While the saga of the missing Tom Brady jerseys has been solved, it didn’t need to go as long as it did.
Dylan Wagner, a 19-year-old memorabilia collector was doing business with Mauricio Ortega and remembered Brady’s Super Bowl XLIX jersey, which made him suspicious. After Brady’s Super Bowl LI jersey went missing (along with Von Miller’s Super Bowl 50 helmet), Wagner contacted the authorities. But it took a while for those talks to go anywhere.
“I spoke to somebody in the Patriots PR department and they didn’t really take me all that serious; I’m sure they received a lot of tips,” Wagner said to TMZ Sports. “Then I left two voicemails with NFL security and their lead offices in New York. Never got a call back. I called the Houston police, as well, and never received a call back from them. They told me to file something with my local police department.”
Wagner eventually got in touch with the Texas Rangers, who were more receptive to what he said. Eventually, a friend of Wagner’s with the ATF got him in touch with the FBI, which got the ball rolling.
Wagner has yet to hear from the NFL or the New England Patriots. While he would like to be rewarded, his requests certainly seem reasonable.
“On my personal side, I would love to meet Brady,” he said to TMZ. “So, meeting Brady at a game would be incredibly awesome. On the memorabilia side, a Tom Brady game worn jersey. That’s the holy grail of all jerseys.”
That sounds like something that Brady and the Patriots can make happen.