The New England Patriots honestly, fairly, justly, honorably earned their spot in Super Bowl XLIX this Sunday. No questions asked.

As has been pointed out by media members and Colts players alike, the Patriots won by 38 points. A few deflated footballs do not 38 points make. Indy got straight outplayed and laughed out of the AFC Championship. The Colts just aren’t on the elite level of the Patriots juggernaut.

But more importantly, I’m going to use this space to defend the Patriots’ position amidst this supposed “Deflate-gate” scandal, because I think it’s important for the readers of The Stanford Daily to understand that the New England Patriots are just winners, plain and simple.

Everybody questioning the Patriots’ integrity and hating on them because of these allegations and “Spygate” in 2007 needs to shut up and respect the strong ideals that the Patriots organization stands for and has upheld perfectly under Bill Belichick. Haters gonna hate.

There’s no way quarterback Tom Brady could have known about the deflated footballs that he was using, because he’s too locked into the zone on the big stage to notice the little things like how a football feels. Never mind that other, lesser quarterbacks like Eli Manning are so incredibly picky about the texture and pressure of their footballs that it takes months to adequately prepare them. Brady is different. He’s above the little things like that. You could give him a severed pig’s head instead of a ball and he’d still throw 5 touchdowns, because he’s just too clutch to notice.

In fact, those other quarterbacks probably shouldn’t even be playing in the NFL. Interceptions? Incompletions? Please. Even the Patriots’ leading wide receiver, Julian Edelman, has a perfect 100 percent completion rate in his career. And what’s more: Every single pass that Edelman has thrown in his career has resulted in a touchdown. This NFL quarterbacking thing is easy. Everybody else is just jealous and looking for any way whatsoever to bring down the unstoppable Pats.

So what if Brady handled the Patriots’ footballs hundreds of times during the game and the Colts’ equipment manager had a hunch that something was wrong immediately after receiving an intercepted pass from linebacker D’Qwell Jackson? That’s just the Colts being unreasonably suspicious and coming into the game with an agenda, because they’re sore losers and they just want to find something — anything — that will help them save face in the face of an utterly embarrassing 38-point loss.

And Belichick’s long-winded explanation in his press conference at least makes perfect sense to me. He used science, guys. How can we argue with that? Science made the Patriots’ footballs magically deflate in the preparation process. What’s that? Only 11 of the 12 footballs were deflated? Great! That makes perfect sense, because it’s like the fourth law of thermodynamics or something that only 92 percent of footballs are subject to the laws of physics. I think I learned that in intro physics freshman year, it definitely checks out.

Besides, he said to the media that the Patriots “followed every rule, to the letter.” Belichick may have cheated in “Spygate,” but it’s clear he’s a reformed man. He hasn’t even cheated in, like, seven years! Why are people being so unreasonably suspicious of him when you have such isolated cases? There’s definitely no correlation there and there’s absolutely no reason to believe that he could be lying.

And even if it does turn out that the Patriots cheated, so what?

Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire roided their way up the record ladder in the MLB. The Tour de France used to be won by whoever cheated in the most efficient, least obvious way. Heck, figure skater Tonya Harding did away with all subtlety and straight up hired somebody to break her competitor’s leg.

The Patriots, meanwhile, seem to have perfected the art of subtle yet significant cheating, getting caught in the act and getting off essentially scot-free. We should value and glorify that more than their ability to play good football, because that’s why the NFL exists, right?

This is America, guys. Gotta get to the top any way possible. Bill Belichick is just living out the true ideals of the American Dream. The Patriots are the team of destiny this year. The Seahawks don’t even have David Tyree. This is just pure karma, getting the Patriots the ring they deserve and justly earned.

Do-Hyoung Park skipped those crucial middle school years where kids tend to learn that cheating, be it in any form, is frowned upon. Ask Do how he’s managed to climb to the top at dpark027 ‘at’ stanford.edu.