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WASHINGTON — Hold on, NFL. Spygate isn't over. Not if the "incensed" Pittsburgh Steelers fan in Congress has anything to do with it.
Sen. Arlen Specter yesterday called for an independent investigation of the New England Patriots' taping of opposing coaches' signals, possibly similar to the high-profile Mitchell Report on performance enhancing drugs in baseball.
"What is necessary is an objective investigation," Specter said at a news conference in the Capitol. "And this one has not been objective."
The Pennsylvania Republican was unforgiving of his criticism of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, saying that Goodell has made "ridiculous" assertions that wouldn't fly "in kindergarten." The Senator said Goodell was caught in an "apparent conflict of interest" because the NFL doesn't want the public to lose confidence in the league's integrity.
"They are enormous role models for everybody," Specter said. "If you can cheat in the NFL, you can cheat in college, you can cheat in high school, you can cheat on your grade-school math test. There's no limit as to what you can do. I think they owe the public a lot more candor and a lot more credibility."
Goodell essentially declared an end to Spygate after a 31/2-hour meeting in New York on Tuesday morning with former New England video assistant Matt Walsh. Walsh supplied the league with videotapes of coaches' signals made by the Patriots, but offered no new significant revelations about the cheating scandal that has threatened to taint the team's three Super Bowl titles.
Goodell said afterward that the information from the interview with Walsh "was consistent with what we disciplined the Patriots for last fall," when the commissioner docked the team a 2008 first-round draft pick and fined coach Bill Belichick $500,000 and the team $250,000.
Specter said he would prefer the NFL arrange the independent investigation and was willing to wait several months — while he continues to undergo chemotherapy treatments for Hodgkin's disease — before calling for Congress to take what he called "corrective action."
Herald issues apology
The Boston Herald apologized for a story that said the Patriots videotaped a St. Louis Rams walkthrough before the 2002 Super Bowl.
In the apology, published in the newspaper's Wednesday edition and posted on its Web site, the Herald said the story was based on sources "it believed to be credible."
"We now know that this report was false, and that no tape of the walkthrough ever existed," the paper wrote.
"We should not have published the allegation in the absence of firmer verification. The Boston Herald regrets the damage done to the team by publication of the allegation, and sincerely apologizes to its readers and to the New England Patriots' owners, players, employees and fans for our error."
Walsh comes out firing
Matt Walsh dismissed Patriots coach Bill Belichick's attempts to minimize the impact of the team's illegal taping of opponents' coaching signals.
" ... it was something that they continued to have me do throughout the two years I worked in video, under Coach Belichick," Walsh told HBO's Andrea Kremer in an interview scheduled to air Friday night on "Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel."
"If it was of little or no importance, I imagine they wouldn't have continued to do it, and probably not taken the chances of going down onto the field in Pittsburgh or shooting from other teams' stadiums the way we did."
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