Just about everything else associated with the New England Patriots has a big, ugly stain on it. We know for sure that Bill Belichick cheated in the Patriots' first win over the Jets. That's why he was fined a half a million dollars and why he probably won't have to worry about whom to pick in the first round next April.
If Belichick was willing to cheat in the first game of the season, against an opponent that had virtually no chance of beating him, is it much of a leap to believe that he's cheated in most, if not all, of the big games he's won in the last eight seasons?
So, the three Super Bowl wins - all by three points, by the way - are tainted.
So too, are the AFC Championship game wins, including the two over the Steelers in 2001 and 2004.
What about a quarterback who was a sixth round draft pick and couldn't win a starting job in college, suddenly looking like one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history and piling up ridiculously impressive statistics while playing for a guy who's known to give his quarterbacks an edge by cheating?
Add Tom Brady to the list as tainted.
What about an offensive coordinator who worked for the cheater and became known as an offensive genius and parlayed that into a 10-year contract at Notre Dame?
Charlie Weis is tainted as well.
We can debate how much Belichick's cheating may have contributed to his success, but the debate about whether his and his franchise's accomplishments are tainted ended the first time somebody asked if they're tainted.
The question itself creates the taint. It's there and it's not going away.
n Belichick got off easy. He should have been suspended.
If the advantage he gained from the cheating was considered enough to warrant the loss of a No. 1 draft pick and a $500,000 fine, then he deserved to be suspended for the rest of the season.
If the advantage wasn't enough to warrant a long suspension, then it wasn't enough to warrant taking away a No. 1 pick.
It was either an extremely serious, competitive balance-changing offense or it wasn't.
By taking the draft pick away, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is saying that what Belichick did may have had an effect on the outcome of the game or games. By not suspending him, Goodell is showing a lack of courage and creating a credibility problem with the players.
If players and coaches around the league have been suspicious about the Patriots for a long time - and they have - then declaring Belichick guilty and allowing him to continue coaching is a slap in the the faces of all of Belichick's opponents.
n The first question to Bill Cowher on CBS' NFL Today show should be whether he and his assistant coaches ever suspected Belichick of cheating in the AFC Championship game losses in 2002 and 2004.
Somebody also might want to ask him about the first game of the 2002 season when Brady threw the ball on 21 consecutive plays in the second and third quarters.
n That was really a radical, maybe even panicked response from the Cleveland Browns when they traded their opening day starting quarterback, Charlie Frye, less than 48 hours after the embarrassing loss to the Steelers.
It was not as radical or ridiculous as turning him into, say, a wide receiver, and telling him he can no longer work with the quarterbacks. But it was close.
n The best thing that could come out of the NFL's videogate scandal would be the elimination of the speaker in the quarterback's helmet.
The worst thing that could come out of it would be the addition of a speaker in a defensive player's helmet. Technology has not made the NFL more exciting. It has done the exact opposite.
n Good luck to the Pirates new president, Frank Coonelly.
One of the first things out of his mouth was a statement about how it's not about the size of the payroll.
He already sounds like a guy who is selling the Nutting company line.
Maybe Coonelly really thinks, as he says, that the Pirates can be "competitive" with a payroll between $45 and $50 million and maybe he's right. Or maybe he and I have a different definition of the word competitive.
I hope the Nuttings are paying him well.
John Steigerwald is a sports anchor for KDKA-TV and does a morning radio show on WTZN 93.7-FM. He writes a Sunday column for the Observer-Reporter.