Over 42,000 people (and growing) have signed this absurd online document in the past six days. Seriously.
The petition, crafted by Baltimore-based wealth manager Scott Latshaw, asks that the Patriots be disqualified from the postseason for their purported role in "DeflateGate" stemming from their 45-7 drubbing over the Indianapolis Colts in the 2014 AFC Championship game. The petition reads:
To maintain the legitimacy of this year's NFL Championship the Patriots should be immediately disqualified and the two teams they beat to advance should be allowed to continue with the playoff process. The AFC championship should be replayed to determine a rightful representative for the AFC in this year's Super Bowl.
So just to recap, over 42,000 people want to remove the Patriots from the Super Bowl over an unproven allegation in a game that the Patriots won by 38 points. Not only has there been no confirmed evidence of foul play on the side of the Patriots, the NFL has asserted that the deflated footballs were used in the first half only. The Patriots outscored the Colts 17-7 in the first half—then pounded the Colts 28-0 in the second half with the properly inflated footballs.
The letter, which Latshaw claims is being sent to the NFL, was created on Jan. 21 with the hope that the AFC title game be re-played—without the Patriots as a participant:
Immediately disqualify Patriots and replay AFC Championship between the Colts and Ravens.
Now Latshaw is requesting the Baltimore Ravens play in an AFC title game do-over—despite the fact that they already lost to the Patriots, 35-31, in the divisional round contest at Gillette Stadium?
"They can't go through with this multi-billion dollar even and have it tainted like that," Latshaw told the Sporting News. "This is the Black Sox all over again."
Here's the issue with that statement: the situation involving the Patriots could not be further from the Black Sox infamous scandal. Eight members of the Chicago Black Sox were accused of intentionally losing the 1919 World Series. The Black Sox lost that World Series to the Cincinnati Reds, five games to three. The eight Black Sox players were acquitted in court over the charges that they lost World Series games in exchange for money from gamblers, but were all banned for life from MLB. In other words, this a remarkably irrelevant example for Latshaw to allude to.
This feeble-minded attempt by Latshaw and the others that signed this petition reinforces just how much some opposing fans hate the Patriots. The Patriots haters have long tried to discredit the franchise's success with unsubstantiated claims of cheating.
But the seemingly ceaseless DeflateGate saga appears to have taken a turn for the better for the Patriots. In case you missed it, Patriots owner Robert Kraft laid down the hammer on the NFL on Monday night. First, he vehemently declared the Patriots innocence.
"I want to make it clear, I believe unconditionally that the New England Patriots have done nothing inappropriate in this process or are in violation of NFL rules," Kraft said. "Tom, Bill and I have been together for 15 years. They are my guys. They are part of my family."
Kraft also said he expects the NFL to apologize if the Patriots are found innocent in the tampering charges related to the deflated footballs.
"If the Wells investigation is not able to definitively determine that our organization tampered with the air pressure on the footballs, I would expect and hope that the league would apologize to our entire team, and in particular, coach [Bill] Belichick and Tom Brady for what they have had to endure this past week," Kraft said, referring to attorney Ted Wells, who is leading the investigation with NFL executive vice president Jeff Pash.
Kraft would presumably not say the above statements if he had any doubt the NFL would find evidence of wrongdoings against the Patriots. With that being said, petitions like Latshaw's will look even more ludicrous if the Patriots are cleared in the investigation.
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