Here’s an interesting twist on the whole Matt Walsh/Spygate II story.

John Czarnecki of FOXSports.com suggests that the St. Louis Rams didn’t have a walk-through practice prior to Super Bowl XXXVI.  Thus, if they didn’t have a walk-through practice, the New England Patriots couldn’t have videotaped it.

Write Czarnecki:  “I was in the Superdome on the Saturday in question. The Rams were in their game uniforms, running around and generally relaxing waiting to take their team photo for the Super Bowl. There were wooden risers on the field. . . .  If there was a walk-through that day, it was the most disorganized one ever assembled.  Many of the players were there to simply unwind and relax and test out the carpet.”

We’re a bit confused, for two reasons.  First, if there wasn’t a walk-through, why didn’t Czarnecki raise this, you know, two months ago?  Second, what of those reports that the Rams had a walk-through practice that focused on goal-line offense and short-yardage plays?

Another point raised by Czarnecki makes much more sense to us.  “Mike Martz was extremely nervous about practicing at the Saints’ facility because he feared Jim Haslett and his staff would be taping his practices,” Czarnecki writes.  “He wanted their coaches removed from the building.  That didn’t happen, but all of the windows that faced the practice field had their drapes closed.  Remember, this was a time when Haslett, now the Rams defensive coordinator, and Martz really didn’t get along.  There was a real rivalry between the two and their teams.

“So yes, Martz was concerned about being videotaped, but it was by the Saints’ staff, not the Patriots.”

The bigger point here, which has been made on consecutive days by Pats owner Robert Kraft and coach Bill Belichick, is this — if Matt Walsh has evidence of anything improper happening in connection with Super Bowl XXXVI, Walsh needs to come forward with it.  It’s unfair to the Patriots for this vague notion that they swindled the St. Louis Rams out of a Super Bowl to hang over the franchise indefinitely. 

And hang over the franchise it will.  Unless Walsh shows his hand, there will be casual fans who will be saying years from now that the Patriots cheated in Super Bowl XXXVI.

Of course, there might be casual fans who’ll be saying that even if Walsh is proven to have no proof.  But there will be far more of them if Walsh never talks.

That’s why the league and the Patriots need to call his bluff, give him a guarantee that he won’t be sued into the Sixteenth Century after he says whatever he has to say, and see what he has to show and/or tell.