Posted by
Ed Lilly on Sunday, May 18, 2008 11:55:18 AM
The Bill Belichick / New England Patriots "Spy-aquiddick" affair involving the stealing of the opposing team's signals and play calls through the use of sideline cameras has been slowly working itself out since last fall. There are a couple of very interesting articles up this morning on this topic. First, Geoffrey Hunt at The American Thinker pooh-poohs Sen. Arlen Specter's attempt to get a Congressional investigation going to look more deeply into what in the world Belichick and his staff have been up to for at least the past 8 years. I have some sympathy for his position from the standpoint of wondering whether this is really something we need to throw taxpayer money at, in much the same way I have never been much of a fan of the ongoing steroid/perjury investigation in Northern California and surrounding Barry Bonds.
But reading through Gregg Easterbrook's latest piece on ESPN.com, I think Easterbrook clearly has the better argument that something is indeed very rotten in Bill Belichick's football operations, and the NFL needs to do a lot more to address this before fan reaction and disaffection has a chance to get a lot worse. A congressional investigation may not be the way to go, but true transparency and complete disclosure seem to be the best way to get past this episode, along with some type of truly significant penalty for Belichick and his staff.