Posted by ESPN.com's Matt Mosley
Either Sen. Arlen Specter plans to interview Matt Walsh well into the evening or he simply wants his very own news cycle. I'm guessing it's the latter. Hashmarks just made a call to NFL Live host Trey Wingo to see if he's booked another SportsCenter Special for Wednesday, but I don't see it happening.
It certainly sounded like NFL commissioner Roger Goodell was seeking closure today, but then, he previously thought that was the case when he punished the Patriots in September. On Tuesday, he was once again asked to defend what he referred to as the "unprecedented" action he took against the franchise.
He seems incredulous when the topic comes up, but now that we know that the videotaping had been taking place as far back as 2000, it's a fair question to ask. At the time, $750,000 in fines and the removal of a first-round draft choice sounded a lot more harsh than it does now.
The tone of the Patriots' press release is predictably indignant:
"We want to address the allegation that the Patriots taped the Rams' walkthrough prior to Super Bowl XXXVI. For the past three-and-a-half months, we have been defending ourselves against assumptions made based on an unsubstantiated report rather than on facts or evidence.
"Despite our adamant denials, the report ran on February 2, 2008, the day before Super Bowl XLII. That game was the second-most watched program in television history and it is unfortunate that today's news will not also reach an audience of that size.
"We hope that with Matt Walsh's disclosures, everyone will finally believe what we have been saying all along and emphatically stated on the day of the initial report: 'The suggestion that the New England Patriots recorded the St. Louis Rams' walkthrough on the day before Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002 is absolutely false. Any suggestion to the contrary is untrue.' "
Something tells me the Patriots still don't feel properly vindicated. Perhaps a lawsuit against the Boston Herald might make them feel better, but it's not going to make Spygate go away. Like it or not, the franchise -- and the league to a lesser extent -- will bear the scars of this scandal for years to come.
