The Boston Globe spent the past month looking into former Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh's life. It wasn't the most balanced report a newspaper has ever produced, but it did provide some insight on this mysterious figure who has, in some ways, held his former employers hostage over the past month.
After reading the story, I think you'll agree that the Patriots are painted in a much more positive light than Walsh. The club has already launched a campaign to discredit its former employee, and the Globe does nothing to hamper that campaign.
"To some, a vindictive videotaper" screams the newspaper's headline for the story about a talented kid who seemed to develop the gift of manipulation. I told you recently about talking to a high-ranking member of an AFC team who used to know Walsh in New England. Bill Belichick has said he couldn't pick Walsh out of a lineup, but this man said Walsh was an engaging character who was funny and had a great deal of knowledge in a variety of fields, including music and history.
That certainly didn't come across in the Globe story. In some ways, Walsh comes across as almost sinister. He was the fourth best player on his college golf team before he was kicked off because of a bizarre incident.
Here's a portion of the Globe's account:
"According to the alleged victim, a woman who was dating Walsh's roommate, Walsh was so miffed that she and his roommate might spend time on his bed while he was away that he booby-trapped his sheets with a stainless steel, six-pronged blender blade.
"The woman, whose account was corroborated by Walsh's former roommate, said she vividly recalls being startled and slightly injured when she sat on the knife-sharp object. She said the episode forever changed her view of Walsh, whom she had known since high school and Walsh's roommate had considered his best friend since childhood."
No chargers were filed, but Walsh was dismissed from the golf team. At that point, he turned his focus to football and landed an unpaid role with the Patriots as a game-day aide in the press box.
Walsh finally secured a full-time job with the Patriots as a video assistant in 1999, when he was 23. After the 2002 Super Bowl, he joined the club's scouting department, but it's unclear what his role was. His online biography stated that he was an area scout.
"I never could really figure out what he did," former Patriots scout Jake Hallum told the Globe.
The story also went a long way in ruling out the possibility of Walsh having a videotape of the Rams' final walkthrough before Super Bowl XXXVI. An NFL investigator said that one of Walsh's co-workers quoted him as saying, "We should have taped that" as the two left the Superdome two days before the game.
And a league source told the Globe that the Patriots' video crew didn't take any battery packs to the Superdome that day and that there was no electrical power available at the camera positions.
No matter what tapes or other information Walsh produces, the Patriots are going to attack his credibility. And after reading the Globe's story, I don't think they'll lack for ammunition.
