Want to be a part of history? It might cost you almost as much as a Tom Brady public appearance.
Online auction house Lelands.com on Thursday listed an item that should be familiar to New England Patriots fans: a game-used football from the team’s AFC Championship Game win over the Indianapolis Colts.
It was in that game, of course, that Colts linebacker D’Qwell Jackson intercepted a Tom Brady pass and set into motion the still-ongoing Deflategate fiasco. This football came from later in that game, as Patriots fan Laura Nichols scored the souvenir in the second half from wide receiver Brandon LaFell. After running back LeGarrette Blount scored a touchdown late in the third quarter, LaFell picked up the ball as Blount went to celebrate and spotted Nichols sitting in the first row of the end zone.
“LaFell picked up the ball, I pointed at him, he pointed at me and he handed me the ball,” Nichols said, via ESPN.com. “It was all so surreal.”
That means the ball technically isn’t a “Deflategate original,” as the 11 deflated footballs scrutinized in the Wells Report all were re-inflated at halftime. But that didn’t stop Lelands.com from starting the bidding for the ball — which also features the initials of referee Walt Anderson — at $25,000.
“The historical importance of this piece cannot be understated,” the item’s description reads. “It is the most ‘topical’ piece of sports memorabilia that we can recall ever being sold so close to the event itself.”
Lelands.com founder and chairman Joshua Evans told ESPN.com he believes the football could fetch “six figures” when it hits the auction block.
Thumbnail photo via Robert Deutsch/USA TODAY Sports Images
