Matt Walsh Rules
New York (AP) – An NFL spokesman confirmed that former Patriots employee Matt Walsh has sent to the league eight videos shot between the 2000 and 2002 seasons that show the team secretly videotaped the play-calling signals of opposing coaches. The footage is of five opponents -- Miami, Buffalo, San Diego, Cleveland and Pittsburgh -- in six games. What's missing from the collection is a purported tape of a St. Louis walkthrough practice the day before the Rams played New England in the 2002 Super Bowl. The Boston Herald reported its existence on the eve of this year's Super Bowl. Walsh is scheduled to meet with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on Tuesday May 13th at the league's offices in New York City, and then separately with Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.).
As an unabashed, lifelong, shameless, Belichisexual Patriots fanboy, you’d think I’d be furious at Matt Walsh for keeping this excrement storm of controversy swirling around the Pats, but you’d be wrong. I think all decent, righteous, God-fearin’ Americans owe Mr. Walsh a debt of gratitude.
This latest revelation... that Walsh told the commissioner he taped coaches signals for the Patriots eight times between 2000 and 2002 and has the tapes to prove it... has me in a state of shock to be sure. But I feel finally like a veil has been lifted from my eyes. The rose colored glasses have been removed and I can finally see the Patriots in all their true despicable evilness. And for that, I have the good Mr. Walsh to thank. Truly it’s a brave thing for a whistle blower to come forward as he has. Matt Walsh is like a scratch-golfing Russell Crowe from “The Insider.” He’s Erin Brockovich in Dockers and Foot Joys.
I’m shocked... shocked!... to find the Patriots were videotaping sidelines eight seasons ago. That they used such illicit means to help Anthony Pleasant and Brandon Mitchell gain an edge on Kordell Stewart and Jay Fielder during the Clinton Administration has shaken my faith in them to the core. That Drew Bledsoe and Greg Robinson-Randall might have had the upper hand on Dave Wannstadt’s elaborate defenses has rocked my belief system down to its foundation. I haven’t felt this way since we found out the Church regarded Altar Boy Molestation as a fringe benefit.
Hopefully the NFL, with Arlen Specter’s help, will do the decent thing and melt down the three fraudulent Lombardi trophies the Pats swindled from all the decent, honorable, rules-abiding NFL teams, make silver bullets out of them, and shoot everyone in the Pats organization in the heart before the next full moon.
[Ed.note: this concludes the “rampant sarcasm” portion of this column. I will now shift gears to a tone of “defiant, vengeful anger.”]
I’m astonished that we stand here in the middle of May 2008, still talking about this SpyGate nonsense. Going all the way back to the Pats getting caught taping the Jets sidelines in Week 1 of last year I mistakenly thought this was a non-story. That “SpyGate” was, in MacBeth’s words “A tale/ Told by an idiot; full of sound and fury/ Signifying nothing.” I obviously underestimated the power of resentment aimed at the most successful organization in all of pro sports.
We all know every NFL team is involved in stealing coaches signs in one form or another. Duh. That’s why they use signs. And when stealing signs, video is helpful. The day the Pats got caught last September, the 31 other NFL teams scrambled to delete thousands of .wmv files and quietly transfer “Special Coaching Assistants” to front office jobs. And sure, there was a league rule against videoing, but it was enforced with all the fervor of the “12 Items or Less” checkout aisle rule or the MLB rule against Terry Francona wearing his red pullover in the dugout. It was more of a guideline than a hard & fast rule. This prompted Goodell’s now famous “We’re Wicked Serious About Not Videotaping Opposing Coaches and We Totally Mean it This Time So Quit it Guys, OK?” memo, which the Pats ran afoul of and paid the heaviest price any team ever has for violating a league rule. You would think it would’ve ended there. But when so many people... from a disgruntled former employee to a corrupt senator to a Boston football writer trying to make a name for himself... can benefit from keeping a story alive, reason and perspective don’t stand a chance.
For weeks I’ve been struggling to figure what this whole story reminds me of. Successful, powerful, unsympathetic guy does something marginally wrong and gets caught. Politician uses him as a symbol of all that is wrong with the world to increase his power and influence. Sleazy journalist makes up lies about him to keep the story alive and benefit his career. Soon the main character finds himself the eye of a storm in a media frenzy that’s way out of proportion to anything he actually did wrong. Then it hit me: SpyGate is “Bonfire of the Vanities,” with Bill Belichick as Sherman McCoy, Arlen Specter (R-Comcast) as the ambitious DA, and John Tomase as the drunken lowlife tabloid reporter. It’s “Bonfire of the Videotapes.” And as long as assclowns such as Specter and Tomase think it’s in their best interest to keep after the Patriots on this, you might want to change the lock on that Gillette Stadium trophy case or at least buy a silver bullet-proof vest.
I suppose though if there’s one tangible benefit to Walsh’s testimony with the NFL Commissioner’s office, it comes from the deal he cut with them. Walsh may be just a golf pro, but he pulled off the greatest arrangement in the history of legal negotiations. He got the NFL, the most powerful organization in all of sports, to agree to let him lie under oath. I’m not making this up. Before Walsh and his lawyers sat down with the NFL counsel, it was already written into the agreement that he could say whatever he wanted as long as he thought it was the truth. From Section 3 (a) of the agreement:
...the NFL will indemnify, defend and hold Walsh harmless from and against all claims... including any alleged untruthfulness in such disclosure, absent intentional untruthfulness on the part of Walsh...
I shudder to think how tough this guy is on the first tee negotiating how many strokes he’ll give you. How brilliant is this? “Alleged untruthfulness”? “Intentional untruthfulness”? Walsh might be just a former low level coaching assistant that Belichick “couldn’t pick out of a lineup” who now spends his life helping tourists improve their back swing, but now he’s done nothing less than redefine the meaning of Truth like he’s Immanuel friggin’ Kant.
I mean, what a breakthrough this is. Matt Walsh got to look Goodell and Specter in the eye and say any goddamned thing he wanted about the Pats and its not a lie so long as it’s not “intentional untruthfulness.” This is going to fundamentally change the way I do everything in my life for good:
*I can tell a cop “Ossifer, I may smell like a brewery, but me saying I haven’t had a beer all night is only allegedly untruthful.”
*I now know I’m awesome in bed because even though the women I’ve known never thought so, I did. Therefore I’m not being “intentionally untruthful” when I say I am.
*I can tell my boss “I’m indemnified and defended against allegations I was goofing off because I believed spending an hour Google-imaging Scarlett Johanssen’s ass is part of my job description.”
*To my lovely wife: “Honey, even though it’s 4 AM and I lost the kids’ college money, I’m harmless from and against all claims that allege untruthfulness when I said I wouldn’t play poker and I’d be home at midnight.”
The bottom line is that Matt Walsh is not the weaseliest of the conniving, self-promoting weasels in this little drama. At the very least he, Specter, Goodell and Tomase have made Bill Belichick look like the honorable, stand-up guy by comparison. And for that, we all can truly be grateful.