Tom Brady Tosses Legal Hail Mary, Will Appeal Four-Game Deflategate Suspension

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Tom Brady isn’t going down without a fight.

The Patriots quarterback will appeal his four-game Deflategate suspension, former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson told Good Morning America Monday. Brady’s legal team, led by Olson, will file an “en banc appeal” to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, asking them to review their three-judge panel’s previous decision, handed down in April.

“The facts here are so drastic, and so apparent, that the court should rehear it,” Olson told GMA.

Seven of the Second Circuit’s 13 judges must agree that Brady’s en banc appeal has merit before the full roster of active judges will hear the case, a review that typically takes four to six weeks. Brady’s four-game suspension will be stayed if he receives an en banc hearing, which are notoriously hard to come by in the Second Circuit—less than .03-percent of cases received one between 2000 and 2010, as Ben Volin notes.

Brady’s legal team says the 38-year-old has been enjoying a “low-key offseason” with his family, but for now “has to sit back and await his fate for this season.”