Belichick's penalty should match severity of violations

Bill Belichick no longer is just a quirky embarrassment to the NFL. He quickly is becoming a danger to his sport.

If the mounting allegations are true, he has run roughshod over his game's most precious commodity.

The coach of the New England Patriots has tampered with his league's integrity, and without integrity, professional sports can't exist.

Integrity separates the NFL from the WWE. It is the difference between pro football and pro jai alai.

Drug tests are given to protect sports' integrity. Gambling is policed to keep people like the NBA's dirty former official, Tim Donaghy, from infecting the games.

What is the difference between Bill Belichick and Barry Bonds? Both are accused of cheating. Both are accused of tampering with the purity of the game. One still has a job. The other can't find a job.

Why can Belichick still coach, but sprinters Marion Jones or Justin Gatlin can't run?

Already the New England coach has been found guilty of taping the New York Jets' sideline during the 2007 season opener.

For that transgression, Belichick and the Patriots were fined a laughable $750,000 and made to surrender the worst of their two first-round picks in last month's draft.

Punters hit returners harder than that punishment hit the Patriots.

Now Belichick's former video coordinator, Matt Walsh, has turned over eight more spy tapes for commissioner Roger Goodell's viewing enjoyment.

Gives a whole meaning to the phrase "Upon further review," doesn't it?

Those tapes were delivered to Goodell on Thursday and, according to ESPN.com, they run from the 2000 season through 2002. The last comes from the 2002 championship game with Pittsburgh. Only one of eight espionage tapes involves offensive schemes.

Goodell is expected to meet with Walsh about these additional tapes Tuesday.

Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican on the Senate's judiciary committee, has been as excited to watch the tapes as Eli Manning must have been to watch the replay of February's Super Bowl. Specter also wants to meet with Walsh on Tuesday.

Eight more tapes.

Makes you wonder if Belichick really is a genius after all.

Eight more tapes.

Makes you believe those reports that said the Patriots taped the St. Louis Rams' pre-Super Bowl walk-through. Makes you wonder whether the Patriots truly earned their 2002 Super Bowl rings.

Now, let's be honest, cheating has been as much a part of sports as, well, betting.

For decades, major-league teams sneaked scouts into the outfield stands, or in the peep holes in scoreboards, attempting to steal signs.

Ballplayers, track-and-field athletes, weightlifters, football players, and their trainers, have searched for magic elixirs that can make the athletes bigger, faster, stronger.

But that cheating has been and continues to be addressed. Cheaters who are caught are punished severely.

If, as it seems, Belichick was into filmmaking as passionately as John Waters, he should be punished like any other cheat in any other sport.

He is tampering with integrity in as dangerous a way as Donaghy was. His cheating makes you wonder if there are any other coaches out there, any other video coordinators, who are doing the same thing.

If these eight new tapes are truly incriminating, Belichick should be suspended for at least a season. If he isn't, where is the deterrence?

If Goodell goes easy on Belichick, he runs the risk of making it OK for every other cheating-heart coach and owner to commit the same crimes to the game. An epidemic of Belichicks could spread.

Imagine what a certain Bay Area football team, whose slogan has been "Commitment to Excellence," might do if it thinks the penalties won't fit the crime.

The rogues from Oakland might bug the visitors' locker rooms or sneak cameras onto the ceilings of every opponent's indoor practice facility.

Because of Belichick, every team is under suspicion.

This is a severe test for hard-nosed commissioner Goodell.

During Super Bowl week, Goodell said of Belichick's spying, "It was not done on a widespread basis."

Oops.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com