Peter King of SI.com suggests in his MMQB column (which we sometimes don’t get around to perusing until TM) that the legal stalemate between the NFL and former Patriots video employee Matt Walsh could be resolved by the end of the week.  (And we’re hearing that something could happen as soon as today.)

Writes King:  “I can’t imagine Roger Goodell stepping in front of the media Saturday at the draft and figuring out some other way to say, ‘I think we’re close to a deal with him’ in some different way than he’s said it 53 times in the last two months.”

Amen.  The last thing the league needs is another sideshow to distract from the draft.  Remember last year’s Mike Vick fiasco?  Vick was in attendance at Radio City Music Hall in connection with the league’s tribute to the victims of the Virginia Tech shootings, only days after more than 50 dogs were removed from his property in Virginia.

“I’m never at the house,” Vick said while in New York.  “I left the house with my family members and my cousin.  They just haven’t been doing the right thing.”

(And if you don’t know the rest of that story, we suggest that you cut the hair, shave the beard, and trim the nails that have been growing during your prolonged coma.)

Though Goodell is certain to be asked about the impact of Pacman’s hush money payment to the strip club shooter, Goodell can avoid being pressed about the chronic lack of a deal with Walsh if a deal with Walsh can get done. 

(For those of you who were in a prolonged coma, Walsh has strongly hinted that he knows something about previously undisclosed cheating activities by the Patriots.  A February 2 report from the Boston Herald claiming that the Pats videotaped the Rams walk-through practice prior to Super Bowl XXXVI is widely believed to have been based on off-the-record information supplied by Walsh.)