4/23/1993: Patriots pick Drew Bledsoe #1 Overall

[Bill Lee]

Twenty eight years ago today...



A quick blurb from his Wikipedia page:

The first overall pick in the 1993 NFL Draft, Bledsoe helped improve the fortunes of the Patriots, who had fallen on hard times.[3][4] During his tenure as starting quarterback, the Patriots ended a seven-season postseason drought, qualified for the playoffs four times, and made one Super Bowl appearance in Super Bowl XXXI. He was also named to three Pro Bowls and became the youngest quarterback to play in the NFL's all-star game at the time with his 1995 appearance.

Ref: Drew Bledsoe - Wikipedia

Kind of resonates with our conversation in the BB draft strategy thread, these days we value ability to read and react more and the big arm less. Still, picking him really elevated the franchise (much better than Mirer would have, lol!) and provided us with many years of interesting football including a SB visit. I remember that era, especially the arrival of both BP and Drew, with fondness.

 

[Pape]

drrrreeeeeeewwwwwwwww

 

[Bill Lee]

Cool pic, @Pape !!!

 

[italian pat patriot]

Grande Drew...

D R I U U U U U U !!!!!!

 

[captain stone]

I LOVE those blue-colored uniforms!

(now just get rid of those Elvis patches on the sleeves, and replace him on the helmet with Pat Patriot's grandson Angry Pat, and now we're cooking!)

 

[PatsFanInVa]

Twenty eight years ago today...



A quick blurb from his Wikipedia page:


Ref: Drew Bledsoe - Wikipedia

Kind of resonates with our conversation in the BB draft strategy thread, these days we value ability to read and react more and the big arm less. Still, picking him really elevated the franchise (much better than Mirer would have, lol!) and provided us with many years of interesting football including a SB visit. I remember that era, especially the arrival of both BP and Drew, with fondness.

LOL... the OP's tone is almost apologetic and it's not his fault, given the last 20 years. Drew's resume was the best in franchise history. But it turned out he was only like unto one crying in the wilderness "Prepare ye the way of the Lord" and making TFB's passing lanes straight. Or something. Drew's time began with the pronouncement by somebody or other that "If I had to pick a QB to have for the next 10 years, it would be Drew Bledsoe." Despite the so-so results by recent standards, Drew was a really good QB.

While we're talking about stuff like evaluation, I don't think the Pats get enough credit for recognizing what they had in Brady. They went balls to the wall on him when we only knew that he could manage the game and had a bright shiny perceived invincibility in big moments. I mean... I remember people going nuts because Madden said the word "goosebumps." (He also said Jeremy Shockey is a "22 year old MAN" and Shockey was considered great for years when he was meh, especially looking back from post-Gronkhood. From 2004-2006 he got 6 or 7 TDs, that was the high water mark... usually 3-4. No 1,000 yard seasons... only 1 where he approached 900... he just wasn't what Madden thought he was.)

So what the Pats were looking at in early 2002 was a franchise, big-arm QB, maybe injury-tarnished, time-tested, time-dinged, vs. a serviceable game manager with undefined winnningness, in TFB. I don't know how downside aorta knick risk works. Seems like it didn't really stop him playing elsewhere. Hell, they might have been able to play up the injury risk and got him for cheaper going forward, if they wanted him, but Tommy seemed to be BB's boy, and that's to his credit.

A couple things happened...

1, everybody JUST SAW BRADY WIN A SB, so fans were all in, so far as that matters. TFB was passing all sorts of "eyeball tests." These really amounted to moments of "He looks like he doesn't even know he CAN lose" through 4 postseason games more than anything. But he had exactly the "it" factor that seemed missing from Drew... Drew gave off a different kind of "cool." He was aloof-cool. Brady was dialed-in, in-the-trenches, don't-you-even-think-about-losing cool. After years of aloof/close-but-no-cigar Drew years, I don't think we/BB&co. thought we could win the big one with Drew... TFB was someone we could all take a shot with.

2), and probably more importantly, Drew was from Before. He wasn't Bill's guy, he was just a guy.

