Four early-season Patriots opponents probably did more than a double take upon seeing the news Monday that quarterback Tom Brady’s four-game suspension is back on. Brady has insisted that he did no such thing.
Advertisement
The court announced the decision on its website Monday to reverse the decision by a U.S. District Judge, and reinstate Brady’s four-game suspension. He appealed the suspension, first to Roger Goodell, and later to a federal court in NY, where it was vacated.
Brady’s suspension originated from an investigation previous year by Ted Wells, an NFL-appointed attorney who found that the two-time league MVP was “at least generally aware” of the alleged intentional deflation of the footballs in the 2015 AFC title game.
The Patriots defeated the Indianapolis Colts and went on to win the Super Bowl. Then he won an appeal against the National Football League in federal court September 2015 and was un-suspended?
Representatives for the NFL, the Patriots and the union, the National Football League Players Association, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Katzmann dissented with the ruling.
Circuit Judge Denny Chin said evidence of ball tampering was “compelling, if not overwhelming” and there was evidence that Brady “knew about it, consented to it, encouraged it”.
Advertisement
Parker said the cellphone destruction raised the stakes “from air in a football to compromising the integrity of a proceeding that the commissioner had convened”.
