelt Colvin.

The Patriots demand players such as Ty Law honor their contracts, yet seldom honor the ones players sign, arguing "that's the system." Most hypocritical of all, they are led by a man who refused to honor his own contract with the New York Jets, walking out for, of all things, money and what he perceived to be a better situation. Sound familiar?

Bill Belichick, who originally went to the Jets with the caveat that he would replace Bill Parcells on the sideline, walked out on the Jets one day after taking over the head coach's job after having been party to a dog-and-pony show several years earlier that aided Parcells's ruse to escape New England.

Just what do you think players like Law learned from watching that? Be true to your school?

Patriots owner Robert Kraft accused the Jets of "tampering" when Parcells left, then denied tampering when Belichick quit "without a job" only to somehow find one days later back in New England. Now these same people whisper that Ted Washington's leaving resulted from "tampering" by the Oakland Raiders.

Most of the time in life the chickens come home to roost. In New England, the chickens are wearing two Super Bowl rings, so in the opinion of most fans that makes Law, Washington, departed Damien Woody, and others such as Matt Light, who just turned down a below-market contract extension, wrong and Kraft and Belichick right. Blinding jewelry will do that in sports. For a time.

Only time will tell if the ongoing problems between management and players lead to problems no defensive game plan can fix, but the list of players who have called Bill Belichick a "liar" continues to grow. Drew Bledsoe, Ted Johnson, Lawyer Milloy, Steve Martin, Rob Konrad, now Law. There have been others, but who's counting? The point is can so many people all be suffering from hearing loss? Can all of them be of bad character? Can each be selfish, egotistical whiners? Or is there another possibility?

Winning, Belichick and Kraft understand, gives them carte blanche in the public's eyes to do as they will with their employees. Winning, my e-mailers keep reminding me, is all that matters. Winning two Super Bowls in three years is a remarkable feat, one for which Belichick, Kraft, and their organization deserve (and have received) great praise, but just as reckless spending doomed the franchise for years after the loss of Curtis Martin, so, too, will a stubborn refusal to understand the root cause of this endless contentiousness that has sprung up between the front office and the locker room. The ruinous effect of dry rot goes unnoticed for some time as it undermines the foundation of a grand mansion. It does not show itself immediately, although it hints at things to come when a piece of rotted wood falls away but is quickly forgotten.

Believe, if you will, that there are no consequences to such a hypocritical organizational approach, but think of your own workplace and ask youself one question -- if you're expected to take a paycut for poor performance but also asked to take one after your best year, what conclusion do you come to? Work harder?

Ty Law has a contract and he should honor it. He is not in position to get a new deal reflective of the present cornerback market nor should he be. He's been well paid for what he's done and has two years to go until that deal is finished. The issue, then, is not, as he indelicately put it in the Globe last week, feeding his family because, I have been told, caviar tastes quite good.

The issue is this. Right after the Super Bowl victory over the Panthers, Law was offered a four-year extension that amounted to a paycut in the first two seasons in excess of a million dollars. Worse, he has no reason to believe, after seeing how others have been treated, that he will ever see the money in the last two years of that extension. In fact, the Patriots are trying to create a situation where he doesn't see the money in the last two years of his present contract.

"I didn't go in there talking about how I want more money and I need a raise," Law told James Brown on Sporting News Radio. "We came in and had a sitdown discussion because of my cap number. I didn't have a problem with my salary the way it is right now. It's all about the cap number and the team is taking a hit. They're asking me to take a million dollars less, and I don't think I should have to do that."

So the real problem for Law, as it will become for others, is the credibility of the organization. The Patriots have none with Law and they had none with Woody. This is growing among too many of their teammates. Because they are not as publicly outspoken as Law does not mean others do not feel the same way about how Kraft and Belichick do business, and they say so privately. In fact, as Globe columnist Michael Holley said last weekend on Channel 7 and this corner can confirm, too large a number say so.

Law saw what happened to Milloy. He saw how long Bledsoe's "lifetime contract" lasted. He saw the contracts of Johnson and Willie McGinest renegotiated downward time and again with the threat of being released used as a weapon against them. That being the case, how much value is there to a contract "extension" with a paycut from such an organization?

Right now, the public believes Law is an ungrateful, greedy player who doesn't know how lucky he is. When Johnson walked out in protest of how Belichick treated him a few years back, he was "selfish." When Washington left it wasn't for a better deal, it was because he was "tampered" with. Milloy was "self-absorbed and unreasonable." Konrad didn't even sign with New England and was claiming Belichick lied to him. He, of course, was "jealous" because the Patriots went in another direction. Woody was accused by Steve Burton on Channel 4 of "taking shots on the way out" for pointing out that Kraft no longer wants to pay market rates for talent. Woody added Kraft and Belichick have a right to run their business however they want. How that was taking a shot is difficult to fathom since the truth was his defense.

Maybe "the shot" was simply this: Sometimes the truth hurts. What the Patriots' organization is very likely going to learn is that so does hypocrisy. As Law said, the head coach and personnel director get pay raises after Super Bowl victories. The best players get paycuts or their walking papers.

Take the case of Milloy and Tampa's John Lynch. Two different organizations concluded their star safety is no longer worth his pay. Both are asked to take paycuts and refuse. One releases its cocaptain in March, when jobs and money were plentiful. The other releases its cocaptain four days before a new season begins, when they believe jobs and money are not plentiful. Which is fairer? And what do their teammates conclude?

Law may have said some things fans didn't want to hear last week but understand this: He fears not only being released next year, he fears being released in September if Belichick and Kraft conclude by the end of summer they can live without him. So much for contracts. If you think that's not possible, call Lawyer Milloy. He didn't either.

The Patriots are not willing to guarantee Law's pay this year to give him peace of mind. They are not willing to do it for the remaining two years, either. Whether or not Belichick would actually cast Law aside to save a ton of money, that's what Law believes and that mistrust has been created by the actions of the organization. The Patriots' organizational word has come to be worth about as much as their contracts are -- which is to say not the paper they're written on.