Payback time almost here for Jets

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The New York Tattle-Tales, the New York Snitches, the New York Stool Pigeons, the New York Rat Finks are coming to town, and payback is a... Well, just what will the payback be when Eric "Stoolie" Mangini brings his New York Whistle Blowers to Gillette Stadium to take on the Patriots of Bill "Beli-Cheat" for the first time since the Spy Gate Scandal broke? It was costly for Bill Belichick and the Patriots when, during the season opener at the Meadowlands, Mangini informed the NFL that the Jets' sideline signals were being illegally videotaped by New England. The Pats were caught red-handed. And red faced. It cost them their first-round pick in the 2008 draft. It cost Belichick $500,000. It cost team owner Robert Kraft $250,000. It also was costly to Belichick's reputation, and to Kraft's dignity. Now, it's payback time. We know that loose lips sink ships. What effect will they have on Jets? The oddsmakers in Las Vegas have made the Patriots 24-point favorites, equaling the largest "spread" in league history. Most people think that, unless Old Man Winter dumps large amounts of snow on New England on Sunday, the Patriots will win by much more than 24. The Pats have been accused of "running up the score" on several opponents this season. Whether they actually did is debatable. But it wouldn't be this time. There seems little doubt that, if Belichick and the Patriots can pile it on Mangini and the Jets, they most certainly will. Fans may remember the enmity between the two teams during the days of the so-called "Border War," after Bill Parcells had abandoned New England following the 1996 AFC championship season to return to New York as coach of the Jets. That was merely a mild spat compared to the bitterness, the anger, the contempt, the seething dislike and utter, mutual distaste that now pervades this upcoming meeting of longtime division rivals. Consider that Mangini owes his job to Belichick. There is no way he'd be a head coach in the NFL today if he hadn't been nurtured in Belichick's highly successful system in New England. Look in the 2005 Patriots media guide, and you'll see Mangini's smiling face, next to his title as defensive coordinator. It was Belichick who brought him into the league in 1995, and then helped him on his way up the coaching ladder. Rest assured, there'll be no smiles between the two on Sunday. Like Belichick, Mangini went to college at Wesleyan, where he graduated in 1994 after setting a school career record for quarterback sacks (22) as a nose tackle. Belichick, who then was coaching the Browns in Cleveland, hired him as a low-level assistant in 1995. It was Belichick who, reunited with Parcells with the Jets, brought Mangini to New York two years later, as a defensive assistant. When Belichick became head coach in New England in 2000, Mangini came along with him, serving as defensive backfield coach for five seasons before becoming defensive coordinator after Romeo Crennel left to become head coach of the Browns. When the Jets offered Mangini their head-coaching job last season, Mangini jumped at the opportunity. That seems to be when the bad blood between him and his mentor began in earnest. Supposedly, Belichick didn't want him to take the job. There also were rumblings that Mangini tried to talk some New England players into coming to the Jets. At any rate, the two had grown apart even before Mangini spilled the beans about what the Patriots were doing with their video equipment. Make no mistake, the Pats were wrong. Nor is there any question that Belichick knew exactly what was going on, because nothing goes on with the Pats' football operation that he doesn't know about. Only days before the season opener, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell had issued a reminder that teams were prohibited from videotaping opponents' sideline signals. So for the Patriots to do it, virtually under Goodell's nose with the league offices in New York, wasn't just stupid, it also was arrogant. And, as it has turned out, needless. Which made it all the more foolhardy for Belichick to sanction. Belichick had to know that Mangini not only knew what he was doing, given his familiarity with the New England operation, but also knew who was likely to be doing the videotaping -- a previously all-but-anonymous, but now suddenly notorious, video assistant by the name of Matt Estrella. So Mangini turned on Belichick. He turned him in to NFL security. He also turned him into the butt of nationwide jokes and criticism. The New York Post all season has run an asterisk beside New England's record in the NFL standings, noting at the bottom of the column that the mark stands for "caught cheating." It's a black mark on Belichick's record, similar to the asterisk people are putting beside the home-run record of alleged steroid user Barry Bonds -- a correlation that was made painfully obvious to the Patriots last Sunday, when a plane flew over Gillette Stadium towing a banner proclaiming: "Bonds: 756; Belichick: 3 Super Bowl Wins." Both those stats were followed by asterisks. Embarrassed and angered by Spy Gate, the Patriots have been determined to embarrass not just the Jets, but every opponent they've played this season, thus providing vivid proof that they don't have to cheat to win, and win big. (Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)