Bills blogger having it both ways

Obviously, when reading Chris Brown’s blog you have to take it with a grain of salt. After all, it is right there on the Buffalo Bills web site, where he’s touted as “Lead Journalist” for buffalobills.com, which is, at the least, paradoxical. However, his posts on the most recent batch of Spygate tapes do seem a bit inconsistent.

After devoting several posts to the substance of video dude Matt Walsh’s meetings with NFL commish Roger Goodell and Sen. Arlen Specter, Brown takes a shot at Specter for pushing for additional investigation contrary to the NFL’s stance on the matter:

Specter also criticized Goodell for his handling of the matter. So it doesn’t sound like this thing is dead yet. What comes of it? Probably not much, aside from extra face time for Specter. There are more important things for a U.S. Senator to concern himself with, like lowering the price of gas.

Compare that with a post today:

Former Patriots employee Matt Walsh has apparently taped an interview with HBO Real Sports Bryant Gumbel this week, which will air tonight and the true advantage provided to the Patriots with their videotaping of signals will be brought to light. In excerpts from the interview released by HBO, Walsh explains how the Patriots were given an edge that I thought was very real, but the NFL chose to dismiss as minimal.

Now maybe Brown’s thinking is evolving on this, or today’s post reflects the fact that still more info may come to light, but it seems to me that if the fear is that New England’s spying compromised the integrity of even just one game, doesn’t it seem logical that the NFL, its teams, and its fans would welcome further investigation, for no other reason than to disprove that theory??

In other words, Specter has indicated he’d like to see a George Mitchell-esque investigation into this to determine just how much of an edge the Patriots gleaned by their taping. The NFL has tried to bury the story and dismiss each new little drip of info as irrelevant. But a leaky tub could eventually overflow. The NFL should face this issue head-on – cooperate fully with investigation (and compel teams to do the same), air any and all information it has at its disposal, reinforce its stance on taping, take whatever lumps it has coming, then move on. It’s worked in baseball (steriods) and basketball (the bizarre referee scandal). Refusing to acknowledge the lingering concerns among its fanbase is not the way to go, something I thought someone as PR-savvy as Goodell would have considered a no-brainer.

The NFL’s situation, at this point, is not unlike where Roger Clemens was when the Mitchell Report names surfaced. Read Jayson Stark’s article at ESPN.com to see how that whole mess could have played out much differently.

It’s not too late for the NFL.

~ by Porky on May 16, 2008.