The NFL and the Pats were letting Walsh and his people win the media/PR battle, I'm glad they have begun to fight back.
It appears to have had the desired effect on Florio. The lawyer in him has appeared over the last several weeks to come to the conclusion that Walsh is not what you would consider someone approaching a credible witness to much of anything.
The Patriots apparently have enough bodies on their side of the ledger who can corroberate what they said or did or didn't do, and apparently some who can also attest to what Walsh did and didn't do while in their employ. Walsh on the other hand has a white collar criminal lawyer and some stolen tapes that likely don't show anything beyond filming signals and some stories he may want to tell that given his now proven penchant for embellishment if not flat out lying make him about as useful to Spector or anyone else as Roger Clemens was to his own cause.
Doesn't mean tools in the media and congress won't still try to use him against Bill if they have a sufficient agenda to drive or axe to grind. But at the end of the day 80% of those who followed the Clemens case still know he was just FOS and lying through his teeth in a determined albeit delusional effort to defend his HOF career standing because his story just isn't credible in the face of independent testimony to the contrary. And remember as with Walsh, Roger was the one who INSISTED on holding hearings to clear his name...yet the media struggles to grasp why Walsh would have opened himself up to this kind of scrutiny if he didn't have something that would vindicate him...duh, that's what sociopaths convince themselves to do because they're delusional and they aren't wired remotely like the majority of us.
POSTED 10:19 a.m. EDT; UPDATED 10:55 a.m. EDT, March 10, 2008
GLOBE FOCUSES ON WALSH
"At a time when most of the media hasn't been focusing on the guy who supposedly knows something (or thinks he knows something) about allegedly questionable practices of the Patriots prior to his termination in 2003, the Boston Globe has spent the last month getting to know more about Matt Walsh.
In a long but informative (and, in our view, mildly pro-Patriots) item in Monday's edition, Bob Hohler of the Globe shares some details about Walsh. Here are some of the highlights.
To no surprise, the team is poised to contend that Walsh acted on his own, if it turns out that he has in his possession a tape of the St. Louis Rams' final walk-through practice prior to Super Bowl XXXVI. (But, as we've previously mentioned, we don't think Walsh has a tape of any walk-through practice, and that the eventual explanation he might give will be viewed by many as implausible.)
Also, one of the items that Walsh might have in his possession is end-zone video of Adam Vinatieri's game-winning field goal in Super Bowl XXXVI. The Globe suggests that it's possible that Walsh also used that camera to videotape defensive coaching signals during the game.
Indeed, Walsh reportedly was one of three employees who was responsible for game-day taping of opponents' defensive coaching signals. It was an assignment he acquired when Bill Belichick became the head coach in 2000.
As to the incident that got Walsh fired (i.e., allegedly tape-recording conversations with V.P. of player personnel Scott Pioli), the Globe reports that Pioli was alerted to the situation by a co-worker, and that Pioli retrieved the tape from Walsh's desk after Walsh had left the office, listened to the unauthorized recording, and fired Walsh the next day. Walsh's lawyer has called the allegation of taped conversations a "complete fabrication."
Walsh told friends he was fired because he was close to qualifying for retirement benefits. He said he was considering suing the team, but he never did.
Regarding Walsh's past, the Globe reports that Walsh was dismissed from the Springfield College golf team in 1995 after booby-trapping his bed with a blender blade, apparently in order to prevent his roommate and the roommate's girlfriend from sullying Walsh's sheets. The roommate's girlfriend was only slightly injured, but the incident was deemed to be sufficiently severe to get Walsh kicked off of the squad.
Hopefully, we'll all know more about Walsh knows about cheating allegations in the near future. But, in all fairness to both sides, anything he says needs to be considered in conjunction with the other available evidence, especially if any of his story is colored with shades of gray."
