Will Spygate Die?

Logging on to ESPN this morning to get my Sox recap prepped I was hit with this. Again. So I put the Sox recap on the back burner.

Seriously, it’s been eight months since the story broke about the Patriots video taping opponents signals and it just won’t go away. It’s beyond ridiculous at this point and is touching on absurd.

The latest news that came out is that Former Patriots Video Assistant Matt Walsh finally turned over his stolen property to the NFL. That’s right stolen. I’ve never so much as taken a pen when leaving a job and this guy took tapes? To say that he’s a vindictive former employee I think is an understatement.

The tapes he’s allegedly handed over are of the Patriots games against Miami, Buffalo, Cleveland and San Diego between 2000 and 2002 as well as Pittsburgh in the 2002 AFC Championship. Not one tape of the Rams walkthrough as alleged by the Boston Herald.

The question I have is this. Why did the Herald report this days before the Super Bowl? Were they intentionally trying to trip up the Patriots? Is the paper that spiteful against the Pats? I understand that it helps sell newspapers, but there’s no accountability? How about a huge one page apology to the Pats and their fans on the front page of the paper? We’ll never see that.

What’s more is that once this hearing is over, Walsh gets to keep them. Really? He knowingly steals from his employer and gets to keep the stolen items? What a bunch of crap.

There is no way in the world the Patriots were the only team doing this. In fact I bet most of the league, if not all of the league, did this.

The bottom line on the whole thing is that you may know what play is coming but if you don’t have the players that can perform, it’s really useless information. The Patriots have built a solid team through the draft and free agency as well as smart salary cap management. They don’t make huge drafting blunders like the Lions, the don’t overpay in the free agent market like the Redskins. They’re a smart franchise.

Smart enough to realize when one of their employees sucks at his job to fire him. Unfortunately they didn’t know that he was a thief too. Let’s just hope this finally puts the this Spygate (a term I really hate mind you) debacle to bed.