New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady announced Friday that he would not ask the Supreme Court to hear an appeal of the four-game suspension he received 18 months ago for his role in deflating footballs before the 2015 AFC Championship game.
“I have made the difficult decision to no longer proceed with the legal process,” Brady wrote on his Facebook page Friday.
And with that, the Deflategate scandal finally reached its conclusion.
Brady’s announcement came just two days after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit declined to reconsider an earlier ruling against him.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell suspended Brady for four games in May 2015 for his role in the Deflategate scandal, after an NFL-commissioned investigation ruled that it was “more probable than not” that Brady was aware that footballs the Patriots used in their AFC Championship win over the Indianapolis Colts were deflated. The Patriots went on to beat the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX.
Judge Richard Berman threw out the NFL suspension in September, ruling that Goodell had overstepped the disciplinary bounds outlined in the league’s collective bargaining agreement with players. That decision allowed Brady to play throughout the 2015-2016 season.
The Second Circuit court, however, restored the suspension in April when it overturned Berman’s ruling, ruling 2-1 that Goodell had acted appropriately.
Brady had 90 days to petition the Supreme Court to hear his case. Instead, he will spend the first four weeks of the 2016 season on the bench, while back-up Jimmy Garappolo assumes the starting role in his place. The NFL Players Association could still appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
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