Tom Brady’s lawyers threaten to head for courtroom

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Tom Brady’s lawyers demanded that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell recuse himself from the Super Bowl MVP’s “Deflategate” appeal and threatened to go to court unless the four-game suspension is overturned.

Laying out the grounds for dismissing the penalty and setting the stage for a potential federal court battle, the NFL Players Association said in a letter released Friday that Goodell can’t hear the appeal because he will be called as a witness.

“The NFLPA believes that neither Commissioner Goodell nor anyone with close ties to the NFL can serve as arbitrator in Mr. Brady’s appeal,” the letter said. “If the Commissioner does not appoint such a neutral arbitrator, the NFLPA and Mr. Brady will seek recusal and pursue all available relief to obtain an arbitrator who is not evidently partial.”

Brady was suspended for four games and the New England Patriots were fined $1 million and docked a pair of draft picks after league investigator Ted Wells found that the Super Bowl champions used illegally inflated footballs in the AFC title game.

The team has denied doing anything wrong and published a 20,000-word rebuttal online. Neither the Patriots nor Donald Yee, the agent for their three-time Super Bowl MVP quarterback, responded to requests for comment on Friday.

In their letter, Brady’s lawyers give three arguments for dropping the suspension:

• The evidence collected in the Wells report doesn’t prove Brady violated any NFL rules.

• The punishment is more harsh than for previous, similar violations.

“Indeed,” the union wrote, “no player in the history of the NFL has ever received anything approaching this level of discipline for similar behavior – a change in sanctions squarely forbidden by the CBA and the law of the shop.”

• Under the league’s collective bargaining agreement, only Goodell can punish a player for conduct detrimental to the league. The “Deflategate” penalties were meted out by NFL executive vice president Troy Vincent.

“You have no authority to impose discipline on Mr. Brady under the CBA, and such discipline must therefore be set aside,” the letter said, then adding in a footnote a reference to the Adrian Peterson case: “We also note that one arbitrator has previously found that you, in particular, are unfamiliar with proper NFL discipline procedures and have no role in imposing discipline.”

Brady appealed the suspension Thursday.

Late Thursday night, Goodell announced he would hear the appeal personally.

Although the collective bargaining agreement gives him the right to do that, the appeal letter claimed Goodell cannot remain impartial because he will be called as a witness.