Fans Sign Petition to Ban Morelli from Officiating Eagles Games
 

Over 23,000 sign online petition to ban Pete Morelli from reffing Eagles games

Reuben Frank

After watching Morelli and his crew penalize the Eagles dramatically more than their opponent for a fourth straight Eagles game the crew has officiated, Will Philbrick of Little Rock, Ark., went to change.org and created a petition to present to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell complaining about Morelli's track record working Eagles games.

As of Sunday morning, the petition had 23,074 signatures.

The Eagles beat the Panthers and Morelli Thursday night in Charlotte.

The Eagles were penalized 10 times for 126 yards, and the Panthers just once for one yard. It was the first time in NFL history one team was assessed 120 or more penalty yards and its opponent was assessed fewer than 10 penalty yards.

This is nothing new.

Morelli also worked the Eagles-Lions game in Detroit last year, when the Eagles were penalized 14 times for 111 yards and the Lions twice for 18 yards.

In fact, in the last four Eagles games that Morelli has worked, the Eagles have been flagged 40 times for 396 yards and their opponents just eight times for 74 yards.

"NFL Referee Pete Morelli has a clear and statistically obvious bias against the Philadelphia Eagles," the petition reads. "Over the last four games that he has officiated that the Eagles were playing in, the Eagles were flagged a total of 40 times for 396 yards, while the Eagles opponent in those games were flagged a mere 8 times for 74 yards. This is unacceptable and puts the Philadelphia Eagles at a disadvantage. Preventing Morelli from refereeing Eagles games will result in a more trustworthy and honest NFL. This will benefit the entire league and keep all claims of conspiracy to a normal level."

Morelli, 65, is in his 21st season with the NFL and his 15th as a referee.


https://www.yahoo.com/sports/over-23...141244522.html

I think it would be awesome to prove how biased NFL officiating is by showing the hard numbers.

They have a solid bitch. Happens to alot of teams by different crews I'd bet. There is undoubted bias in officiating. We saw it first-hand yesterday against KC. The "holding" KC was called for was done 10-fold by the Steelers and only called once that I can recall when it was too ****ing blatant to not be. I specifically remember bitching about when they'd call a penalty on PITs LG.

Wow! That's pretty skewed. But I think that those numbers alone won't prove anything. Can they find evidence of why he would be biased against them? Is he a fan of an Eagles rival? And even then, you would need to look at game tape. See if the crew is calling ticky tack penalties against the Eagles while ignoring blatant penalties on the opponent. That being said, I absolutely believe that NGL officiating crews do show bias and I would love to see someone prove it. But this petition by itself doesn't go far enough to do that.

It's an interesting idea, but you'd need to do some kind of rigorous study of non-calls as well as what actually is called.

The Eagles might be getting the shaft via flags that are thrown, but it would be even better to quantify the benefit to teams like the Steelers who seem to get away with everything.

He seems with it...

Bell’s running style only works if you’re constantly holding.

Exactly...

I literally do not know what a hold is anymore I guess.

Its a nice thought, but the NFL wont even blink

They'll probably name him the white hat for the Super Bowl this year.

In a match up between the Eagles and Patriots.

It doesn't matter because the NFL is an Entertainment event. There is nothing that says the NFL can't determine the outcome to maximize entertainment or in reality, the bottom line.

Things like this keep chipping away at my enjoyment. The Flyover Chiefs won't get the calls until they have a top tier quarterback that increases interest and viewership.

If stuff like this worked, I wouldn't remember Jerry Markbreit's name.

This makes me curious who some of your most hated referee crews are?

I ****ing hate Jeff Triplette. His calls are bullshit.

He was better on Whose Line

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