Context is important here.
In the 1990s, the league went to model QB of a big statue with a cannon arm. That was the Brett Favre, Drew Bledsoe prototype that became extremely popular. Troy Aikman is also a similar athleticism guy. Big dudes with strong arms, can’t scramble. Hold the ball and chuck it. Manning and Leaf.
From around the mid 90s to the Brady pick, there were very few blue chip prospects. It’s shocking to see how few first round QB picks are there. And the prototypes weren’t doing well. Manning struggled early, Leaf was a bust, Couch was a bust.
Then the league changed in the late 90s when guys started having big success as dual threats. Steve McNair is probably the biggest name. It seemed there were was a lot more college talent with this type of player.
In 1999, Donovan McNabb went 2nd overall as a dual threat QB. Akili Smith went 3rd. Culpepper went 11th.
In 2000, everyone knew Mike Vick would go first overall the next year and he was though to be the prototype at the next level.
So guys like Brady became devalued. In addition, the idea was that now that players are faster, you needed to be able to scramble away from the pass rush, rather than using traditional footwork to buy time. And frankly, how can one possibly be able to judge a QB’s pocket presence, sensing the rush, and 1/10th of a second type of instinctive skills to buy that extra smidget of time and throw an accurate pass just before getting cracked?
Not that this explains how some of these guys still went ahead of him, but this class was largely viewed as an overall bust at QB.
