Mike Kriegel at Fox seems to be a paid homer.

"FOXBOROUGH, Mass. - About 70 yards in the distance, players were milling about at the end of their Friday afternoon walk-through. Actually, I didn't notice them until the security guard stepped to me on a field-level rotunda outside the Gillette Stadium press room, which resembles your garden-variety holding cell.

I was pacing, talking to my kid on the phone. You do not want to be talking Hannah Montana in a holding cell.

"Sir?"

"What?"

"You need to go inside."

"I'm on the phone."

"I'm sorry. You have to."

Then it dawned on me. These are Bill Belichick's Patriots. "What am I, a spy?"

The security guy shrugged, almost apologetically. He had his orders, to be sure. But he knew. He works for Dr. Evil.

You could have given me a perch atop the stadium and infrared laser scopes, and I still couldn't make sense of the Patriots' top secret game plan. But such is life under Bill.

"Sir."

"Wait. You calling me a cheater?"

Another shrug, less diffident this time.

"Seriously. I look like a cheater to you?"

"Sir. You need to. It's the rules."

He escorted me into the holding cell. But it didn't end there. Not for me. After all, the guy had called me a cheater. So now I say this to the Patriots and their coach: it takes one to know one, sir.

They don't like to hear that, of course. They love it.

I'm not saying they've been cheating since getting caught illicitly videotaping signs from the New York Jets. I'm saying that Spygate was the best thing to happen to the 2007 New England Patriots, which will probably go down as the greatest team ever to play. Half a million bucks -- the astounding, unprecedented amount Belichick was ordered to pay out of his own pocket -- was a small price for what it bought this coach.

The Patriots will tell you Spygate is all in the past. With each new week and each new offensive record, the memory of Spygate begins to recede. By the same token, New England is a little less sharp now than back in September and October and November when the stigma was still fresh.

Coincidence? I don't believe so.

Do you really think New England would still be undefeated if not for Spygate?

Among the episode's unintended consequences was the forging of the team's identity. It crystallized the coach's paranoid vision. It justified the Belichickian mantras: Us against Them, Trust No One, They All Hate Us. Football is not a game to be played dispassionately. You can't have too much motivation. Whenever one of the Pats talk about being called a cheater, you know somebody on the other side of the ball is about to get his ass kicked.

So with the Super Bowl approaching, it's worth noting that the New York Giants again find themselves at a major disadvantage. As it pertains to incentive, the Patriots had Spygate.

What do the Giants have?

Tiki Barber? "

Is this some sort of weird S&M fantasy that motivates the Patriots to win every week?