Here's the Best Brady Retirement Leak Conspiracy Theory You'll Ever Hear

To me, the central mystery of this past weekend isn't whether Tom Brady is going to retire. He is. It doesn't get more officially official than this, which is still up:

It's not even the question of when. Like I said yesterday, it's in his contract that he collects 15 million bucks if he's on the roster this Friday. 

No, the mystery for us meddling kids to solve is the identity of the person who tipped off Adam Schefter and Jeff Darlington. Neither of them would break a story of this magnitude if they didn't have a reliable source they could totally trust. This couldn't have just come from the kid who puts the equipment back on the racks at TB12 Fitness or Gisele's gardener. And the best theory I've heard so far rips the mask off the culprit and reveals that it was this guy all along:

I have to give full credit to The Sports Hub's Toucher & Rich for cracking this case:

I mean, if you're going to have a conspiracy theory about something of monumental importance leaking out of a lab, this is the one to go with. Brady said it on the final episode of "Man in the Arena," which he recorded only after the Buccaneers got eliminated from the playoffs. Someone at ESPN viewed it. That employee alerted the network's most influential NFL insiders. They heard it for themselves, right from the GOAT's mouth, which removes all doubt. And they reported it immediately. 

This theory simply works on every level. First, it passes the Occam's Razor test in that it's the simplest explanation. Second, the timeline works perfectly. Third, it makes total sense that he would want to make this announcement on his own platform, on an intellectual property that he owns, produces and profits from. Like I said a couple of weeks ago, the first thing that made people start to consider the possibility that he might retire was that final installment of the series:

Part of it might be fueled by the fact his series "Man in the Arena," which came out every Tuesday for the first nine episodes, chronicling his nine trips to the Super Bowl, were released nine Tuesdays in a row. The fact the 10th and final episode has been delayed with no explanation, might not mean everything, but it doesn't mean nothing, either. And when you get an information void like that, people fill it with their own nutty theories. Nature abhors a vacuum, but it loves insane ideas. 

Well this idea is the least insane one I've heard about this whole convoluted mess. And until the man himself comes forward to disabuse us of it, I'm going with this. Somebody ruined Tom Brady's best laid plans for his retirement announcement. As well as the big reveal for the finale of his TV show. And to find the guilty party, he need only look to in the mirror. 

Sad.