On Thursday, the Boston Herald published a post headlined “Tom Brady wants to get paid like Jimmy G, or he’ll skip OTAs.” On Friday, it had been deleted and replaced with an error message. A Boston radio show claimed “Nick in Boston” had tricked the reporter, Ron Borges, into writing the fake story after texting him pretending to be Don Yee.
Borges’ original post began:
The dominos are about to continue their Foxboro free fall.
Tom Brady wants to get paid.
According to sources close to the league’s Most Valuable Player, Brady is ready to sit out all of this year’s offseason organized team activities unless he receives a contract extension that carries with it up-front money similar to what his former protege, Jimmy Garoppolo, will receive from the San Francisco 49ers. Garoppolo yesterday signed a five-year, $137.4 million deal with $74 million guaranteed.
Note that it says “sources,” plural, so presumably Borges was able to confirm that Brady the claim holding out for more money because he was jealous of Garoppolo’s deal. Or maybe not, and Adam Schefter’s invisible footsteps simply broke Borges’s brain and caused him to abandon basic journalistic responsibility.
Herald sports editor Sean Leahy told Deadspin, “We are currently investigating this matter.”