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That was a smart decision, Tom Brady

Finally – the most ridiculous scandal in NFL history has reached its end.

Earlier this week, the appeal filed by New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady for a rehearing of his four-game suspension for his involvement in a football tampering scandal was denied by the U.S. Court of Appeals.

There was some speculation is that Brady would take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court to see if his suspension can be thrown out, but Brady decided not to do so and accepted his suspension on Friday.

Let that sink in for a moment. A grossly overpaid millionaire athlete might have taken his case against a four-game suspension to the highest court in the land.

The Supreme Court has issued important rulings in the past years issues such as same-sex marriage, health care, abortion, capital punishment, and separate and equal education. The list goes on.

If Brady had not accepted his fate, the Court may have had to examine the case of a man who is accused of ordering the deflation of footballs or knowing that the deflation was taking place. This would’ve been absurd.

For those of you who don’t know – and you must be a person who really dislikes football at this point for that to be true – the Patriots were accused of tampering with the footballs used in the 2015 AFC Championship Game. The Patriots ended up blowing out Indianapolis in this game played 18 months ago and later went on to win the Super Bowl over Seattle.

The idea that the Patriots intentionally sabotaged footballs to get an advantage in a game wasn’t surprising to me since the Pats have been known in the past for questionable behavior, most notably in another named scandal, Spygate.

After a lengthy investigation into this scandal, commonly known as Deflategate or Ballghazi, the NFL issued the suspension to Brady in May 2015. After an internal appeal, league commissioner Roger Goodell upheld the suspension.

As if this whole mess wasn’t dumb enough, Brady decided to take his case to federal court. In September 2015, a federal judge overturned the suspension and the league appealed the decision.

Then in April, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reinstated the suspension, and on Wednesday, Brady’s attempt to get a rehearing was denied.

So now it’s all over. Brady will sit out the first four games of the upcoming season and the Patriots will have to rely on little-used backup quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.

There wasn’t any true evidence of Brady’s involvement in the football tampering, so he was justified for wanting to continue to pursue his quest to lift the suspension. However, if he had, the Supreme Court could’ve decided not to hear his plea at all.

Even if the Court had decided to hear Brady’s case, there was a good chance that he would’ve lost and that could have hurt his team greatly.

And depending on how long the high court would’ve needed to hear the case, Brady could have ended up with his suspension taking effect late in the season when New England might be close to a playoff bid. Seeing how they play in the weak AFC East, this will probably be the case.

How would that hurt his team? New England would’ve had to rely on an inexperienced Garoppolo to lead them to the postseason and potentially through it as well.

ESPN’s Kevin Seifert pointed out in a column that Brady has been known for putting the Patriots first during his contract negotiations, taking significantly less pay than he could have received.

With Brady coming to grips with his sentencing, Garoppolo can now gain some experience in winnable games and under less pressure early in the season.

New England plays only one playoff-caliber team during its first four games – Arizona on the road in the opener. The other three games are at home against division bottom-feeders Miami and Buffalo and also against Houston.

The Texans are a good team that made the playoffs last year but they got obliterated by Kansas City and shouldn’t inspire fear from anyone, let alone a perpetual Super Bowl contender like New England.

The odds that the Pats will go winless during this stretch seem slim and they could very well be undefeated if the Cardinals lay an egg in the first game.

So the team should be in a good position by the time Brady returns.

Then Brady would come back to light up the hapless Cleveland defense in his first game.

Brady had a tough decision to make. He could have continued this appeal process that had been going on for far too long and he had every right to do so if he wanted to.

However, he decided to just bite the bullet, sit on the bench for four games and give pointers to his backup quarterback to help his team get some wins.

I’m sure that it will suck for him to have to go through this and it may “deflate” his ego a bit, but in the end, it will help the Patriots more than if he had extended this debacle any further.

Ryan Stieg can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 252. His email address is rstieg@miningjournal.net.

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