In hindsight, it was a fitting way to conclude one of the most bizarre offseason weeks in NFL history.  The notoriously reclusive Bill Belichick, coach of the New England Patriots and presumed mastermind of the coaching signals videotaping scheme, opted to unload on former video employee Matt Walsh in an interview that aired on the CBS Evening News, only three days after Walsh told NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell that Walsh is aware of no cheating other than the videotaping of coaching signals.

“He was fired here for poor job performance,” Belichick said of Walsh.  “There’s not a lot of credibility.”

But what exactly about Walsh’s credibility is Belichick attacking?

At a time when the Patriots should be relieved, Belichick couldn’t leave well enough alone.  He opted to question the veracity of Walsh’s statement that the team (i.e., Belichick) knew that the videotaping of coaching signals was a violation of the rules.

Belichick’s overriding point is that he didn’t consciously cheat, but that he merely misinterpreted the rules.  Belichick claimed during the CBS interview that “[t]here was no deception” in what the team was doing.

The coach also attacked Walsh’s football credentials.  “For him to talk about game-planning and strategy and play-calling and how he advised coordinators is . . . it’s embarrassing,” Belichick said.  “It’s absurd.  I mean, he didn’t have any knowledge of football.  He was our third video assistant.”

But, coach, Walsh’s job was, in part, to videotape the coaching signals.  The only thing he did to “advise coordinators” was to tell former defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel that Walsh believed at least one other team was doing to the Pats what the Pats were doing, through Walsh, to other teams.  So this effort to make Walsh look like he didn’t know what he was doing unfairly suggests that Walsh wasn’t qualified to know that he was taping coaching signals, and that the team (i.e., Belichick) didn’t want Walsh to get caught doing it.

The bigger problem that we have with the interview is that it demonstrates that Belichick’s logic is seriously flawed.  He wants us to believe that the effort to videotape defensive coaching signals was not conducted in secrecy, which would bolster Belichick’s position that the conduct was the result of an innocent misunderstanding of the rules.  But Belichick conceded to CBS that the September 2006 memo from the league clarifying the rule put him on notice that it wasn’t an issue of misinterpretation.

 ”I made a mistake,” Belichick said.  “It was wrong.  I was wrong.”

Fine.  Then why is Belichick trying to discredit Walsh’s contention that it was wrong?  So we’ll believe that the videotaping from 2000 through 2005 was the result of a misinterpretation of the rules, and that Belichick only became an intentional cheater once the rule was clarified in September 2006 to leave no room for misinterpretation?

The strategy truly is perplexing.

And we’re very disappointed with the failure of the network of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite to treat this issue with the kind of simplicity and clarity that would have made it easier for the audience to understand what’s really going on here.

In a nutshell, Walsh contends that the Pats intentionally were breaking the rules.  Belichick contends that the team didn’t know it until 2006, at which time the team then began intentionally breaking the rules.  And, unfortunately, CBS failed to reference Commissioner Roger Goodell’s opinion on whether there was any misinterpretation of the rules by Belichick. 

“I’m pretty well on the record here that I didn’t accept Bill Belichick’s explanation for what happened, and I still don’t to this day,” Goodell said at his May 13 press conference.

To put it another way, Walsh says one thing, Belichick says something else.  And Goodell sides not with Belichick but with Walsh.

It really is that simple.  Unfortunately, not many of the people who watched the CBS report will realize that.

Oh, and CBS also didn’t mention its business relationship with the Patriots in conjunction with a story that was deemed to be sufficiently newsworthy to find a home in the first ten minutes of the broadcast.

Maybe we’re not perplexed, after all.