It's time to let Spygate go; the New England Patriots have acknowledged cheating and have been punished by the league for doing so.

While taping coaches' signals is illegal and it may have helped the Patriots win, yes, even an AFC championship game or two in Heinz Field, it's not as if no one knew they were doing it. Other teams knew about it, many other coaches knew about it, former coaches under Belichick who left but remained in the league certainly knew about it.

None stood up and called them out, including the Steelers. So, perhaps they all deserved what they got, from former commissioner Paul Tagliabue down to the other owners, head coaches and assistant coaches who would not take a public stand against the Patriots. Is it any wonder that few of them now will publicly criticize them? At least new commissioner Roger Goodell did something, first stopping the practice and then punishing them.

All it would have taken to stop the Patriots long before that was for a head coach, especially one from within their division, to call a press conference and accuse Belichick of cheating and describe how. Or, have stadium security confiscate the offending video camera on the field long before NFL security nabbed him at Giants Stadium in September.

Congressional Specter

As for Sen.Arlen Specter getting involved in Spygate, it's time to put that to bed as well. Specter did his job; by raising Cain he rattled the NFL into at least acknowledging the scope of the scandal and forced more details onto the public record.

But as for having a baseball-like Mitchell investigation? This isn't steroids, where highly visible pro athletes were sticking needles in their butts and not only jeopardizing their health but also the health of millions of young athletes who might follow their example.

Steroids, unless prescribed for proper use by a doctor, are illegal to take and/or distribute under the law. Taping coaching signals only violates NFL rules, and it hardly affected anyone's health -- unless perhaps someone could not pay their bookie after they bet against the Patriots.

A list of top five sports cheating scandals in USA Today Sports Weekly had at No. 2 the spy in the scoreboard at the Polo Grounds when Bobby Thomson's home run -- the "shot heard 'round the world" -- won the NL 1951 pennant for the New York Giants against the Brooklyn Dodgers. More than 50 years later, it was revealed that Giants manager Leo Durocher posted a guy with a telescope to steal the catcher's signals, and that Thomson knew what pitch was coming.

That's at least as illegal as anything the Patriots might have done, but it also was something that was widespread during the times. The Pirates' Harvey Haddix pitched 12 perfect innings in Milwaukee in 1959, even though many Pirates claimed the Braves had a guy in their scoreboard trying to steal signals.

No one spoke out at the time, and the practice continued.

Was New England's taping practice any worse than the Indianapolis Colts' enhancing the crowd noise inside their domed stadium when opposing offenses were on the field? Although coaches within their division knew about it, no one spoke up. It took a story in the Post-Gazette after the Steelers played in Indianapolis during the 2005 regular season for the practice to become public, forcing the Colts to tone it down thereafter.

It was all them

No, everyone did not do it. That's a misconception that has been repeated ever since the Patriots were caught in September.

The practice was unique to Belichick and his crew. Some pro scouts advancing games have told me that they've tried to steal the signals of opposing coaches on the sideline -- which is as legal as trying to pick up the third-base coaches' signals in baseball. Some say it can help, some say it's futile and wastes time.

"I didn't think it was worth the time and energy you were looking at it,'' said Hal Hunter, who spent 23 years in the league as a coach and pro scout, including four as the Steelers' offensive line coach in the 1980s.

But, if you can set up a sophisticated system like the Patriots had, it was worth it. New England would break down its videotape of the coaches using their hand signals from earlier games and match it with the defense that was used on that play.

Where it helped the most came when they went to their no-huddle offense. Because a defense does not know when the ball will be snapped in the no-huddle, it must call its plays quickly. The quarterback, then, could simply wait until the defense was signaled in and the word was relayed to him by his coaches in his headset what to call against it.

Defenses normally use the same or similar signals from game to game and even year to year under the same coordinators. The reason is simple: It's not as easy to change signals in football as it is in baseball, where the calls are simple. It will confuse the players -- the reason for so many of those "miscommunications.''