Right off the bat, I’ll admit to the fact that, unlike my good friend Rob, I don’t eat, sleep, and drink professional football. At best, I’m a casual fan who will tune in to watch a marquee matchup or a Thanksgiving Day game if I have nothing better to do. Of course, if I’m with my Goodboys pals back East during the NFL playoffs, I’ll watch a game over a few beers, but that’s the extent of my football fandom. Yet I don’t believe that prevents me in any way from believing that Patriots coach Bill Belichick should have gotten more than a sizable fine and his team the loss of one or more draft picks next year after the Patriots were found guilty of illegally videotaping New York Jets coaches to try and steal their signs during last week’s game.

Let’s be frank here: there is more to this story than the fact that a NFL coach broke a specific set of rules governing fair play and team conduct. If that’s all it was, than perhaps fines and the loss of draft choices would be an appropriate penalty. But in this case, you not only have a case of cheating on the field of play (something that should bring with it the harshest of penalties when it comes to professional sports) but the harming of a professional football franchise’s reputation, both on and off the field, virtually overnight. And for this reason, Patriots ownwer Bob Kraft has only one true course of action – to conduct whatever “internal investigation” he believes necessary, then fire Belichick as his coach.

In professional sports, there is nothing worse than cheating; it not only does a disservice to the league and the sport involved, it taints a highly-sophisticated image that the NFL has carefully cultivated over the years. Consider that after the Cincinnati Bengals off-the-field problems of last season, the Pacman Jones incident and his 1-year suspension, and the whole Michael Vick dog-killing thing, you have yet another story of abhorrent behavior – this time by a NFL coach – making headlines. Rather than talking about this weekend’s games – something the NFL hopes will happen, everyone is talking about cheating and who does it. That’s hardly the kind of ‘buzz’ NFL commissioner Roger Goodell wants to hear. That’s reason #1.

Reason #2: Now pretend you’re Patriots owner Robert Kraft. You have spent years building a once-sad and pathetic franchise into one of the most successful, dominating, and popular NFL teams in just a few short years. You have tried to make your franchise the very hallmark of on-the-field excellence and the definition of what it means to play and succeed as a team. Now, simply because your head coach is so paranoid and driven to win, he knowingly and willingly defies league rules and is found to have cheated – not once, but likely numerous times over the course of several seasons. Your team’s reputation has gone from smash to trash overnight. Outside of New England (where undoubtedly most fans believe Belichick simply got caught doing something everyone else does) your franchise is stamped with the scarlet letter of “C” for CHEATER. Never mind the fact that in just a few days you now own one of the most, if not THE most, unpopular teams in the NFL. Congrats Mr. Kraft, your outside-the-region marketing and merchandising has just taken a big hit.

One has to wonder what Kraft is thinking about this. Not only has his head coach sullied his franchise, but indirectly, his own reputation as well. After all, one might reasonably ask the question, how could be Belichick be repeatedly ordering an activity that involves cheating without the owner knowing about it? And how could Kraft allow Belichick to arrogantly, boorishly, and recklessly deflect all questions about this activity in the press conferences that followed the league’s decision. Did he not care about how his team and his owner would be perceived through such an act?

If I’m as successful a businessman as Robert Kraft has made himself to be, I have to know that my personal reputation and integrity is everything in life. He has to know you can be a winner on the field while still being a loser off it. Don’t believe me? Ask Barry Bonds. If I’m Robert Kraft, I have to know that Bill Belichick has put a vile stain on the reputation of my professional football franchise, and that as long as he is around, there can be no recovering from it.

If I’m Robert Kraft, I know that Bill Belichick has to be fired. And the sooner Kraft does that, the more favorable his reputation and his football franchise will be viewed in the eyes of the league and its fans.