Was Huard injured and not suited up for that Jets game then? I'm not trying to second-guess you, and I suppose in the end it doesn't matter much if at all, but regardless of the claim in the article it's just factually incorrect. Or maybe just presumptively putting Huard at #2 based on BB's quote (which isn't a totally unreasonable leap of logic). The only online depth chart that pops up is from 8/6/01 and has TB with Bishop behind the other two. He must have changed some minds between then and 9/23/01.
But...the backup QB is the player who would come into the game if the starter comes out. That's the definition of the role. Drew went out, Tom went in...ergo he was the backup. I suppose if, as mentioned above, Huard was hurt and/or not in uniform and they liked what Brady did enough that day to stick with him the next week and he just never gave it back, then I'd buy it. I'd just be surprised I'd never heard it before. But whatevs. All praise to Rehbein's intuition and judgment.
I remembered he gave a battlefield promotion to Brady, but couldn't reference it until I found that article. Kraft had made Bledsoe the highest paid player in football, I believe, so there was no reason to rush the good looking young QB and Huard was ab NFL starter for a while.
Then Bledsoe's gone and they're 0-2. I imagine he decided, based on Brady's drive and performance in practice, that he might be something special, rather than a good backup, like Huard, so he rolled the dice. He could always have benched him and gone back to Huard, after all.
This is Bill Belichick we're talking about, after all. If he was impressed with the guy who, by logic, was behind the guy with a 5-1 record in the NFL, with the season seemingly blown (0-2 with no starting QB) why wouldn't he go with his gut and give him a chance to do what he did at Michigan, come in and take over?
With a healthy Drew, how much would the backup play? He could, as he preferred, bring along the young player slowly, maybe a bit at the end of the year.
Huard wasn't hurt, because i remember how strange it seemed to go to Brady. You have to remember that, for fans who didn't attend practices, Brady was less than nothing. It was a shock, like many BB moves. With the prospect of a second blown season (also remember, he was pond scum at that point, job security questionable) an average quarterback wit a 0-2 start might have led to his demise.
Belichick was mostly a failure, at that point, and Brady was a nobody.
