[sammyg2]

Defiant Tom Brady vows to blitz NFL with appeal of suspension in deflategate
Published May 12, 2015 •

A defiant Tom Brady went on offense hours after the NFL sacked him with a four-game suspension for his role in “deflategate,” vowing through his agent Monday night to appeal the “ridiculous” penalty.

A months-long investigation commissioned by the league found the Super Bowl MVP played a role in the intentional deflation of game balls, a move that experts say could have given Brady an advantage in the New England Patriots’ AFC championship victory over the Indianapolis Colts.

On Monday, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell came down hard on Brady and the Patriots, benching Brady for the first four games of the upcoming season, fining the team $1 million and docking it a first-round draft pick next year and a fourth-round pick in 2017.

"Games on the field don't count as much as the games played on Park Avenue,"
- Don Yee, Brady's agent

"There is no evidence that Tom directed footballs be set at pressures within the investigation and answered every question presented to him," said Don Yee, Brady's agent, who blasted the probe and suspension as "ridiculous" with "no legitimate basis."

Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who has a close relationship with Goodell, said the team will accept the discipline but complained that the punishment "far exceeded any reasonable expectation."


The investigation conducted by New York-based attorney Ted Wells, which was released last week, stopped short of finding as fact that the balls were deliberately deflated on Brady's orders. The NFL’s threshold for imposing discipline requires merely a finding of strong probability of wrongdoing. The report found that it was "more probable than not" that Brady was "at least generally aware of the inappropriate activities" in the balls being deflated. Yee, however, called the outcome of the report pre-determined and blamed the NFL for its lack of standards or protocols in handling footballs prior to games.

Guess that's all it takes nowadays, to be "at least generally aware of the inappropriate activities" means the same as being guilty.