Former New England Patriots videotape operator Matt Walsh exits NFL headquarters after his meeting with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell this week.

>

AP / Louis Lanzano

His professional reputation has taken a major hit, he has seen others disparage his team and its accomplishments, and a former video assistant has been meeting with a U.S. senator and a league commissioner.

Yesterday, Bill Belichick had his say.

In an interview with Armen Keteyian that was aired on the CBS Evening News, the New England Patriots coach spoke about Matt Walsh, the former employee who got face time with Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and NFL chief Roger Goodell this week, and the Spygate scandal, which has hung over his team since September.

Walsh, who now is an assistant pro at a Hawaii golf course, got the brunt of Belichick’s frustration.

“I don’t know what the agenda is,” he said. “You know, [Walsh] was fired here for poor job performance. There’s not a lot of credibility. He’s tried to make it seem like we were buddies and belong to the same book club, and all that is really a long, long stretch.”

On a couple of occasions this year, Belichick said that he couldn’t pick Walsh out of a lineup.

Goodell mentioned that Walsh called the three-time Super Bowl winning coach “the man behind the curtain” during their Tuesday meeting, which would indicate that he didn’t see much of Belichick. In an interview with The New York Times, Walsh said he once had a brief discussion with Belichick on the book Friday Night Lights, which Walsh was reading at the time.

Walsh maintains that he had a discussion with then-Pats assistant coach Brian Daboll about what he saw during the St. Louis Rams’ walk-through before Super Bowl XXXVI, in particular how the tight end rolled out in different offensive formations. (Daboll was questioned by the NFL more than once, and said he didn’t remember the conversation with Walsh.)

Belichick scoffed at the idea.

“For him to talk about game planning and strategy and play calling and how he advised coordinators is — it’s embarrassing. It’s absurd,” he said. “I mean, he didn’t have any knowledge of football. He was our third video assistant.”

In his talks with Goodell and Specter, Walsh said he was told to try to conceal his videotaping, and even had to practice alibis if he were caught.

But New England supplied CBS with video showing a cameraman, apparently Walsh, in Patriots gear and in full view during games.

“I never told anybody to tell him” to avoid detection, Belichick said. “All I can tell you is what the facts are — you look at the tape; you’ve seen film of the game. You tell me how discreet it is,” he commented to Keteyian.

The initial investigation, last September, into the Patriots’ illegal taping practices, yielded $750,000 in fines and the loss of a first-round draft pick for Belichick and the organization. Keteyian brought up the 2006 memo circulated to all NFL teams about the taping guidelines.

“I made a mistake. It was wrong. I was wrong,” Belichick said plainly.

As for what he’d say to those who assert that his team cheated its way to three Super Bowl titles, Belichick didn’t offer much.

“What I’ve said to you — I’ve told the truth,” he said.

Walsh moved from the video department to a low-level scouting assistant’s job within the organization, but he was fired in 2002 after it was discovered that he secretly videotaped conversations between himself and Scott Pioli, the team’s vice president of player personnel.

smanza@projo.com