-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday, September 11th 2008, 10:55 PM SPYGATE never swings fully shut for the Patriots- G. Myers Kerry Rhodes wishes Tom Brady wasn't hurt, so the Jets and Patriots could play healthy, putting the SpyGate scandal behind. Sipkin/News Bill Belichick will have former backup quarterback Matt Cassel calling shots this weekend and possibly for the rest of the season. The Jets want to prove they're not even distant cousins to last year's 4-12 bunch of misfits and that with Brett Favre they can play with anybody. And they don't want an asterisk along with it. That's why safety Kerry Rhodes, the Jets' best defensive player, wishes Tom Brady was healthy for Sunday's game against the Patriots in what has made "Bill Belichick: SpyGate One Year Later," just a subplot. But with Brady's knee injury costing him this season, the Jets will get Matt Cassel, who is starting his first game since his senior year of high school in 1999. "Me, personally, you would rather see Brady over there playing," Rhodes said Thursday at the Florham Park practice facility. "If you win now, you don't want to hear, 'If Brady was there, they probably wouldn't have won.' It kind of takes away from it, but you can't worry about that. We have to worry about playing who is there now and that is Matt Cassel." During the off week before the Super Bowl in February, when Brady had a walking boot on his injured right foot, the Giants were saying they wanted him healthy so if they beat the Pats there would be no excuses. Rhodes feels the same way. "When you are a competitor, you want to be in a competitive situation - he's one of the best quarterbacks ever to play this game," he said. "If he's there, it's going to be a different atmosphere. It could be a different outcome because he's that type of player. He can win a game by himself." The Jets are 2-11 against Brady in the regular season and 0-1 in the playoffs. They improved their chances to beat him by trading for Favre, but not as much as they're improved by facing Cassel. But Rhodes doesn't see the balance of power shifting just yet. "Oh no, they are the favorites. They are the team to beat right now," he said. "They are the team that was 16-0 last year. These guys are still good minus one great player. That is how we are looking at it." How the Pats handle life without Brady is the No.1 question. No.2? Will Belichick and Eric Mangini shake hands or exchange a fist bump after the game? We do know they are not even talking. They were in the same restaurant at breakfast at the league meetings in April five months ago, but weren't exactly swapping old SpyGate stories over coffee and bagels. Their relationship has been dissected more thoroughly than Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson. "I'd say it's the same as it has been," Mangini said Thursday. "No change." That means they have no relationship. At the AFC coaches media breakfast in Palm Beach, Fla., each of the 16 coaches was assigned his own table. Belichick came in first and was surrounded by reporters anticipating his first extensive comments about SpyGate. All the way on the other side of the room, with a table so far away it would have been in the Atlantic Ocean if it was pushed back another few feet, Mangini sat with a very small contingent of reporters. It was no accident the NFL placed their tables on opposite sides of the room. Mangini and Belichick were in the same hotel, in the same meeting rooms, for four days. Did they speak at all? (Page 2 of 2) "No," Mangini said. On the one-year anniversary plus one week of Belichick getting exposed as a cheater as the SpyGate scandal erupted at Giants Stadium, the animosity between these two organizations and coaches has not subsided at all. "It's in the past for us," Rhodes said. "For them, there may be some ill feelings towards us." It is Belichick's third trip back to the Meadowlands - the final regular-season game against the Giants in '07 and a preseason game a couple of weeks ago - since he was busted for spying. But the issue comes to life again because he's returning to play the Jets. His once mentor-pupil relationship with Mangini became frosty when Mangini took the Jets' job in 2006, which Belichick obviously viewed as an act of insubordination. The relationship ended over SpyGate. Belichick backers painted Mangini as a traitor for ratting out his former boss. They are no longer on speaking terms except when Belichick mumbled, "Great game, Eric. Great game. Awesome," and shook Mangini's hand after the Patriots beat the Jets, 20-10, in Foxborough in December. Since the spying stopped in the first game last year, it didn't affect the Patriots' 16-0 regular season. But there is still a question whether it taints the three Super Bowls they won during the Belichick era before his cameras were confiscated. "If somebody is cheating, it's an advantage," Rhodes said. "I don't know how much they implemented what they learned from us, but it was definitely an advantage." Does it tarnish their accomplishments? "It definitely puts a cloud over what you have accomplished from the outside world looking in," Rhodes said. "It's a tough question to answer." Brady isn't even playing and he's dominating all the pregame talk. It hides the real issue: Will Mangini and Belichick shake hands or ignore each other like a plate of cold scrambled eggs? gmyers@nydailynews.com __________________
Sigh. It must be a slow news week with two teams that rarely give the media much to go on. Now they have to start pulling this crap out of their asses.
I still think it's a major story. The last time this team came to play the Jets they were caught cheating and levied the largest fine in NFL history. Now they are coming back for the first time (to play us). I don't think the world should forget about it, or not talk about it because one player on the team in question got hurt. Screw them. Players get hurt every game, they still cheated and got caught, and this is the first shot for the Jets home fans to remind them of it.
