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Belichick: Is He The Perfect Villain?

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By MARTIN FENNELLY | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 3, 2008

PHOENIX - Read this before the NFL burns it.

Oh, why couldn't Bill Belichick just have done something fun, like plant a camera in those flowers Tommy "The Boot" Brady brought to Gisele? People would storm the AMC 24 to see that one.

Word is a government spy plane will circle Super Bowl XLII tonight, just to make sure William the Conqueror is on the level, you know, this time.

Belichick, the grim reaper in the hood, hold the sickle, add the camcorder, is on the brink of perfection, but his legacy seems as ratty as his sweatshirt.

There's an excellent chance Patriots excellence will beat the Giants tonight. That should be the story, that and Belichick greatness, but it can't be, not for now, and the spy who never comes in from the cold has only himself to blame.

Hey, what's the Super Bowl without more cheating allegations, NFL commissioner Richard Milhous Goodell explaining why he destroyed Spygate evidence, or the threat of a Senate investigation, or an informant or two, one alleging that a Patriots employee taped the Rams' walkthrough before New England won its first Super Bowl? We're not saying this is growing, but five will get you 10 they filmed your wedding night.

Should Be Celebrating Genius

We should be celebrating Belichick genius. He should be the stuff of Lombardi and Noll, not Woodward and Bernstein.

Instead we see the perfect villain.

It was that way even before the Patriots told the New York Jets to say cheese. Perfection didn't help. Nor did running up scores and dirty Patriot Rodney Harrison.

And there's the head coach's hooded woobie, his brief, clammy handshakes to losing coaches, and his general public disposition, that of daytime vampire.

And there's this mess.

Maybe it would have gone away if NFL commissioner Roger Goodell hadn't taken a page from the Rose Mary Woods Secretarial School when he had assistants destroy all Spygate evidence after docking BeliCheat and the Patriots $750,000 and a first-round draft pick.

Yeah, that'll end the conspiracy talk.

"I think it was the appropriate thing to do," Goodell said Friday. "... We wanted to take that information and destroy that information, also. We did that."

The CIA reportedly has sent over its extra torture tapes for "safe keeping."

Now the United States Congress is on the case, namely Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania (Eagles fan). Specter, ranking Republican (Eagles fan) on the Senate Judiciary Committee, wants the NFL to explain itself, under oath and everything.

Funny, Specter (Eagles fan) has experience in quashing conspiracy as a lawyer on the Warren Commission. He was author or co-author of the "single-bullet theory," key to the assertion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. And Zapruder was filming Kennedy's defensive signals.

Not A Single-Belichick Theory

We haven't mentioned the former Patriots video department employee who was tracked down in Hawaii (Pago Pago was full up) by a New York newspaper. The man, Matt Walsh, is an assistant golf pro, though word is he is so in hiding he wears a disguise. Last week, he wore a Tiger Woods mask and won the Buick Open.

Walsh told the New York Times, "If someone wanted me to talk and tell them things, I would craft an agreement where they would agree from now until the end of my existence to pay for any legal fees that came up in regards to this, whether I'm sued by the Patriots, NFL, anybody else."

Move along, nothing to see here ...

And a Boston newspaper now reports a source who alleges a Patriots employee taped the Rams the day before the Super Bowl in 2002. The Patriots say the allegations "are absolutely false."

We're not promoting a single-Belichick theory. This stuff goes on in football. And sure, the Patriots can win games all by themselves. Then again, Nixon was always going to cream McGovern.

What's next? The Belichick "I Am Not A Cheat" speech?

Spygate won't stick forever, like, to the end of existence. But right now it's breathing down perfection's neck.

By the way, Belichick loved you picking "Unchained Melody" as a wedding song.

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