The NFL has suspended Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady without pay for the first four games of the season, fined the New England Patriots $1 million and taken away two draft picks as punishment for deflating footballs used in the AFC title game, the league said in a statementMonday.
The NFL also indefinitely suspended the two equipment staffers believed to have carried out the plan, including one who called himself “The Deflator.”
Brady will miss the season’s showcase kickoff game Sept. 10 against Pittsburgh, Week 2 at Buffalo, a home game against Jacksonville and a game at Dallas.
He will return the week the Patriots face the Colts in Indianapolis.
The Patriots will also lose a first-round pick in 2016 and a fourth-round pick in 2017.
Brady’s agent said he would appeal the suspension to commissioner Roger Goodell, which the quarterback has three days to do.
Brady would be replaced by Jimmy Garoppolo, a 2014 second-round selection from Eastern Illinois who won the Walter Payton award as the best player in the FCS. He has thrown 27 NFL passes, including one touchdown.
Brady’s agent, Don Yee, said “the discipline is ridiculous and has no legitimate basis.”
“And if the hearing officer is completely independent and neutral, I am very confident the Wells report will be exposed as an incredibly frail exercise in fact-finding and logic,” Yee said in a statement.
The Patriots did not immediately comment on the punishments.
The punishment was announced five days after the release of the lengthy Wells report that found that Patriots personnel deliberately deflated footballs before the AFC Championship Game on Jan. 18, 2015, and that Brady “was at least generally aware” of the violations.
“With respect to your particular involvement, the report established that there is substantial and credible evidence to conclude you were at least generally aware of the actions of the Patriots’ employees involved in the deflation of the footballs and that it was unlikely that their actions were done without your knowledge,” NFL executive vice president Troy Vincent wrote in a letter to Brady.
The 243-page report by league-appointed attorney Ted Wells said it was “more probable than not” that Brady was aware of plans to prepare the footballs to his liking, below the NFL-mandated minimum of 12.5 pounds per square inch.
The report identified two Patriots employees — officials’ locker room attendant Jim McNally and equipment assistant John Jastremski — as the ones who executed the plan. The Patriots suspended both indefinitely last week. Neither can be reinstated without the approval of the NFL, the league said.
Reaction in the NFL was widespread in the aftermath of the news.
Patriots running back LeGarrette Blount tweeted his objections to the discipline, while San Francisco 49ers defensive tackle Darnell Dockett used it as an opportunity to take a jab at New England.