It was considered to be a longshot when Tom Brady’s legal team threw one final Hail Mary to keep him active for 2016 thanks to this ongoing year-plus farce known as DeflateGate, but on Wednesday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denied Brady’s request for a rehearing.
The court made the announcement on Wednesday, and denied the petition to allow Brady’s case to be reheard. That means Brady’s four-game suspension to begin 2016 will stand.
“Appellees, National Football League Players Association and Tom Brady, filed a petition for panel rehearing, or, in the alternative, for rehearing en banc,” said the statement from the court. “The panel that determined the appeal has considered the request for panel rehearing, and the active members of the Court have considered the request for rehearing en banc.”
“IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition is denied.”
Brady’s lawyer, Ted Olson, filed the request for a rehearing on the quarterback’s behalf back on May 23 and did a good job of turning the tide of the argument from Brady vs Goodell and deflated footballs to an unfair employer vs union argument. Given all the evidence presented and several “Friend of the Court” documents that were filed, it certainly seemed like they made a convincing enough argument to sway the court to hear the case, which according to most legal experts, only happens about 1% of the time.
The only problem was Olson really got involved too late after Jeffrey Kessler uncharacteristically seemed to mishandle the hearing in front of the three-judge panel that lead to Judge Berman’s ruling being overturned and Brady’s suspension being reinstated.
It’s disappointing, and makes you wonder had Olson gotten involved sooner if that ruling might have turned out differently.
For now, barring this case being heard by the Supreme Court if they choose to go that route, Brady will seemingly be sidelined for the first four weeks of the season, and we’ll have to see how Jimmy Garoppolo fares before the veteran QB returns when they get set to face the Browns in Week 5 out in Cleveland.
New England opens the season on the road in Arizona, with Garoppolo then getting the luxury of three straight home games against Miami, Houston and Buffalo.
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Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.
