Spycam could get Belichick the flick

America at Large:Thirty-five years ago, on the eve of Super Bowl VII, I was in Los Angeles when Miami coach Don Shula and his Washington Redskins counterpart George Allen appeared at back-to-back press conferences. In the course of his interrogation by the media that morning, Shula was asked whether the Dolphins had been filming their practice sessions during the week, writes George Kimball

"No," replied Shula, "but George probably has."

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell hasn't had much reason to think about the Washington Redskins of late, but it's a pretty safe bet he's given a lot of thought to the immediate plans of the Washington Senators - and we don't mean the old baseball team of that name.

And Bill Belichick should have even more concern about events afoot on Capitol Hill.

In the confusion that reigned at the conclusion of Super Bowl XLII in Arizona last Sunday, Belichick, the New England coach, was nowhere to be seen. Looking like a man who'd just been run over by a truck, he had engaged in a perfunctory handshake with Giants coach Tom Coughlin and then disappeared into the tunnel leading to the Patriots' locker room. In the light of the crushing defeat his team had just endured at the hands of a 12 ½-point underdog, his disappointment was understandable, but he may have had an even better reason for wanting to maintain a low profile.

On the morning of the Super Bowl, the Boston Herald had broken a story that Matt Walsh, a former member of the Patriots' video staff, had secretly taped the St Louis Rams' final "walk-through" practice at the Louisiana Superdome in an intelligence-gathering mission that may have abetted New England's 20-17 upset win in that 2002 game - a victory which initiated the Patriots' run of four Super Bowl appearances in six years.

Some, including last Sunday's game announcers, seemed prepared to dismiss the report as old news, but Belichick might have at least two reasons for being concerned about his future. Their names are Robert Kraft and Senator Arlen Specter.

When the Patriots were caught videotaping the New York Jets' sideline signals in the 2007 season opener, Kraft, the New England owner, was plainly both surprised and embarrassed. After investigating that episode, Roger Goodell had fined Belichick $500,000 and the Patriots an additional $250,000, along with the forfeiture of the team's first-round pick in April's draft.

Kraft said at the time he had met with Belichick and accepted the coach's explanation that the transgression had been a once-off incident, but the owner made it a point to note, "I can promise you this: It won't happen again in the future." The past may be a different matter.

Whether the Patriots actually benefited from their 2002 cloak-and-dagger operation in New Orleans is a matter of conjecture. Mike Martz, then the Rams' offensive coordinator, recalled last week that late in that game he resorted to improvising goal-line plays on the sideline once it became evident that New England's defenders were as well-versed as his own players in the Rams' red-zone offence.

But Dick Vermeil, the head coach of that Rams' team, minimised the new revelation.

"Personally, I don't think it had any effect on the game," said Vermeil. "That stuff's been going on forever and I don't think you gain from it."

As evidence, Vermeil pointed out that last Sunday's game had turned on a flukish, almost comic sequence unforeseen in any coach's playbook - a third-down scramble in which the Giants' quarterback Eli Manning somehow extricated himself from the grasp of three New England defenders, squirmed away and flung a desperation pass, only to have New York receiver David Tyree outleap two Patriots and come down with the ball by trapping it against his helmet.

Whatever its value, both Kraft and Goodell have reason to be concerned about the latest revelation. The week before the Super Bowl, Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, had announced his intention to hold hearings looking into Goodell's disposition of the earlier "spygate" episode.

Specter was already exercised that the commissioner followed his ruling by consigning the evidence to the office trash compactor, and the allegations of the 2002 incident appeared to further pique his interest.

"I am very concerned about the underlying facts on the taping, the reason for the judgment on the limited penalties, and most of all, the inexplicable destruction of the evidence," said Specter, suggesting a cover-up.

Given that just across the hall from the Senate, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has spent the past few days taking depositions from pitchers Roger Clemens and Andy Pettite and their erstwhile enabler, trainer Brian McNamee, in its ongoing probe into steroids in baseball, there is nothing more likely to strike fear into the heart of an NFL owner - or an NFL commissioner - right now than the threat of a congressional investigation.