Solomon Jones doesn't want his boy in the hoodie

"DEFLATEGATE," the latest NFL scandal, has reminded me of my fatherly duty to pass my hatred of the New England Patriots on to my children.

I don't hate the Patriots just because they allegedly broke NFL rules by deflating footballs to gain a competitive advantage in the AFC Championship game. Truth is, they could've played that game with a volleyball and they still would've beaten the Indianapolis Colts like a drum.

No, my problem with the New England Patriots is that they cheat, get caught, allegedly cheat some more and still win in the end.

That's an issue, because the Patriots are undermining everything I'm trying to teach my kids about honesty. Therefore, my only hope as a dad is to turn my kids completely against the team I like to call the Evil Empire. My best chance to do so is to focus on Patriots' Coach Bill Belichick. The way I figure it, I can just tell the kids he's a bogeyman known as . . . The Hoodie.

After all, Belichick looks kinda creepy in those old hooded sweatshirts he wears. All he needs is a hockey mask, and I could totally imagine him dragging an ax through the woods while chasing down immoral teenagers in some slasher flick. No matter how fast those adolescents ran, Belichick would just keep walking. His cheating, unsmiling face hidden by the hockey mask, he'd simply wait for one of them to sprain his ankle - because one of them always does. Then, one after another, they'd all fall victim to . . . The Hoodie.

That's the way he's stormed through the NFL these last few years. He slow-walked the New York Jets by videotaping their defensive signals in a scandal that was appropriately dubbed "Spygate." He was aided and abetted in that little caper by the NFL, which destroyed the evidence after an internal investigation. In the minds of many, including the teams that lost to the Patriots in subsequent Super Bowls, the destruction of those tapes was designed to conceal a vast football conspiracy helmed by . . . The Hoodie.

You'll never be able to convince me that the Hoodie and his minions didn't cheat the Eagles out of the 2005 Super Bowl. And from what I read in a CNN story about "Deflategate," you'll also never convince former Carolina Panthers GM Marty Hurney that the Patriots didn't cheat his team the previous year. If it was just Marty and me, it'd be one thing, but former St. Louis Rams running back Marshall Faulk told Comcast Sportsnet that the Patriots cheated his team in the 2002 Super Bowl.

This is why I must turn my children against the New England Patriots, and this is why I must use Bill Belichick to do so. It's easy to scare kids by pointing to the Patriots coach - a pasty-faced villain straight out of a Grimm's fairy tale. All you have to do is say, "If you cheat, you'll end up looking like . . . The Hoodie."

After the tears and screaming, though, the kids might turn around and see the other guy, and they might want to cheat, after all.

Tom Brady has done well as the face of football's evil empire. He's got superhero looks, a supermodel wife and a chance to win yet another Super Bowl. If this guy gets any more super, we're going to need a boatload full of kryptonite just to keep him from throwing another touchdown.

That's not right. Serial cheaters aren't supposed to get the fastest cars, the prettiest girls or the million-dollar salaries. At least that's what our parents told us. And in the midst of the Patriots' latest cheating scandal, that's what I'm going to tell my kids, too.

But if we watch the Patriots win yet another Super Bowl this week, after all the cheating they've allegedly done, I'll have to find a bogeyman other than . . . The Hoodie.