Tom Brady’s appeal of his four-game suspension over the deflation of footballs began Tuesday morning at N.F.L. headquarters in New York.
Despite the objections of the players union, the man hearing the appeal will be Commissioner Roger Goodell, who authorized the suspension. Goodell says that he has the right to hear appeals involving “conduct detrimental to the integrity of the game.”
The suspension came after a league investigation led by the lawyer Ted Wells of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison determined that Brady probably knew that game balls used by his team, the New England Patriots, were deliberately underinflated by team personnel.