Quick hits

What do you think of Skip Rozin's piece in the Wall Street Journal.

"Let's Go To The Patriots Videotaping"

http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB121217929119133611.html

Same old, same old, on a slow day?

It's the same bunch of BS we've been reading and hearing for a while now. Anyone who clicks on that link is wasting their time and creating the possibility of more of the same being written. I like the Sports Guy's take, here it is:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...t&lid=tab1pos1

Now that it's finally finished, I think we learned three lessons from Spygate beyond the obvious one that "it's a bad idea to cheat because you might end up losing a No. 1 pick and getting fined $500,000":

1. In retrospect, maybe it's a bad idea to put too much stock into the deranged claims of a former third-level video assistant who's hoping to get paid for interviews even though he's not comfortable showing what he "has."

2. If you had a sister who wanted to get engaged to someone who got fired from his low-ranking NFL job and moved to Hawaii to become an assistant golf pro, you would take her out to dinner, urge her not to take the plunge and make it clear you think she's ruining her life for a complete loser. But if that same complete loser claims to have evidence that can bring down an NFL team, we should all believe him for a few months, no questions asked.

3. If you have a national column in which you're excoriating a sports team for cheating even though it already paid a severe penalty for what it did, and you're hinting more revelations are coming down the road, and then it's proven you were barking up the wrong tree ... you need to admit defeat and quit blowing the situation out of proportion. No, really.

I think in an effort to combat the biased media coverage of "spygate," we should consider tallying up all of the inconsistencies and lies in Matt Walsh's stories.

Feel free to add on, because there are plenty more lies out there. I'm going to start with a couple I see as important:

LIE: Walsh claimed he taped the walkthrough
We know now that this Matt Walsh taping the walkthrough rumor has been around for at least two years. Bill Belichick revealed in his CBS interview, that Walsh himself started the rumor. Obviously, we now know Walsh was lying, and this may be his biggest lie. The only possible motive for lying here is to hurt or undermine the Patriots, and this is the first of many examples of Walsh trying to do just that.
However, Walsh's lies about the walkthrough don't stop there.

LIE: Walsh told Brian Daboll about what he gathered from seeing the walkthrough.
Daboll has said this is false, the league appears to be on his side.

INCONSISTENCY/LIE: Walsh's recollection of the walkthrough do not match up...
...with what Warner stated the Rams practiced that day. Warner - and I believe Martz supported this as well - remembered practicing goal-line situations. Walsh made no mention of this in his recollection of the walkthrough. Perhaps Martz is right - Walsh is no scout and did not have the football IQ to gather anything from what he was watching anyway.

LIE: Walsh's signal taping information went from Adams to Weiss to the QB
Belichick thinks its absurd that Walsh would even talk about game-planning and play-calling. Both Brady (on WEEI) and Bledsoe (In a Herald article) have stated that they were not fed information regarding the defensive play calling through the headset.

INCONSISTENCY: Walsh claims they knew 75% of the plays of the opponents because of taping of signals. Randy Cross recently stated to Peter King that most teams are able to identify the defense at least that percentage of the time from preparation for a game regardless of signals stealing or taping. Scouts Inc. detailed explanation of how the signals would be used reinforced that they are just one piece in a larger puzzle of scouting and preparing for a game.

LIE: Walsh was taping these things covertly
Belichick points out that this information is available to anyone in the stadium, and that all teams scout the signals anyway. He states he never told Walsh to tape secretly and had video showing Walsh taping in Patriots attire in the open.

Again, feel free to add on more. I know there are plenty regarding his resume and things in the past, that's fine, too.

"Spygate" has been the most blown out of proportion story in the history of sports and it was caused because of the manner in which Goodell handled it following the Jets' game in Sept '07. In fact recently, as reported on PFT by Florio a high level NFL exec has gone on record stating that when it comes to taping signals "everyone was doing it in some way." So the exec is saying "spygate" was blown out of proportion, I don't know where he was during the 100+ days the Pats were getting grilled in the media but anyway. This NFL exec comment seemingly makes Goodell look like he is either incompetent or a liar, but we already knew that he was both long ago. http://www.profootballtalk.com/2008/05/23/ir-issue-bigger-than-spygate/ If Goodell had handled this like Tagliabue handled the Broncos and 49ers salary cap violations this would have been a non-story. Paying star players under the table in order to field a deeper and more talented team is equal to this situation in terms of competitve balance, I personally think it's much worse and it never became this big of a deal with stories continuing for months and months later.

Read this, I agree with almost all points made:
http://www.bostonsportsmedia.com/2008/05/why-spygate-is-the-most-disgraceful-episode-in-recent-sports-media-history

Here is a good read, can't believe it's from the four letter network, being that they haven't covered this situation with any balance at all: http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3394809, Dean you mentioned this in your comments.

Another one to read as well:
http://www.eagletribune.com/pusports...147010159.html

Here is an article from Pittsburgh with Scott Zolak commenting: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/valleyindependent/news/s_568650.html

If the rest of America wants to keep wasting their time with this let them, let's move on to football from this point forward.

Guys,

Here is an idea, quit bring up Spygate, Watergate, even my front gate. This article had nothing to do with Spygate. Lets put it to flipping rest. I've had enough of that BS. Enough guys. For God's sake, do Patriots Nation a favour and let it be.