Official NFL Off-season Thread

"He sounded like a loose cannon," said the coworker, who asked not to be identified to avoid entangling his new employer in the controversy. "He was very bitter about how things ended with the Patriots and he seemed like he was keen on using whatever he had to get back at them by going public and really trying to damage the team."

But if he illegally videotaped the St. Louis Rams in their final practice before the 2002 Super Bowl, as widely suspected, team and league officials say he must have done it on his own. One league source detailed the circumstantial evidence that persuaded NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to accept the team's explanation that it never sanctioned, or knew of, any spying of that sort.

A league source said NFL investigators found two practical reasons why the Patriots could not have used their video equipment to tape the Rams the day before the Super Bowl. First, the team's video crew did not take any battery packs to the Superdome because they planned only to set up the equipment, not to use it. Second, the league confirmed there was no electrical power available at the camera positions in the stadium.

In addition, an NFL investigator interviewed a Patriots employee who left the Superdome that day with Walsh and quoted Walsh as saying, "We should have taped that," according to a person familiar with the league's inquiry.

The Patriots, through an NFL lawyer, have made clear to Walsh that they consider any tapes he might possess possible stolen property and would want the tapes returned.

The team, for example, is missing video of Adam Vinatieri kicking the winning field goal in the 2002 Super Bowl. The tape was recorded by an end zone camera Walsh operated during the game and also could have been used to record the Rams' defensive signals.

After high school, Walsh worked a summer as a cart boy at his neighborhood course, Twin Hills Country Club, before he enrolled at Springfield College. He played one year of intercollegiate golf, establishing himself as the fourth best player on the team, before a disturbing incident in his dorm room in 1995.

According to the alleged victim, a woman who was dating Walsh's roommate, Walsh was so miffed that she and his roommate might spend time on his bed while he was away that he booby-trapped his sheets with a stainless steel, six-pronged blender blade.

The woman, whose account was corroborated by Walsh's former roommate, said she vividly recalls being startled and slightly injured when she sat on the knife-sharp object. She said the episode forever changed her view of Walsh, whom she had known since high school and Walsh's roommate had considered his best friend since childhood.

The campus police and dean of students were alerted, and though no charges were filed, Walsh soon was dismissed from the golf team.

"It was a very malicious act," the woman said. "The fact that someone you considered a friend would do something that could possibly harm you like that is very creepy."