Yesterday, it reared and spat and roared, but it didn't bite, hardly at all.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said his meeting yesterday morning at the league's New York offices with former New England scout and videographer Matt Walsh uncovered no material worthy of levying further penalties against the Patriots.

"The discipline I [levied] then was appropriate," Goodell said after meeting with Walsh for more than 3 hours.

Whether Specter, R-Pa., determines the same remains unclear. It seems unlikely, however, with no evidence to further indict the Pats surfacing yesterday, Specter will pursue further action. He met with Walsh separately later in the day.

He will speak today at a noon news conference at the U.S. Capitol. Walsh will not attend, according to Specter's office.

Neither will Goodell, who clearly hopes the scandal is over.

Goodell fined the Patriots $250,000 and coach Bill Belichick $500,000 and docked them a first-round draft pick this year after finding the Patriots guilty of illegally taping signals during a game against the Jets in Week 1 last season. The Patriots admitted to the practice routinely. Walsh supplied eight videotapes of such instances, some of which he taped himself during his stint with the team from 1997 to 2003. He now is a golf pro in Hawaii.

Specter, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, summoned Walsh to Washington after Walsh and his lawyer met with Goodell in New York. The meeting with Specter lasted 3 hours. Neither side commented on the matter afterward.

While little substantive new information surfaced yesterday, Walsh's conversation with Goodell brought up plenty of validation for Goodell's unprecedented measures against the Pats.

Among them:

* Walsh told Goodell that he didn't tape a Rams walkthrough and had no knowledge of such a taping before the Patriots beat them in Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002. A report on Feb. 2 in the Boston Herald cited an unnamed Patriots source that such a taping happened. Walsh, through his lawyer, said he was not the source for the story.

Walsh did admit to attending the Rams' walkthrough in order to fine-tune electronic equipment, then passing along scouting information to Pats coaches.

The Patriots issued a statement concerning the Herald story, which read, in part: "We hope that with Matt Walsh's disclosures, everyone will finally believe what we have been saying all along . . . The suggestion that the New England Patriots recorded the St. Louis Rams' walkthrough on the day before Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002 is absolutely false."

* Walsh clearly contradicted Belichick's claim that Belichick didn't know taping other team's signals was against the rules. Belichick told Goodell he believed taping was OK as long as the tapes weren't used during the game. Walsh said he was told by Pats coaches to make sure he wasn't caught.

Goodell yesterday reiterated his stance that he didn't believe Belichick.

* Walsh also said the tapes were supposed to be used to prepare for facing divisional opponents the second time they played. However, three of the tapes were of non-divisional opponents whom the Pats would not face again.

In the Goodell meeting, Walsh claimed that he scalped from eight to 12 Super Bowl tickets for Patriots players, and a player on injured reserve participated in a practice he was not supposed to participate in. Both claims are violations of NFL policy, and both will be investigated, Goodell said. *