The Sports Xchange

Despite the social media firestorm surrounding the Deflategate scandal, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has not missed a single voluntary offseason workout.

The Patriots began their offseason program on April 20 and Brady has made a point to attend the workouts this year, ESPN’s Mike Reiss reported Sunday.

In some years, Brady has chosen to travel to California to spend time with his family rather than spend the entire offseason in New England with the team.

Last Monday, the NFL suspended Brady without pay for the first four games of the 2015 season while fining the team $1 million and docking the franchise a first-round draft pick in 2016 and fourth-round pick in 2017.

The NFL Players Association on Thursday filed an appeal of Brady’s four-game suspension. The NFLPA is demanding NFL commissioner Roger Goodell recuse himself from the appeal.

The league confirmed Thursday night that Goodell has elected to preside over the appeal of Brady’s suspension, rejecting the NFLPA’s request that an independent arbitrator hear the case.

“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,” NFLPA general counsel Tom DePaso said in the appeal letter sent to NFL executive vice president Troy Vincent.

The NFLPA said it plans to call Goodell and Vincent as witnesses in the hearing.

Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reported it is “highly likely if not certain” that a lawsuit attempting to force Goodell to delegate the appeal will be filed, possibly soon.

Brady was suspended for his role as the alleged ringleader of team equipment managers who intentionally lowered the air pressure in footballs. Brady did not fully cooperate with the NFL’s third-party investigation led by Ted Wells, according to a 243-page report outlining the offenses.

The Wells report released May 6 concluded that the Patriots “more probable than not” violated NFL rules and Brady “was at least generally aware of the inappropriate activities” of the deflated game balls in the 45-7 AFC Championship Game victory over the Indianapolis Colts.

The Patriots have not indicated whether they plan to appeal their penalties, although they issued an online rebuttal to the Wells report on Thursday. The Patriots have until May 21 to file an appeal.