Shula Said What Everyone Else Is Afraid To Say

“The Spygate thing has diminished what (the Patriots) have accomplished.”

That’s what Don Shula was quote as saying to the New York Daily News. If you’re a knowledgeable football fan, the only response you could possibly have to such a statement is, “Yeah, that’s true.”

So why is Shula getting blasted by everyone from the San Francisco Chronicle to USA Today? Because he said what everyone else is thinking, but is afraid to voice. He compared the Patsies’ spying scandal to Barry Bonds breaking Major League Baseball’s treasured home run record, wondering if an asterisk should be applied to either. He never once said that the record should have an asterisk, as has been widely attributed to him.

Apparently, every talking head on ESPN can talk about whether Bonds belongs in the Hall of Fame, how his record should be recognized by the league, whether an asterisk needs to be placed alongside his name and whether Cooperstown has a room big enough to fit his steroids-inflated head. But question a borderline sociopath like Bill Belichick – after he has been caught cheating! – and all of a sudden you’re a washed-up, grumpy old man.

Here are the facts in this story: Shula is the winningest coach in the NFL, boasting 347 career victories. He’s recognized as one of the innovators of the game. He served on the NFL’s competition committee for 21 years. The Patriots are 9-0. They were caught cheating and punished by the NFL after the first game of the season. They had their No. 1 draft choice taken away and the owner was fined $250,000. Belichick was fined half a million dollars. The league destroyed the tapes that caught New England in the act of cheating.

Shula did not go chasing this story; he was asked a question about the possibility of the Patriots going 19-0 and asked whether the cheating situation earlier in the year would blemish such an achievement. He answered honestly, as he always has. While commissioner Roger Goodell and the NFL would love to sweep the whole pesky cheating thing under the same rug that hides the way it treats its former players, the reality is that they won’t be able to hide the facts of the Patsies’ transgression. Hell, even in April, during the NFL Draft, the ESPN scroll will come to New England’s pick at No. 32 and it will have to read: “New England, No. 32 (forfeited – cheating).”

How will Bill Simmons explain that to his son someday?

SportsBoyWhoGetsBeatUpALot: Wow, Dad, New England had a great team in 2007!
SportsGay: You bet, son. That’s the year I tried to have sex with Kevin Garnett.
SBWGBUAL: I read some of your 6,409 articles about that year, Dad. It sounds like they did an amazing job of drafting and trading a fourth-rounder for Randy Moss!
SG: No kidding. Back then, they couldn’t do any wrong. Everyone they picked in the draft became a real impact player for them. Belichick certainly had an eye for talent. And a great fashion sense as well.
SBWGBUAL: Really? Man, that must have been something. Who did they pick in the first round after they won the Super Bowl? A speedy running back as insurance against Maroney’s injuries? Another hard-hitting linebacker since Bruschi and Vrabel were getting older?
SG: Oh … first round? They, uh, they didn’t have a first-rounder that year.
SBWGBUAL: What? But they only gave up a fourth-rounder for Moss … who did they get if they traded the first-rounder?
SG: Well, they didn’t technically trade it. Well, they sort of traded it to the commissioner as a cover-up for … listen, son, we don’t really talk about this.
SBWGBUAL: I don’t get it, Dad. The commissioner?
SG: Well, they got caught cheating that year.
SBWGBUAL: Cheating?!
SG: Well, it’s complicated. I blame Rick Pitino.
SBWGBUAL: Why didn’t you tell me, Dad?! Cheating? But you gave me one of Tom Brady’s old cups for Christmas last year! Those guys were cheating?!
SG: I didn’t think you were ready to hear it. It’s all untrue, I swear!
SBWGBUAL: You’re not my father!
SG: I always thought you did look a lot more like Jimmy Kimmel than me …

Everyone in the media is quick to gloss over the cheating, but when LaDanian Tomlinson, one of the most standup guys in the game, laughs, shakes his head and says everyone knows the Patriots are cheaters, that can’t be forgotten. When other coaches bring up anecdotes about how their headsets mysteriously stopped working at crucial times in New England, that can’t be swept aside.

And why do you think the NFL quietly destroyed the incriminating tapes, without reason? Because they didn’t want nosy media types replaying the tapes over and over during the two-week buildup to the Super Bowl, highlighting the league’s “model” franchise as dogged and repeat cheaters. The NFL doesn’t want anyone to know just how deep the cheating goes, and they don’t want to give the same “journalists” who blow Belicheat and Brady on-air 24/7 any more ammunition to go digging for anything more.

As Greg Cote of the Miami Herald wrote, Shula was not only fair to question the Patsies – but he was right. He just has more stones than the media that wants to glorify cheaters and the NFL that wants to protect its ratings by propping up one of its more marketable teams.

Shame on Shula? Horseshit. Shame on Goodell. Shame on the NFL. And shame on the “men” that are paid to cover it.