After months of being chased by the media, former Patriots video employee Matt Walsh finally has spoken on the record, initially to the New York Times.  As one writer told us on Friday, Walsh’s “life has changed forever.”

The media requests will continue, and the efforts of the most persuasive and diligent investigative reporters will continue until Walsh tells everything he knows.  Eventually, camera crews will head to Hawaii.

Even if he never fully breaks, we think that the mystery of Matt Walsh’s knowledge could be enough to enable Senator Arlen Specter to persuade his colleagues on the Judiciary Committee to convene a hearing, and to summon Walsh to Washington.

And as Walsh continues to talk, he’ll continue to provide the world with clues as to what he really knows.

Mike Fish (it’s always good to find someone else with the unfortunate initials of “M.F.”) of ESPN.com has penned a lengthy article regarding Walsh, and it’s obvious that Fish has been working on the guy for a while.  Though Fish was compelled to justify his effort by wrapping a bunch of prose around quotes from the subject of the story, some of the words of Walsh have greater impact once the filler (it’s well-written filler, but it’s filler nonetheless) is removed. 

And when focusing on Walsh’s words, it becomes increasingly obvious that he knows something (or at least thinks he knows something) that hasn’t already been publicly disclosed.  It’s also clear that Walsh is troubled.  He rambles.  At times, he makes little sense.  Through it all, he seems less interested in doing the right thing than about what’s in it for him.

“Maybe after this whole thing,” Walsh told Fish, “you don’t think I have a conscience because of the people I was exposed to and what they had me doing.”

Maybe Walsh said that because he fears that his stance on the matter is a reflection that he truly has no conscience.  He also doesn’t have very good judgment, either.  Why talk on the record at all unless he’s ready to tell the whole story?  And why authorize the New York Times and ESPN.com to print his first quotes on the matter in the days leading up to a historic Super Bowl?

It creates an impression that Walsh is indeed a disgruntled employee.  He told Fish that he was fired in 2003 after working for one year as a scout.  If Walsh didn’t have a burr in his caboose over what happened five years ago, why would he be creating a disruption now?

So we’re skeptical about this guy.  It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have solid information, and there’s a strong sense that he has videotapes, but it’s hard to give his cryptic comments much credibility unless and until he’s ready to back them up with details.

Our free advice (he’ll definitely get his money’s worth) to Matt?  Tell what you know, or shut the hell up.  If the evidence is persuasive and significant, the Patriots won’t risk the P.R. damage that would be done by suing a man who tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about such a serious matter.