Re: Drew Bledsoe Appreciation Thread
shmessy said:
Which is why we don't have any posters on this site named "BryanCoxrules".
LOL
On the radio today I think it was Mort who commented that in his last 9 road games (where noise is an issue even if you had a good line) Drew had 9 TD and threw 17 INTS. He is sacked almost twice as often on the road. Dallas in on the road for the next 3 weeks. I don't have a lot of sympathy for Tuna but he didn't have a Mo Lewis hit to clear the decks. What we are seeing here from the Drewpie-krishnas is just a fraction of what BB would have had heaped on him if my hero hadn't as Brady described it hit Drew with everything Mo Lewis could bring.
Drew was well compensated for his service here. Overcompensated. As a young QB here he chafed under Parcells tutelage, was elated to get to work for a HC who would treat him like a man and not a boy. He rewarded that HC by morphing into a stubborn entitled personality, who was too busy slinging it and lobbying for fat contracts for himself and his cronies and feeding his media toadies locker room dirt on his new HC and team issues as his struggles began to deepen to really work on improving his own freakin' game. He demanded and got, on the heels of Carroll's dismissal and a personal worst season, a contract that would (at least at first phony blush) make him the highest paid player in the league inching out Favre who was at least coming off a superbowl win. A year later an unheralded 6th round draft pick outperformed him in TC and mercfully replaced him in week 2.
What really turned this franchise around was the buzz created by Orthwein's signing of Parcells and his STAFF. What kept the turnaround going was the sale of the franchise to a local family who were very good businessmen as well as lifelong fans, and the drafting of not only Drew but players like Ty Law and Lawyer Milloy and Tedy Bruschi being coached by a genius DC on the way to a Superbowl appearance. What kept it from sliding right back into suckitude were the lessons learned by Kraft in the wake of the Tuna defection and his determination to bring back the young DC he sensed was the real genius in that partnership. The same DC who exposed Drew's achilles heel(s) to the rest of the NFL.
But at the end of the day, if Mo Lewis didn't clear the way for Tom Brady, or if Brady hadn't almost miraculously landed in Foxboro as a late day 2 pick, there wouldn't be any turn around to wax poetic about. Drew really only played a minor role in an ensemble cast, just like his almost painful to watch performance in the AFCC in Pittsburgh that some here prefer to romanticize into something it wasn't. Kordell Stewart and Troy Brown had more to do with the Patriots winning that game than Drew did. All he did was not lose it, and it was about all he could do not to. Damon Huard could have handled the the team in that game at least as well as Bledsoe did.
Drew Bledsoe is not now, nor has he ever been in his charmed life and 14 year NFL career, getting screwed. Had he not been replaced in 2001 this team would not have a single Lombardi to it's name and Belichick would be lucky to be coaching at a service academy by now because Drew's pals in the Boston media would have long since driven him out of town with the tacit support of their favorite Patriots team insider source of all time.
Belichick gave him the option of competing for the starting job in camp in 2002 and he wanted NOTHING to do with it. He preferred to bask in the glow of his welcome parade in Buffalo. Three years later that fan base was lining up to drive him to the airport, and he was whining that they weren't willing to give him a chance to win back his job in camp after his suckitude caused them to draft a QB in the first round and eventually cost his HC and the GM who traded for him their jobs. Then he announced that reuniting with the HC who rode him like a mule in his first 4 seasons here was going to be the turningaround point of his career (the derailing of which he never has taken responsibility for). Well, at least Tuna treated him better than Belichick - replacing him with a 4 year project backup at halftime of a MNF game without cover of injury and has assuring him if things don't go well for Romo he should stay ready - which was big of Bill since (duh) he's the only other QB on the Cowboys roster...
