In an interview aired last hour during ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown, Dolphins linebacker Joey Porter teed off on the Patriots and the cheating scandal that was disclosed last year.

The following partial transcript has been forwarded to us by ESPN.

Keyshawn Johnson:  Let’s switch to the New England Patriots game.  Is there a big difference in that rivalry of the Miami Dolphins, New England, and Pittsburgh-New England?

Joey Porter: Yeah, it’s a big difference . . . but I still got hate from when I was at Pittsburgh.

Keyshawn: Why?

Porter: Because I got cheated.

Keyshawn: Cheated in what?

Porter: In both of them AFC championship games.

Keyshawn: What did they do?

Porter: Come on, man.  They’ve been videotaping for years, man.  You cannot sit up there and honestly tell me if it wasn’t working, why was he doing it so much?  You’re not going to sit up there and tell me if I’m a quarterback in my headset I know where the blitz is coming.  I know where my hots and stuff is at before it happens.  I know what play you’re running on defense.   All you got to do is be in the right position . . .  just catch the ball.

Keyshawn:  So you feel they were cheating.  You don’t feel they were just the better team?

Porter: What? No, no, no, no.  Two times we could have blown them people out easily.  They say, oh, he’s so smart.  This is the best brainstorming coach.  Yeah, because he’s cheating. He got caught. . . .  If it wasn’t so bad, why did you destroy the tape so fast? . . .  We want to see the tapes.  When you get rid of evidence like that, there was something in it they didn’t want everybody to see.

Keyshawn:  So you take it personally?

Porter:  Man. . . .  That’s my dynasty.  You know what I mean?  I could be sitting up here with three rings.  This is the way I look at it.  I played three AFC Championships — won one, lost two. . . .  Yeah, to me just like they want to put an asterisk on everything else, yeah, I don’t care what they say.  They have an asterisk on them. . . .  At the same time, people that played against them on the field, we know.  Who they got on that team beside Tom Brady?  It’s not like they’ve got a gang of dogs over there. . . .  They have a bunch of all right guys.  You know what I mean?  Not no just real dogs. They’ve got some beasts on the D line and stuff like that but . . . . 

Keyshawn:  You can’t possibly think, three Super Bowls. . . .  You think they cheated in every single one of them games?

Porter: Man, I’m going to tell you, I’m taking that to the grave, man.  I don’t care what nobody say. . . .

Keyshawn:  What about last year? . . .  All the glamour, glitz and glamour, 16-0.  You think they were cheating then?

Porter: I don’t know.  You know, I don’t know. . . .  Maybe he found a new way to do it or not to tell you the truth.  The boy cold, man.  He showed us, he’s cold.  The boy cold, man.  Hey, the boy cold, man.  He showed us man, he cold. . . .  I don’t trust him.

In fairness to the Patriots, numerous news reports have indicated that other teams and coaches videotaped defensive coaching signals over the years.  And a 1967 article from Sport magazine made it clear that spying and skullduggery is a fact of life in the NFL. 

Also, there is no rule against stealing defensive signals without the use of electronic recording equipment.  Now that a defensive player has a radio receiver in his helmet, defensive signals are less important than they used to be.