3) We were on the hook for something like 100 mill over 10 years for Drew.

3a, you know how you want to hold final payment for a finished job until the contractor finishes the job? He got that big payday and was NOT performing in/just prior to 01, when Mo Lewis broke his heart. Absent the appearance of TFB, OR in the presence of a sunk-cost guy, you keep Drew. BB was already not a fan of evaluating sunk costs as a consideration going forward; it's all about what do you cost right now and in the future, what are you worth/likely to be worth in same.

3b, 30M over 5 years for Brady, or the rest of 100M over 9 years for Drew -- or maybe a redone deal acknowledging his um heart might not be in it? There was that. Less downside risk, less uncertainty, upside potential BB could grab while the grabbing was good... what's not to like, moneywise?

I don't know why I went on that walk down memory lane, except to say... all this handwringing about BB the GM, is about him exercising some of the same thought process he'd exercised when he cut bait on Bledsoe back in the day. How would BB have looked if Buffalo had torn up the league in 02 and won a Super Bowl?

But I guess that's the moral. Drew wasn't Tommy. BB made the right call in 2002. using 2020 alone to judge, he made the wrong call on Brady. Recent drafts weren't good. Less recent drafts were better.

And the story continues...

Imagine his genius when the 8 passing touchdowns guy turns out to be a world beater.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

I LOVE those blue-colored uniforms!

(now just get rid of those Elvis patches on the sleeves, and replace him on the helmet with Pat Patriots' grandson Angry Pat, and now we're cooking!)

I have to say the royal blue was some of the least serious-looking colors we ever experimented with. The Navy blue doesn't need fixin', and neither does the white version of same. Those weird suitcase-handle stripes from the last couple of years, I could live without.

No calls for the Original Pat Patriot?

 

[PatsFanInVa]

Also, surprisingly, the cinematic ouevre also called "Glory Canyon" seemed to be more about the Jetes...

 

[captain stone]

I have to say the royal blue was some of the least serious-looking colors we ever experimented with. The Navy blue doesn't need fixin', and neither does the white version of same. Those weird suitcase-handle stripes from the last couple of years, I could live without.

No calls for the Original Pat Patriot?
View attachment 32338

A Patricia Patriot? I like it...And my wife approves too...

 

[captain stone]

Also, surprisingly, the cinematic ouevre also called "Glory Canyon" seemed to be more about the Jetes...

"Glory Canyon" sounds like a film that might've played in the Combat Zone during the 1970s, or so I've been told...

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

Twenty eight years ago today...



A quick blurb from his Wikipedia page:


Ref: Drew Bledsoe - Wikipedia

Kind of resonates with our conversation in the BB draft strategy thread, these days we value ability to read and react more and the big arm less. Still, picking him really elevated the franchise (much better than Mirer would have, lol!) and provided us with many years of interesting football including a SB visit. I remember that era, especially the arrival of both BP and Drew, with fondness.

Bill bought those groceries, right? Pre-Kraft

 

[Ununcle]

The first and only game I went to a game was a preseason game against the Panthers back in 2001 if memory serves. I recall telling my then wife the year before how excited I was about the Pats landing Belichick and that this coach was the anti pom pom Petey that took our SB team backwards every freaking year. But, I recall being so pissed they pulled Bledsoe after like a quarter and a half. I thought for sure they'd leave bledsoe to at least the 3r quarter Because I think it was the 3rd or last pre season game. I was like seriously? Who the fark is this Brady guy. I only payed like 80 bucks for all 3 tickets but was so pissed they pulled the starters before the half. Before leaving I did get the bonus of picking up an Andy Katzenmoyer shirt for 40 bucks instead of 80 because the vendor screwed up. Only years later did I realize I was watching not only the goat, but the goat playing the team he'd win a second SB 2 years later. I don't think it was Delhome for the Panthers that year though, it was Cris Weinkey (SP). I remember seing Gillette almost finished behind the lot we parked at. Foxborro was pretty crude with old concrete and real nasty bathrooms.

