MLB St Louis Rams

Now that former Patriots employee Matt Walsh has finally come forward and said he did not tape the Rams' final walk-through practice before the 2002 Super Bowl, the Boston Herald is coming under increased scrutiny for its report three months ago that said someone on the Patriots had, in fact, spied on the Rams.

On ESPN Radio this morning, reporter Chris Mortensen suggested that the Herald reported that "scoop" not because the Herald had better sources than other media outlets, but because the Herald had lower standards than other media outlets.

"Other media outlets including ESPN, had this allegation and pursued this allegation for months, and it just didn't meet the standard in terms of what you needed to report it, and the Boston Herald evidently felt they had met the standard to report it," Mortensen said. "They need to come out and say, 'We stand by our story' or they need to have a retraction and apology and deal with the consequences of it, but certainly it's damaging to the Boston Herald at this point, especially if they stay silent on the subject."

Notes on a trip to the Super Bowl.

Everyone here in Arizona is talking about the latest spygate allegations, but no one is speaking as strongly as Gregg Easterbrook of ESPN.com, who was one of the harshest critics of the Patriots and the NFL when the allegations first emerged and now seems to feel vindicated that the story is coming back. Easterbrook writes today:

Also Saturday, Mike Fish reported on ESPN that St. Louis' [pre-Super Bowl XXXVI] walk-through was devoted to red zone plays -- all new plays and new formations the Rams had not shown during the season. Going into that Super Bowl, the Rams' "Greatest Show on Turf" was the league's highest-scoring team. In that game, St. Louis was held to a field goal in the first half. The Rams kept getting bogged down, as if New England knew what plays were coming. If the Patriots secretly taped the Rams' walk-through, then stopped the red zone plays the Rams showed in that walk-through, then won that Super Bowl by three points, then logic says New England materially benefited from cheating in the Super Bowl. If true, this would be the worst sports scandal since the Black Sox.

Let's put that in capital letters: IF TRUE. We don't yet know whether the Super Bowl allegations are true. Then again, we are into only the second day of information going on the record and the league finally answering some questions about the subject.

Is Easterbrook correct there? It seems like hyperbole, but the fact is we don't really know what happened in all this Patriots spying stuff, so we don't really know just how big a deal it is.