NFL spokesman Greg Aiello suggested to the Boston Globe on Wednesday night that the Patriots will face no new discipline because of the tapes that former Pats video employee Matt Walsh has surrendered to the league.

“This is consistent with what the Patriots had admitted they had been doing, consistent with what we already knew,” Aiello said.

That said, we’re curious about why Walsh would have deemed it appropriate to keep tapes of defensive coaching signals for years after his departure, if (as coach Bill Belichick explained after the poo hit the propeller) Belihick had merely misinterpreted the rules.  In other words, Walsh would have had no reason to retain evidence of wrongdoing, if the official position in the organization was that the practice did not violate the rules.  Unless, of course, Belichick knew that they might at some point get in trouble for this, and thus he had his “I didn’t understand the rules” excuse ready in the event that this happened.

Of course, it’s also possible that Walsh simply kept anything and everything on which he could lay his hands, without regard to whether the materials was or wasn’t evidence of cheating.

With Walsh’s meeting with the Commissioner only five days away, the question now becomes whether Walsh will provide a verbal account that sweeps more broadly than the content of the tapes.  As Walsh told the New York Times back on February 1,  “There would be things I’d be forced to answer that some people haven’t taken responsibility for.”

This would suggest one of two things — either Walsh is full of crap (which is entirely possible) or his comments to Goodell will reach more broadly than the contents of the tapes. 

Regardless, it’s impossible to move forward until we know what Walsh tells Goodell on May 13.