(
MyFoxBoston.com) -- The NFL has suspended New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady for four games and the team has been fined $1 million over the deflategate scandal.
Last week, the NFL released a 243-page report over allegations that the team used under-inflated footballs in the AFC Championship Game against the Indianapolis Colts last season. The report found that two Patriots employees violated rules covering game balls, and that Brady was "at least generally aware" of the plans to doctor the footballs to his liking.
On Monday,
the NFL announced Brady will be suspended without pay for the first four games of the 2015 regular season "for conduct detrimental to the integrity of the NFL."
Brady will be allowed to participate in all off-season, training camp and pre-season activities, including pre-season games.
Brady's agent, Don Yee,
called the report "flawed" last week.
On Monday, Yee said
Brady will appeal his suspension and called the punishment "ridiculous."
"If the hearing officer is completely independent and neutral, I am very confident the Wells Report will be exposed as an incredibly frail exercise in fact-finding and logic," Yee said.
Patriots owner Robert Kraft suspended employees John Jastremski and James McNally indefinitely without pay. Last week's extensive report included
text message exchanges between the two, parts of which trashed Brady.
The NFL also fined the team $1 million "for the violation of the playing rules and the failure to cooperate in the subsequent investigation," and will be forced to forfeit their first-round selection in the 2016 draft and their fourth-round selection in the 2017 draft.
"It was our intention to accept any discipline levied by the league. Today's punishment, however, far exceeded any reasonable expectation. It was based completely on circumstantial rather than hard or conclusive evidence," Kraft said in a statement. “Tom Brady has our unconditional support. Our belief in him has not wavered.”
