Bet you never thought you'd hear Bill Belichick talk Spygate again, but he did

New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick stood up at a surprise news conference on Saturday to say that the team's in-house investigation into allegations that the club deflated footballs improperly led him to say that they "have followed every rule to the letter."

And then he was asked about the 2007 Spygate incident. And Belichick unloaded.

Broaching a subject that he rarely — if ever? — has discussed in such detail since, Belichick issued a fierce defense of his team's actions back then.

"At no time was there any intent whatsoever to try to compromise the integrity of the game or to gain an advantage," Belichick said. "Quite the opposite — we feel we followed the rules of the game to the letter in our preparations, in our procedures, and in the way we handle every game that we competitively played in as it relates to this matter.

"We try to do everything right, we err on the side of caution, it has been this way for many years. Anything that’s close, we stay as far away from the line as we can. In this case, I can say that as far as I know and everything I can do, we did everything as right as we could do it. We welcome the league’s investigation in this matter."

The running debate amid the deflate-gate chatter is that, had this been any other team, we might not even be talking about PSIs and under-inflated footballs eight days from the Super Bowl. But given that the Patriots and Belichick were levied such heavy fines in the Spygate incident and that the Patriots' consistent winning and Belichick's sometimes brusque personality have become national rallying points against this team, deflate-gate has taken on a life of its own.

Perhaps even more so than Spygate. Which Belichick took a crack at relitigating seven-plus years later. With great ferocity.

"A guy is giving signals in front of 80,000 people, OK?" Belichick said. "So we filmed them taking signals in front of 80,000 people like there were a lot of other teams doing at that time too. Forget about that. If we were wrong, we’ve been disciplined for that.

"Guy is in front of 80,000 people ... 80,000 people saw it, everybody on the sideline saw it, everybody sees our guys in front of 80,000 people. I mean, there he is. It was wrong, we were disciplined for it, that’s it. We never did it again. We’re never going to do it again. Anything else that’s close, we’re not going to do either."

"We always do, we always have. Anything that’s remotely close, we’re [erring] on the side of caution."

How about that?

Belichick not only took time on a Saturday to take the air out of the current controversy but turned back the clock to douse any lingering Spygate embers.

Note to media members covering this little football game coming up in a little more than a week: Ask Belichick about the incident with caution.

"This is the end of this subject for me for a long time," Belichick said.

Guess we'll have to wait for his personal memoirs to get anything more on it.