New England Patriots

Spygate loser Walsh gets what’s coming to him

If I saw Matt Walsh in the street, I would kick him square in the shin.

Actually, that’s not true. I kick like a girl, and I don’t know what Matt Walsh looks like. At any rate, my motive still remains: I want Matt Walsh’s shin to taste the sued-toed justice of my low-top Pumas for his defaming my New England Patriots. I guess my words, as they have on so many other occasions, must do my social recourse for me.

Walsh was the key piece in further investigation into the Patriots’ purposed cheating scandal. The golf pro (read: retread) from Hawaii (read: escaping real world responsibility) claimed (read: fibbed) to have video proof of the Pats having taped defensive signals and offensive plays from previous games, including Super Bowl XXXVI (read; the greatest moment of my life).

Turns out, Walsh was full of it.

Commissioner extraordinaire Roger Goodell watched the tapes and found nothing good, not unlike my experience with Prince Caspian. Sure, there were some signals caught on tape, but nothing to the degree that Walsh had presumed. Hoping to steal more time in the spotlight, the fink went for sympathy with his stories of forced video taping and non-consensual recording. Fortunately, everyone was done listening.

I, for one, was done listening back in February when the story first got legs. I’ve been known to scare up some questionable sources in my journalism days (parents, children, running backs with fourth grade vocabularies), but even I know better than to trust the word of bitter former employees. Those who ran with the story obviously regretted it–a feeling (regret) that I’m sure Walsh’s girlfriend felt when he came home from his Spygaffe testimony. Still, the damage was done.

The months of deceit courtesy of Walsh are what irks me most about this whole ordeal. This thing took forever to blow over, and all along, there wasn’t anything to blow. Fans couldn’t put the Spygate issue to bed because this Matt Walsh guy was still out there, putzing it up in Hawaii with his Zappruder films. We Patriot fans dealt with so much unnecessary scorn on account of some nobody who was out to get famous.

What does he have against he Patriots anyway? Walsh got to be a part of the greatest NFL franchise of this decade, and he left the experience feeling bitter and wronged? I would have filmed Jay Fiedler at the grocery store if Belichick asked me, and if the Patriots wanted to fire me, I would have turned right back around and quit so they could save my pension for the salary cap. I am the anti-Walsh. So is every other Patriots fan.

Maybe that is what makes this entire experience so difficult. We were dogged by one of us. That hurts. A member of the Patriots turned on the organization so badly that he nearly tarnished the good name of the franchise. If it could happen to a scrub like Walsh, who’s to say what would happen if someone with credibility and respect did the same? I only hope we never have to deal with a Drew Bledsoe ageism suit.

I’ve become so paranoid and insecure since this whole Walsh thing. I’m angry, I’m upset, and my eye twitches every time someone says the number 19. I need to hear from the only man who can make things right again: Coach Belichick.

“For him to talk about game-planning and strategy play-calling, and how he advised coordinators, it’s embarrassing, it’s absurd. He didn’t have any knowledge of football. I don’t know what his agenda is. There’s not a lot of credibility,” Belichick said in a CBS interview, kicking Walsh in the figurative shin.

© 2008 KevanLee.com.