AP Photo, Jeff Chiu

By Ron Borges

Patriot fans won’t like it but Don Shula has become the second well-known NFL coach to invoke the name of Barry Bonds when asked about the record of the undefeated New England Patriots.

One thing about getting old, it allows you the freedom to be as politically incorrect, or as brutally honest, as you care to be. That’s the reason Shula said what he said about the Patriots’ looming challenge to the supremacy of his 1972 Miami Dolphins yesterday. Now that the Patriots put away the Colts in an exciting game that cries out for a rematch, Shula acknowledged to the New York Daily News that Bill Belichick’s creation down in Foxboro indeed has a chance to bypass the 17-0 Super Bowl team he built 35 years ago…but only with an asterisk.

Shula claimed Belichick’s team has been tainted by the actions of its head coach, who was caught cheating two months ago when one of his videographers was nabbed illegally taping the hand signals of opposing coaches on the sidelines of the New York Jets during the opening game of the season. Belichick was hit with the largest fine in NFL history ($500,000) plus another $250,000 to the team and the loss of their No. 1 draft choice next spring, yet even at that some around the NFL, including assistant coach Wade Wilson, called it a slap on the wrist and insisted Belichick should have been suspended in the same way NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell suspends players for activities that call into question the honesty or integrity of the game.

Sports Illustrated’s respected football writer Peter King quoted Cowboys’ head coach Wade Phillips as calling the Patriots’ past accomplishments tainted by a “black mark.’’ Phillips later denied saying that while King stood by his story. Soon after Dallas defensive end Marcus Spears said, “If you’re cheating and you get caught, something is tainted. It has an asterisk by it.’’ More than a few other players, including a laughing LaDainian Tomlinson, followed suit.

Now Shula has told the Daily News, “The Spygate thing has diminished what they’ve accomplished. You would hate to have that attached to your accomplishments. They’ve got it.”

Shula went on to talk about the size of the penalty Goodell imposed, claiming, “That tells you the seriousness or significance of what they found. I guess you got the same thing as putting an asterisk by Barry Bonds’ home run record.

“I guess it will be noted that the Patriots were fined and a No. 1 draft choice was taken away during that year of accomplishment. The sad thing is Tom Brady looks so good, it doesn’t look like he needs any help.”

At the time of the incident, Indianapolis coach Tony Dungy alluded to the questions that surround Bonds, who is widely believed to have used steroids and other performance enhancing drugs to artificially inflate his home run numbers to epic proportions, and indicated his belief that the Patriots would now have to face similar questions about their success and how it was achieved.

Naturally, this has much of New England up in arms. Paranoia runs deep in this part of the country when it comes to the outside world’s perception of their professional sports franchises and any questioning of the Patriots’ accomplishments or  Bill Belichick’s dealings often result in a firestorm of foot stomping. Shula surely will become the latest to feel this wrath. Not that he cares.

Certainly it will be pointed out by some that Shula has a dog in this hunt, his 1972 Dolphins, who stand to lose some of their luster if the Patriots manage to get through the season undefeated. New England would end up 19-0 if it marches to the Super Bowl championship, surpassing the dowdy Dolphins. Several members of that team annually celebrate when the league’s final undefeated team is beaten and some have characterized this as the partying of grumpy old men, even though it is less than a handful that get involved in the annual champagne popping in a suburban Miami parking lot. Obviously, the Patriots could end the party.

Thin-skinned New Englanders will surely point out Shula is biased and insist he has no credibility. Others will say that because the Patriots were busted so early for the illegal videotaping that while it might have aided them in the past it could not help them this season.

The first point is silly because Shula is as entitled to his opinion as Patriot fans are theirs and the validity of one is no more than that of the other since both sides have an interest in the outcome. Whether they were busted in the first game or the last doesn’t seem to argue too strongly against Shula’s point because he’s saying Belichick’s insistence on trying to circumvent the rules on such videotaping has put his team in this position and there’s no way around it. On that point, Shula is quite right.

What’s interesting is that he came out and said it when he did because he’s been through these challenges to his team’s historical supremacy before and knows it only takes one afternoon to end them. Just two years ago the Colts got to 13-0 before they were stopped and the same was true of the 1998 Denver Broncos. The Washington Redskins got to 11-0 in 1991 and the formidable 1985 Chicago Bears were 12-0 when they lost a Monday night game to a Dolphin team still coached by Shula, who retired as the winningest coach in NFL history.

Thus it seems fair to conclude Shula fears the Patriots are a sterner threat than their predecessors or that he simply found Belichick’s videotaping of opposing coaches offensive. More than likely he feels both and simply was asked the question and answered honestly.

What is clear is that this is a subject that will not go away simply because the Patriots win football games. In fact, if they continue to win it will only intensify both the scrutiny and the questioning of Belichick’s odd interest in sideline videography.

Have the accomplishments of the Patriots been tainted by the actions of their coach? Shula says so. Dungy says so. Others say so. Then again, Jimmy Johnson, Belichick’s fishing buddy, says no. In the end, who cares what anyone else says? Everyone must make up their own mind on this but two arguments on the subject are specious on their face and should be salted away along with Bill Belichick’s videotape collection.

One is that “everybody’s doing it,’’ which became a popular one in these parts because even the Belichick toadies couldn’t argue that he hadn’t done it. If everybody is doing it then it raises a simple question: why has only one person ever been caught? More significantly, if Bill Belichick is indeed the smartest football coach God ever made, as his supporters fervently believe, then how come he’s the one who got caught? Why didn’t somebody catch the dumbest coach who was doing it? There’d be a lot of candidates for that role if that “everyone is doing it’’ argument held water, which it does not.

Just because you say “everyone’s doing it’’ on the radio doesn’t mean they are. More to the point for those who still insist this is the case then who are they? Name one other coach you know is doing it. End of that debating point.

Second, it is absurd for anyone to argue that they truly believe Bill Belichick wasn’t trying to gain a competitive advantage by the illegal taping. Of course he was. Whether he actually got one or not only he and his staff would know but he believed he was going to and it was important enough to him to risk his reputation and that of his team’s to do it even after being clearly warned about the actions illegality in a letter from the league office just before the season began.

Personally, it seems to me that just as it is a leap to say “everyone is doing it’’ in an attempt to defend the only person you actually know who did it, it is also a leap to say everything the Patriots have accomplished this season or in the past is tainted because of their coach’s poor judgment. The Patriots are not 9-0 because they have better videographers. They’re 9-0 because they have better players. That doesn’t erase Belichick’s antics nor minimize it but what he was up to didn’t help Randy Moss make that one-handed catch last Sunday in Indianapolis or steel the nerves of Adam Vinatieri when he was lining up those Super Bowl winning kicks.

But regardless of how you look at it, now the other shoe has dropped only days after the Patriots dropped the Colts, 24-20, thus defeating the team most likely to have derailed them. Don Shula, a coach Belichick has said many times he deeply respects, has made clear he doesn’t share that opinion of him any more. For a guy like Bill Belichick, to whom the game’s history means a great deal, that may be the saddest thing about this shady whole affair.