The black hat fit Bill Belichick so well.

Of course, anyone who wins as much and as easily as he does has to be cheating, right? Cheating more than he would admit.

Why, he has shifty eyes. He smiles infrequently and talks in a monotone. He wears drab gray hoodies and he once cut Bernie Kosar. He offers little to reporters at news conferences but piles it on hapless opponents. His cold, cold heart allows him to bench heroes like Drew Bledsoe and brush past losing coaches during the traditional postgame handshake.

Some also suspect he is responsible, directly or indirectly, for world hunger, the declining housing market and pollution.

So after the Patriots’ coach admitted to stealing other teams’ signals with videotape, Belichick essentially was accused of stealing the Rams’ game plan before Super Bowl XXXVI, as well as a Tootsie Roll Pop from a toddler walking through the team hotel.

On the day before the most recent Super Bowl, the Boston Herald published a story stating a member of the team’s video department taped the Rams’ final walk-through on the day before the 2002 Super Bowl.

Matt Walsh, the former video assistant for the Patriots who was negotiating with the league about information he claimed to have regarding the tapings, did not deny the allegation. And the controversy was fueled by grandstanding U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.).

With the way it’s starting to look, that black hat fits Specter, Walsh and the Herald better than it fits Belichick.

On Wednesday the NFL revealed Walsh has sent eight tapes to the league that had been in his possession. They were tapes of the Dolphins, Bills and Browns sending in sideline signals in 2001, and the Steelers and Chargers sending in sideline signals in 2002.

The Patriots already admitted to taping other teams after they were caught videotaping the Jets’ sideline signals in their 2007 season opener. The league subsequently fined the Patriots $250,000 and took away their first-round pick in the 2008 draft and fined Belichick $500,000. These were the most severe penalties in the history of the NFL.

But many people thought there would be more punishments for more serious rules violations. Today, the whole scenario is reminiscent of Al Capone’s vault. Titillate the masses, create a spectacle and find nothing.

Playing the role of Geraldo Rivera was Specter, who used the forum of Super Bowl week to criticize NFL commissioner Roger Goodell for his handling of the issue and subsequently met with Goodell.

Understand this about Arlen Specter, he has been involved in battling the NFL on the television front as the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He has challenged the league’s antitrust exemption that allows it to negotiate broadcast rights for all 32 of its teams.

The reason for his interest might be that the league-owned NFL Network has held Comcast and its subscribers hostage and Comcast is one of Specter’s largest campaign contributors.

Yes, the Patriots broke a rule. And they paid a heavy price for it.

But Belichick’s reputation won’t be sullied by this affair as much as the reputations of some others.