Don Shula has an idea. New Englanders are going to hate it, and why not? After all, it’s associated with cheating, scandal, and *gasp* Barry Bonds.

“The Spygate thing has diminished what they’ve accomplished,” Shula said in an interview with the New York Daily News. “You would hate to have that attached to your accomplishments. They’ve got it.

“That tells you the seriousness or significance of what they found,” Shula said of the stiff penalty the NFL handed down ($500k fine to both Belichick and team and loss of first round draft choice, according to the Daily News. “I guess you got the same thing as putting an asterisk by Barry Bonds’ home run record.”

Obviously, this is an attempt by Shula, coach of the 1972 Miami Dolphins (the NFL’s only team to go undefeated in the Super Bowl era), to make New England’s potential accomplishments seem less significant. If nothing else, he wants to cast a shadow on the undefeated season so fans down the road know that the Patriots won at least one game this season with some “help.”

Interestingly, the biggest thing separating Barry Bonds and Bill Belichick is that one of them was caught. And it wasn’t the guy whose record-setting baseball has an asterisk branded in it.

I’d like to get your thoughts on this. Are these two situations alike? Both records are sacred to the game, legendary even. Does breaking either using an outlawed act to gain competitive advantage require the dreaded asterisk?

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This post is tagged Bill Belichick, New England Patriots, Spygate