On the heels of the San Francisco 49ers making quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo the highest-paid player in the NFL with his new five-year, $137.5 million deal, the Boston Herald’s Ron Borges reported via unnamed sources close to Tom Brady that the Patriots QB was ready to sit out all of this year’s offseason organized team activities unless he got a comparable deal to what his old backup got.

As it turns out, the report was one big hoax. Borges was apparently fed some patently incorrect information about Brady. A listener on WEEI’s Kirk & Callahan show has claimed to have texted Borges said bogus information while pretending to be Garoppolo’s agent, Don Yee.

The Yee impersonator texted Borges that “Brady is prepared to sit out all offseason team activity unless he gets a new deal with up front money similar to what Jimmy got.”

Borges responded by saying “Sounds like I need to write a column today.”

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The Yee impersonator also purportedly said that “12 was not going to return unless McDaniels was named the head coach in waiting,” which also made it into Borges' column.

Borges clearly did not do his due diligence in fact-checking what turned out to be incredibly false information and it has come back to bite him in a spectacular way.

The Herald, which has a history of retracting and apologizing for a false report regarding the Patriots, has already pulled the story from its website. It remains to be seen what becomes of Borges, but it’s safe to say it won’t be good.