Other than Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter's quest for the truth, most everybody else is done with Spygate. Even Mike Martz, the recipient of the Super Bowl XXXVI beatdown, courtesy of the then-upstart New England Patriots.

Today Martz released a statement through his current employer, the San Francisco 49ers, and offered this:

"I had the opportunity to talk to Commissioner [Roger] Goodell yesterday and I was very satisfied with the NFL's efforts to investigate the situation with Matt Walsh as it related to Super Bowl XXXVI. I'm very confident that there was no impropriety. I believed Bill Belichick when he said there wasn't and I took that at face value."

Martz added, perhaps to emphasize his point to certain single-minded individuals, that the Rams lost to the Patriots because they "turned the ball over three times." So that's that -- or at least it should be if not for that meddling busybody, Specter.

And while Martz is ready to move on from Spygate, he had some very pointed remarks for Walsh:

Torry Holt took a hardline stance when asked his impressions of Rams' rookie receiver Donnie Avery yesterday, which is fine -- this "prove it" stuff happens between veterans and rookies every year, and Holt has the career and locker room respect to be brash. But how much longer will Holt have that respect?

This is merely an opinion, but if Holt continues down the path he's on, I'm not sure his reputation in St. Louis is going to be regarded as lovingly as it currently is.

It seems unlikely that Holt will ever be the bad guy in St. Louis as it stands, considering his production and seemingly benevolent demeanor. But the same was thought of Tiki Barber years ago, and that didn't stop him from embarking on a degradation campaign.

The seeds were planted last year, when Holt blew up on Scott Linehan in an incident that seems to go far deeper than either side portrayed. This offseason, Holt has publicly daydreamed about a future playing in Carolina.

Hmmm, a team trying to rebound from a bad year dealing with distractions because one player couldn't get along with his coach and was playing with one foot out the door. Where have we heard that one before? I'm not saying anything definitive, and of course I can be proven very wrong this season. But the parallels are there, and I wouldn't be surprised in the least to see hostility continue to rise.

Torry Holt has reached a point in his career when he doesn't have to sugarcoat things. He's got his Super Bowl ring, and as he enters his 10th season, he's still one of the NFL's top-5 wide receivers (that can very easily be overlooked/forgotten altogether playing in St. Louis these days).

This might partially explain his in-season blowup directed at head coach Scott Linehan, his recent joking suggestion that he might join the Panthers, and these comments about the Rams 2008 second-round pick, and the guy who will replace Isaac Bruce, Donnie Avery. (Or maybe Holt's just really, really frustrated with playing on a losing team that doesn't look to get better anytime soon. Definitely one or the other, though.)

Asked his early impressions of Avery, Holt said tersely, "Right now, I don't have any impressions of Donnie Avery. ... Hopefully, during training camp he'll show me something."

As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Bill Coats rightly points out, "It's not that Holt is unhappy with Avery; he just wants to let him know that he has to prove himself before he can run with the big dogs. Which is fine with Avery. 'I like that,' he said. 'When other people are strict on me, it brings the best out of me.'"

Well, hold the phone. At NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's press conference following his meeting with ex-Patriots employee Matt Walsh, Goodell said there would be no new sanctions against the Patriots because "there was no Rams walk-through tape."

But afterward, ESPN's Sal Paolantonio reported that although Walsh didn't tape the Rams' walk-through, he attended it, watched what the Rams did and reported back to the team's coaching staff about what he saw.

Specifically, according to Paolantonio, Walsh told Brian Daboll, a Patriots assistant coach, about the way the Rams planned to align their tight end against the Patriots' defense, and that the Rams lined up in a kick return formation in which Marshall Faulk took the field.

If Paolantonio's report is accurate, Goodell should have mentioned it at his press conference -- and you can bet Senator Arlen Specter will mention it later today. As far as Goodell is concerned, this issue is over, but Paolantonio's report is just the kind of information Specter needs to keep Spygate alive.

St. Louis Rams running back Steven Jackson is 24 years old, he has three straight 1,000-yard seasons, and he's heading into the final year of his contract. No surprise, he's thinking about a big payday coming soon.

He tells the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

"I think I've been a good person on and off the field," Jackson said Saturday at minicamp, "so I expect to be rewarded."

Jackson also says that St. Louis "is definitely where I want to be," and, "I'm pretty sure that we'll get something done."

However, as Mike Florio points out, teams that reward running backs for past performance, like the Seahawks with Shaun Alexander or the Chiefs with Larry Johnson, often find themselves wondering what they were thinking when that previously productive running back finally breaks down under the strain of getting tackled hundreds of times a season. Will the Rams reward Jackson?

I think his age works in his favor: He could get a five-year contract next off-season, and that would only take him to the age of 29. But NFL teams are so wary of giving big money to running backs that even a back as good as Jackson may find himself unable to get a big payday.

