Bill Belichick is a cheater.  Plain and simple.  Whatever you think of the genius head coach of the New England Patriots or how much video taping run through practices had to do with his three championships doesn’t matter.  He broke the rules, he’s a cheater.

For the record, I think Bill Belichick is only as smart as Tom Brady is good.  I’m not a numbers expert like Ross Gore but here’s an advanced stat for you: Bill Belichick – Tom Brady = slightly above average coach.

When I read about the “scoreboard malfunction” during the Ravens final drive that resulted in Billy Cundiff’s sideline distraction and eventually a shanked game tying 32 yard field goal, I immediately thought that The Hoodie was at work.  In that conniving monotone voice of his, Belichick told his minions upstairs to keep the incorrect down on the scoreboard and watched chaos ensue on the Ravens sideline.

Cundiff came running onto the field with ten seconds left on the play clock thinking it was third down instead of fourth and in his panicked state missed a perfectly makable chip shot.

Look, I’m not sure that I believe the conspiracy theory.  The scoreboard operator could have made an error or maybe he decided on his own to mess with the Ravens.  But I do know that this whole issue could have been resolved by the Ravens, but their coaching staff let them down.

As former special teams coordinator John Harbaugh watched his kicker race out to the field to attempt the biggest kick of his career the Ravens head coach sat on a timeout.  A timeout that went unused during this game could have slowed things down for Cundiff and sent this game into overtime.  But it didn’t.

Coulda.  Woulda.  And without a doubt, SHOULDA.

No one knows if Belichick was gaming the Ravens or if a simple error caused a whirlwind of confusion, but a timeout would have given the poor kicker some breathing room.

By now Baltimore has begun to cool off, iced the bruises and start looking forward to Wilson Betemit and the Orioles.  Hopefully you’ve taken Dave Gilmore’s advice and avoided sending death threats to Cundiff or Lee Evans — or at least deleted them by now.

But if you want to point a finger or still need to spread the blame, look no further than the coaching staff.

Zach Wilt is the Founding Editor of BaltimoreSportsReport.com and Host of the BSR Podcast.  You can follow him on Twitter @zamwi or send him an email: zach@baltimoresportsreport.com.