It looks like Tom Brady has finally had enough.
After spending the last year-plus battling the NFL and his 4-game suspension stemming from the ridiculous DeflateGate penalty imposed by Roger Goodell, this week’s failure to be granted a rehearing by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals apparently was enough to make Brady want to finally cut his losses and move on.
It seemed initially that Brady was set to take the case to the Supreme Court, but on Friday he announced that he’ll ‘no longer proceed with the legal process’ while focusing on being ready to play when he does return in 2016.
“I’m very grateful for the overwhelming support I’ve received from Mr. Kraft, the Kraft family, coach Belichick, my coaches and teammates, the NFLPA, my agents, my loving family and most of all, our fans,” Brady wrote via his Facebook page. “It has been a challenging 18 months and I have made the difficult decision to no longer proceed with the legal process. I’m going to work hard to be the best player I can be for the New England Patriots and I look forward to having the opportunity to return to the field this fall.”
The decision likely didn’t come lightly, as the tough question was even if he had been granted a stay by Justice Ginsberg, the concern of whether or not he could have potentially been suspended later in the season if things didn’t turn out in his favor might have been why he opted to stop pursuing it. Instead, he’ll now be sidelined for the first four games of 2016, giving the Patriots the ability to at least begin preparing to be without him to begin the season.
For now the saga comes to an end and it’s incredibly frustrating to have the NFL come out ahead given everything that’s transpired. It just goes to show that even if a player does nothing wrong, even without proof of an actual transgression, “more probable than not” is now apparently enough to punish any player. That’s definitely a scary notion with someone like Goodell in charge and should be a hard lesson learned by the NFLPA the next time they hammer out a new Collective Bargaining Agreement.
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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.
