Brady to drop appeal, serve 4-game ‘Deflategate’ suspension

At the time, Bovada.lv raised the odds on the Patriots to 10/1 and Bradley said “We will not make that same mistake again”.

It added that it will review its options carefully.

FILE – In this January 6, 2016 file photo, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady faces reporters before a scheduled NFL football practice in Foxborough, Mass. Expect that to get ironed out when the current collective bargaining agreement expires. Organized labor argued that the commissioner’s actions threatened workers everywhere.

With the option to petition for a stay of suspension from the Second Circuit and then from the Supreme Court, Brady has instead made a decision to drop the legal battle.

The NFL player’s union appealed on Brady’s behalf and the suspension was thrown out in September 2015.

Jimmy Golen covers sports and the law for The Associated Press.

With the suspension now in place, Brady will miss the first four games of the season and the Patriots are expected to turn to Jimmy Garoppolo to take over starting duties until Brady is eligible to return on October 9 against the Cleveland Browns.

Brady will be eligible to return in Week 5 on October 9 on the road against the Cleveland Browns. The NFL then appealed the appeal, and the court reversed the decision in April, saying that the Patriots MVP must sit out those games.

Anthony Barkow, a lawyer who submitted an amicus brief on behalf of Kenneth R. Feinberg, the special master of the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund and a longtime arbitrator, said: “We wish the result were otherwise, but respect and understand the decision and know that it is extremely rare for the 2nd Circuit to grant en banc review”.

“The penalty imposed by the NFL was unprecedented, unjust and unreasonable, especially given that no empirical or direct evidence of any kind showed Tom did anything to violate League rules prior to, during or after the 2015 AFC Championship Game”.

“Unfortunately, this stopped being about air pressure a long time ago”, he said in a statement.

Wallach believes that within the next six days, Brady’s legal team will have to file a motion requesting a stay from the second-circuit, which he believes the quarterback won’t receive since they denied the merit that lead to this week’s decision.

The NFL-commissioned investigation into the affair was conducted by attorney Ted Wells, who concluded it was “more probable than not” that Brady was “generally aware” of Patriots attendants deflating footballs prior to the game. The Patriots open the season with perhaps the toughest game on their schedule – at Arizona, against one of the league’s nastiest defenses and old friend Chandler Jones.