While New England CB Rodney Harrison serves a 4 game suspension for violating the NFL’s Don’t End Up On Signature Pharmacies’ Computer policy, Pats coach Bill Belichick was typically forthcoming while being grilled by the Globe’s Christopher L. Gasper :

When asked yesterday whether he could be confident that Harrison’s use of a banned substance – reportedly human growth hormone – was an isolated incident, Patriots coach Bill Belichick (above) intimated that it was not something he could say with certainty.

“I don’t have any knowledge,” Belichick said before stopping short. “I don’t have any more knowledge of it than anybody else does. However, the league monitors and does those things. It’s all, it’s all outside of the team. We all know what the policies and the procedures are. I don’t think there is any need for me to go through them. That’s a matter of record.”

Belichick did say that the team talks to players about a number of subjects and hinted that the use prohibited substances was one of them.

“I would just say that we talk to players about everything that we feel is important,” said Belichick. “That covers a lot of things. You know the situation. You know the situation on this as well as I do. What the league is and what their comments are, that’s what they are. I’m not going to speak for the league.”

Belichick was asked if he thought the league should introduce blood testing.

“I’m just trying to coach this team and get ready for the Jets,” he said. “I don’t really have any comment on what the league policies are, what their rules are or what their deal is. They got people doing that. I’m sure they know a lot more about it than I do. We’ll leave that to them and the people who make those decisions.”

Few Patriots players were willing to talk about Harrison’s suspension and those who did stayed on message.

“We’re not talking about Rodney. We’re not talking about Rodney,” said linebacker Junior Seau, who was Harrison’s teammate for nine seasons in San Diego and has been for the last two with the Patriots. “We’re talking about the Jets and our teammates that are in the locker room.”

The 38-year-old Seau, who is in his 18th season, was asked if the temptation to try something to prolong an NFL career gets greater as that career reaches its final stages.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” replied Seau. “I just come out and work every day.”

Pro Football Talk — a site whose editor is no doubt a former male model, insist, “we can no longer watch ESPN (or any of the other ESPN networks) whenever Lou Holtz is on the air.”

We just can’t take the whole “sufferin’ succotash” routine anymore. For the same reasons that Emmitt Smith is unfit to be a broadcaster, Holtz is unfit, too. The overactive salivary glands are a distraction (at a minimum) for the viewer, and if anything Holtz is getting worse as he gets older.

To make matters worse, Holtz’s mug goes from being Granny Clampett humorous to Cryptkeeper horrifying when broadcast in HD.