Sleep well, America: Tom Brady's Super Bowl jerseys are officially back in New England

On Thursday, officially, we could put an end to the case of Tom Brady’s missing Super Bowl jersey (but don’t stop brainstorming that Mauricio Ortega documentary, that thing will be gold).

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The FBI posted a picture of Brady’s jerseys from Super Bowls XLIX and LI back at Gillette Stadium, alongside the Patriots’ five Lombardi Trophies. Brady’s Super Bowl LI jersey went missing from the Patriots locker room right after the game, and it became a big story. When authorities found Brady’s Super Bowl LI jersey, they also recovered his jersey from the Super Bowl two years prior. Ortega has been accused of taking the Super Bowl LI jersey from Brady’s bag in his locker. The Lombardi Trophies were never missing, they just provided a cool element to the photo.

The FBI also released a statement regarding the seemingly massive operation of finding the stolen jerseys.

Part of the statement read: “This was truly a cooperative effort, and we want to thank our FBI field offices in Chicago, Phoenix, and Houston; the United States Attorney’s Offices in the District of Connecticut, the Southern District of Texas, and the District of Arizona; and our FBI Mexico City Legal Attaché. We would also like to thank our law enforcement partners in Mexico, in particular, the Mexican Attorney General’s Office, for their invaluable assistance in resolving this matter. Assistance was also provided by the security teams from the NFL and the New England Patriots, the Massachusetts State Police, and Houston Police Department.”

While it’s great Brady got his jerseys back, and they are quite valuable, it’s also worth taking a step back and considering … how many man hours and how much money was actually spent recovering two shirts? Yowsa.

Anyway, they’re back now and the Patriots are happy.

“We want to thank the FBI, the Mexican authorities and the many different local agencies that were involved in the investigation and ultimate recovery of Tom Brady’s Super Bowl LI jersey,” Patriots owner Robert Kraft said in a statement. “Working along with the Patriots and NFL security, those agencies collectively coordinated an investigation that also led to the recovery of Tom’s missing Super Bowl XLIX jersey. It was great to have both jerseys returned to Gillette Stadium today. I don’t know that any agency could have accomplished this independently, but collectively multiple agencies – both in the U.S. and in Mexico – worked together to achieve the goal of retrieving the stolen property. It is another example of the importance of teamwork and what can be accomplished when everyone works together. We appreciate the effort of everyone involved and look forward to returning these jerseys to Tom when he gets back to New England.”

Hopefully there will be no more Super Bowl jerseys stolen, because the FBI has to have more important things to worry about.

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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