The investigation for Deflategate has been complete, and Roger Goodell and the NFL have issued their punishment to Tom Brady and the New England Patriots.The league announced Monday that Patriots quarterback, and the NFL’s Golden Guy, Tom Brady has been suspended for the first 4 games of the 2015 regular season, without pay. Brady is eligible to play in all pre-season games, and is also allowed to participate in any training camp activities.

As for the Patriots, the team has been fined one million dollars, and they have also been stripped of their 2016 1st round draft pick and 2017 4th round draft pick. Two Patriot employees, John Jastremski and James McNally, who were found to be in direct affiliation with actually deflating the game balls, have been suspended indefinitely without pay by Patriots owner Robert Kraft, and cannot be reinstated without direct permission from the league’s Vice President Troy Vincent.

All of the punishments are in direct response to the Wells investigation on the Patriots’ illegal deflation of game balls used in the 2015 AFC Championship game against the Indianapolis Colts. After that game, the Colts alerted the league of their suspicions of the Patriots’ use of under inflated footballs. After the league’s initial investigation, it was discovered that all of the 11 New England Patriot game footballs tested were measured below the minimum allowable pressure by league standards. Tom Brady’s failure to fully cooperate in the investigation also aided in his specific suspension. NFL VP of Football Operations Troy Vincent provided a statement in a letter to Brady. “Your actions as set forth in the report clearly constitute conduct detrimental to the integrity of and public confidence in the game of professional football,” Vincent stated.

In terms of fairness, I believe Roger Goodell dealt the punishment to Brady as he thought was necessary. I believe he wanted to send a message to everyone that behavior that compromises the integrity of the league will not be tolerated. He had to come down hard on Tom Brady because if you think about it, he’s the quarterback and the one who has the ball in his hands the most. With his influence around the Patriots organization, he definitely has some sort of say as to how he would like the footballs to be. It makes sense to punish him as well as the Patriots organization.

If you have time and would like to see the completed Wells investigative report in its entirety, you can take a look at this HERE.