Maybe Bill Belichick still hasn’t gotten over the Super
Bowl loss that vaporized his quest for immortality.

Maybe he had to deal with a pressing issue.
And maybe, just maybe, he really is a weirdo.

We will never really know why Belichick, the head coach of the 18-1 New
England Patriots, declined to show at the Maxwell Football Club awards ceremony Friday night at Harrah’s Atlantic City.

We will never really know why the mastermind of Spygate, the not-so-secret
operation to film and steal the defensive signals of opponents, chose to make
his acceptance speech for the prestigious Greasy Neale award as pro coach of the year in DVD format.

Would anyone be surprised if the NFL confiscated and destroyed it?

What we do know is that 89-year-old Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson
literally limped into town to accept the Reds Bagnell award for contributions to
the game.

What we do know is Wilson still has a pretty good sense of humor after
those four Super Bowl losses – all in a row – in the 1990’s.

“I’m a little unsteady,” Wilson said after struggling up the steps to the dais for the media luncheon. “What the Buffalo Bills have done to me in the last 48 years … ”

Belichick should have seen this living lesson in humility, class and
achievement up close and personal.

And it wouldn’t hurt for someone to send a DVD of Wilson accepting his award to say, Belichick’s quarterback, Tom Brady, the Bert Bell winner as pro player of the year. Brady cancelled three weeks ago, telling organizers he would be out of the country.

A few weeks ago the Eagles vehemently denied they'd given cornerback Lito Sheppard permission to seek a trade, which technically may be true.

But we all know it's not what the Eagles say and how they spin it, but what they do and how they do it that counts.

And now the players know it as well.

"I've come to learn in Philadelphia," one prominent Eagle said, most of the rumors turn out to be true."

Sheppard is on the trade block; even the Eagles don't deny it.

And every last Eagles player now knows the team intended all along to trade Sheppard providing they signed elite cornerback Asante Samuel, who isn't as talented as the incumbent but has been able to post better numbers because he's avoided injury.

Further every smart Eagles player knows merely by reading between the lines of the latest conflicting spin that the coaches and management do NOT have full confidence in the wide receiver corps, because if they did they wouldn't have courted superstar Randy Moss.

No matter how the Eagles spin it, no matter what they want you to believe, their truth is in their actions, not their words.