A new day.

Betcha I know the reason Bill Belichick ran off the field last night when it was clear he had lost the game, instead of waiting for the clock to run down on the Giants victory... The jig is up. If I were a betting man, I might even wager that will be the last time anybody sees him coach an NFL game.

He got off easy when allegations of cheating earlier in the year were proven to be true, not just allegations. So you pay a half-million dollar fine, and you start winning to try and save your reputation. But that only holds the wolves at bay for so long, Mr. Belichick.

For every sports reporter covering the beat who was willing to let the videotaped cheating pass, caught up in the fanboy-like hoopla of dynasty talk and impressed by the regular-season domination by the Patriots, you still can't just sweep the truth under the rug. Coach Tony Dungy got it back then, the importance of what happened despite Belichick's arrogant "willingess" to put the whole thing behind him and move on...

From a September 17 ESPN story:

Belichick was peppered with questions on the scandal again Friday. But this time he seemed bemused by the repeated attempts to get him to expand on his earlier statement in which he accepted "full responsibility for the actions" that led to the punishment.

"It doesn't matter," he said. "It already happened. So right now, we're focusing in on what's in front of us, and that's the Chargers."

For Belichick, it is what it was.

Others weren't ready to put it in the past.

"Really, a sad day for the NFL," Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy said after practice Friday. "It's another case of the 99 percent good things that are happening being overshadowed by 1 percent bad. Again, people aren't talking about our product, they're talking about a negative incident."

It's been that way all year for Belichick.

His marriage broke up after he was named as the other man in a New Jersey divorce that set the gossip columns atwitter. Former linebacker Ted Johnson accused Belichick of overruling the doctors and sending him back onto the field too soon after a concussion.

Character counts, man. And if baseball, which just went through a bloodletting of its own over the steroid scandal, was willing to toss Charlie Hustle/Pete Rose for gambling on games despite his career's worth of achievement in the sport, what do you suppose football should do to Bill Belichick if last week's allegations are true?

Supposedly, the man who taped the St. Louis Rams in their final "walkthrough" of plays before the Super Bowl on behalf of Belichick's team, is coming clean. That's akin to stealing another team's playbook the night before the big game, no?

GLENDALE, ARIZ. — New England coach Bill Belichick cemented his reputation as a defensive genius when his Patriots stunned Mike Martz and the Rams 20-17 in Super Bowl XXXVI.

According to the Boston Herald, Belichick might have had some help against the Rams. Some illegal help. Citing an unnamed source, the Herald reported Saturday that a Patriots employee taped the Rams' final walkthrough on the day before Super Bowl XXXVI in New Orleans.
...
The Patriots' victory over the Rams is considered one of the biggest upsets in NFL history, and Martz was bombarded with criticism following the defeat. At the time, the Rams had what was considered one of the most potent offenses in league history — an aggressive, high-powered, multifaceted attack dubbed the "Greatest Show on Turf."
...
The source told the Herald that after completing their walkthrough prior to Super Bowl XXXVI six years ago, the Patriots posed for a team picture in the Louisiana Superdome. And then the Rams took the field for their walkthrough. According to the source, a member of the Patriots' video staff stayed behind after attending the New England walkthrough and illegally filmed the Rams' walkthrough.

At no point was the cameraman asked to identify himself or produce a press pass, the source told the Herald. Except for a pool reporter, Super Bowl walkthroughs are closed to the media.

During walkthroughs, players literally "walk through" plays that the team is planning to run in the game the next day. A Rams source told the Post-Dispatch that the Rams emphasized short-yardage, goal-line, and red zone plays that were in the game plan during the walkthrough that day in New Orleans.

According to the Rams' source, one of the plays in that day's walkthrough was a play early in the fourth quarter when quarterback Kurt Warner fumbled on a fourth and goal from the New England 3. The Patriots recovered the fumble and raced 97 yards for an apparent touchdown. But the play was negated because of a defensive holding call against New England. The Rams subsequently scored to cut New England's lead to 17-10 with less than 10 minutes to play.

A second source said, "We hadn't run that play all year. Our players were upset after the game because on certain plays, especially in the red zone, (the Patriots) were calling the plays and the formation that we were going to run."

The second source told the Post-Dispatch on Saturday that he was told shortly after the game that some members of the Patriots' staff "were up all night" studying the walkthrough tapes. This second source said the team never went public with complaints about the walkthrough taping because it would seem like sour grapes in the wake of a devastating loss.

"Had we won the game, I might have said something," the second source said. "You really don't want to believe it anyway. The integrity of the game should be far more important than reducing yourself to cheating to win."

I mean, can you imagine if this year Belichick has seen the final Manning-to-Burress cheoreography of their push to the endzone, the night before? Surely that takes all of the "sport" out of the game. It's not so much "dominance" if one team is handed an unfair advantage of knowing exactly what's coming.

If football really takes the allegations seriously, if the sports reporters stop playing fanboy and are willing to ask questions and dig hard to get at the ugly truth, in the end the game of football will be better off for it. Even if it means booting somebody they say is a good coach, like Belichick, who couldn't resist the temptation to cheat to guarantee his wins.

Maybe this year, his team earned those 18 on their own. Which makes the allegations all the sadder if true. Surely without taping the Rams walkthrough, the Pats still would have played competitively under a strong coach. But if true, we'll never really know.

Me? I liked Marion Jones, but I sorely disliked how she let her teammates down, forcing them to give back those relay medals because Jones just wasn't confident enough in her natural abilities without giving herself an artificial boost. And now, all those who played under Belichick have to be wondering... that's the saddest part.

"All I know is there better not be an asterisk by any of the Super Bowls I was with them," said Christian Fauria, a tight end on the 2003 and 2004 title teams, who is now with the Carolina Panthers. "I better call my wife and tell her to put [my rings] in a safe."

I suspect these charges will be in the news, and not just the sportspages, for some time to come. As they should be. Anybody who wants to just dismiss them, prefers ignorance over knowing the truth, doesn't really understand the meaning of sports. Or character. Or fairplay. And you know what? I'd be holding the exact same opinions even if last night the Patriots had slaughtered the Giants -- honestly -- on that field. Winning big doesn't cover cheating, at any level. No matter how much somebody belatedly pays for the privilege. Something much bigger is at stake, and there has to be acknowledgement of that before anybody does any "moving forward."

Maybe last night's win by the Giants really was a turning point on something in America much bigger than the Wins and Losses column. For our sake, I sure hope so.