Finally, a smoking gun. In a face-to-face with head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell told Senator Arlen Specter that New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has been taping defensive signals of opposing teams since he took over in 2000 and the coach thought it to be perfectly legal.

One teensy-tiny problem. Commissioner Goodell, for reasons that from the outside seem suspicious, ordered all the videotape proof and Patriots notes destroyed. Goodell claimed that it was to prevent the evidence from "falling into the wrong hands"; um, ever hear of a lockbox?

So, where does that leave us? We have a coach who admits to cheating from Day 1 in New England, including possibly videotaping the walkthrough of the Patriots' opponent, the St. Louis Rams, whom the Patriots beat in 2002 as 14-point underdogs. Despite the questionable destruction of evidence, Senator Specter is still going to widen the investigation and has even threatened the League with Congress pulling the anti-trust agreement made.

As for me, I have already lost respect for the Patriots as a team and organization over the revelations in Week 1 versus the New York Jets. In retrospect, we probably wouldn't have even known about any of this if Jets head coach Eric Mangini hadn't had a working history with Belichick. New England would have continued its cheating ways and would have taken a place in NFL history it doesn't deserve.

Thank goodness the New York Football Giants beat the Patriots in Superbowl XLII and saved the rest of the league the embarrassment of having to explain to future fans how the "Perfect Pats" actually cheated their way to a perfect season.