There was some nervous laughter surrounding Torry Holt's recent comments about him becoming a Carolina Panther (see the video above ... the comments below). Holt was at a golf outing in North Carolina just after his brother Terrence signed with the Carolina Panthers.

"I wanted to send in my resignation to the the Rams and see if I could join him," the elder Holt joked. "I'm excited, but I'm also a little jealous because I've always wanted an opportunity to come back home."

Holt is from Greensboro, NC and was a star at NC State. There was some joking there, especially when the word "resignation" was thrown in.

However, it has to be a bit concerning to the Rams that Holt said this, especially as he enters the final two years of his contract. He's had a rocky relationship with head coach Scott Linehan and just witnessed the unceremonial exodus of fellow receiver Isaac Bruce this offseason.

Recent comments threw some more fuel on the fire ... especially since he name dropped the Panthers again.

Now that former Patriots employee Matt Walsh has finally come forward and said he did not tape the Rams' final walk-through practice before the 2002 Super Bowl, the Boston Herald is coming under increased scrutiny for its report three months ago that said someone on the Patriots had, in fact, spied on the Rams.

On ESPN Radio this morning, reporter Chris Mortensen suggested that the Herald reported that "scoop" not because the Herald had better sources than other media outlets, but because the Herald had lower standards than other media outlets.

"Other media outlets including ESPN, had this allegation and pursued this allegation for months, and it just didn't meet the standard in terms of what you needed to report it, and the Boston Herald evidently felt they had met the standard to report it," Mortensen said. "They need to come out and say, 'We stand by our story' or they need to have a retraction and apology and deal with the consequences of it, but certainly it's damaging to the Boston Herald at this point, especially if they stay silent on the subject."

Greg Bishop of the New York Times reports that former New England Patriots employee Matt Walsh has sent the NFL eight videotapes showing the play-calling signals of five opponents in six games from 2000 to 2002. But Walsh does not have a tape of the St. Louis Rams' walk-through practice prior to the 2002 Super Bowl.

The most explosive accusation against the Patriots and coach Bill Belichick in the Spygate story was the Boston Herald's report that they taped the Rams' final practice before the Super Bowl. Walsh's lawyer said this about that:

"Mr. Walsh has never claimed to have a tape of the walk-through. Mr. Walsh has never been the source of any of the media speculation about such a tape. Mr. Walsh was not the source for the Feb. 2 Boston Herald article."

We can't say much without knowing the precise content of the eight tapes, but right now, this sounds like good news for the Patriots and Belichick. If all Walsh can show is what we already knew -- that the Patriots were taping opponents in violation of league rules -- the NFL is unlikely to tack on additional discipline.

For the past 10 years, I've hated Leonard Little. I've questioned why he was allowed to continue playing in the NFL. I've seen him as another (unprintable adjective) athlete who committed horror and got away with it. Sure enough, if it were Roger Goodell's NFL in 1998, he probably wouldn't be playing. Now, quite honestly, I'm not sure what I think.

Little has finally addressed for the first time what happened then, when he killed a woman while driving drunk, and the aftermath he's dealt with personally at a school in St. Louis.

"A few weeks later, I tried to kill myself," ... "I had gone back home to my mom's house outside Knoxville (Tenn.), and the first thing I did was just go down in her basement. It had no windows, just a bathroom, a sink and a television. I stayed in the dark for days. All I did was cry. I couldn't deal with what I'd done."

Little intentionally drives past the spot of the accident on the way to Edward Jones Dome to remind himself, and refuses to celebrate his birthday because it's also the anniversary of the worst day of his life ("What's there to celebrate? It's an annual reminder of what I did"). He tells the children at the school, "I killed someone and I constantly think about the hurt I caused that family. ... I made a bad decision, and it cost someone her life and ruined her family's lives. You don't want that burden on you."

This touches on two matters.

For all intents and purposes, the Rams were going to use their second overall pick on Glenn Dorsey last weekend. All of the pre-draft hype indicated an interest and, though all of the zany behavior every April has me doubting everything everyone says, it was apparently genuine. All of the teams' scouts and coaches wanted Dorsey.

But team president John Shaw wanted Chris Long. So when he arrived at headquarters the Thursday before the draft, he decreed it so -- Long would be the pick. Even if Shaw was stepping down from his ivory tower to get involved in football matters that are better left to, you know, football people, I agree with him.

The best teams find a way to merge the two divergent draft philosophies -- need vs. best player available. Even if Dorsey was the Rams' top-rated player, they already have a good, young pair of tackles in Adam Carriker and Clifton Ryan. On the outside? The ancient, brittle Leonard Little and the ancient, um, average (to be kind) James Hall. I know a push up the middle helps your ends, but the only thing that would help these ends at this point is the Career Kevorkian.

So it makes sense to draft Long. If the team wants to win now (ie, if Scott Linehan wants to provide his family hot food every night), they need to spread talent across as many positions as possible. What good is clogging the middle if teams can just attack the outside? Right?