 

[Patjew]

The first and only game I went to a game was a preseason game against the Panthers back in 2001 if memory serves. I recall telling my then wife the year before how excited I was about the Pats landing Belichick and that this coach was the anti pom pom Petey that took our SB team backwards every freaking year. But, I recall being so pissed they pulled Bledsoe after like a quarter and a half. I thought for sure they'd leave bledsoe to at least the 3r quarter Because I think it was the 3rd or last pre season game. I was like seriously? Who the fark is this Brady guy. I only payed like 80 bucks for all 3 tickets but was so pissed they pulled the starters before the half. Before leaving I did get the bonus of picking up an Andy Katzenmoyer shirt for 40 bucks instead of 80 because the vendor screwed up. Only years later did I realize I was watching not only the goat, but the goat playing the team he'd win a second SB 2 years later. I don't think it was Delhome for the Panthers that year though, it was Cris Weinkey (SP). I remember seing Gillette almost finished behind the lot we parked at. Foxborro was pretty crude with old concrete and real nasty bathrooms.

I like your avatar. I have come to realize that Led Zeppelin was the greatest rock band of all time, all things considered.

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

I like your avatar. I have come to realize that Led Zeppelin was the greatest rock band of all time, all things considered.

Especially if the Beatles never existed, like in that movie

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

a serviceable game manager with undefined winnningness, in TFB

If 2001 never happened, or you just didn't see any of it, that statement might not be insane.

As far as the rest, appreciate your efforts, just have the impression that you were in Raymond Berry's head in the 80's, convincing him to keep starting Eason over the others...

 

[PatsFanInVa]

If 2001 never happened, or you just didn't see any of it, that statement might not be insane.

As far as the rest, appreciate your efforts, just have the impression that you were in Raymond Berry's head in the 80's, convincing him to keep starting Eason over the others...

2001 was not a lights-out season, APF. And "undefined winningness" is not a slam, it's just everybody knew "Brady wins"... but we didn't know much more. WHY and HOW was Brady correlated to winning, if not by yards or touchdowns? Maybe that he threw "only" 12 interceptions? What, did he make Antowain Smith get the absolute BEST 4 ypc he could get?

Give me a sane argument, ignoring 2002-on, that Tom Brady was going to be the future of the NFL. You can't do it. We just know that he gave John Madden goosebumps.

That was a great season, but for Brady it wasn't some kind of lights-out, 4-TDs-per-game-on-the-regular performance. His stats were low, his wins were not blowouts or anything, and he was anything but a sure-bet better QB than Drew, even after that SB.

The opposite of your follow-up thought is the case; Brady was the Eason analogue here - he won enough to get us further than we'd gotten before. Eason got awarded the Kingdom for making it to the SB, and he had the follow-up seasons that Brady COULD have had, given what we knew of Brady at the end of the 01 season.... except that Brady turned out to be something else again.

Fans were already sold, and when it was time to pull the trigger, BB was sold, no problem whatsoever. I'm just pointing out that TFB wasn't then what he is now. He was a 2800-yard, 18 TD, 12 interception QB who got better as the stage got bigger. But that was IT, at that moment. It took guts to make that call.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

Bill bought those groceries, right? Pre-Kraft

The Bill who was but a Bill crying in the wilderness, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his hoodies sleeveless" or something. That is to say, Drew was Parcells' pick, possibly with a lot of Bobby Grier input.

 

[Joker]

Bedsore was a no brainer pick in 1993...Grier had zero input...none was needed.

 

[captain stone]

Bedsore was a no brainer pick in 1993...Grier had zero input...none was needed.

Yep...And if Big Bill was given any input at all for that decision, it came from Charlie Armey & Bucko Kilroy; Booby was on the Pro personnel side back then I believe...

 

[Bill Lee]

Fans were already sold, and when it was time to pull the trigger, BB was sold, no problem whatsoever. I'm just pointing out that TFB wasn't then what he is now. He was a 2800-yard, 18 TD, 12 interception QB who got better as the stage got bigger. But that was IT, at that moment. It took guts to make that call.

Fans in general were sold, but there was a small pro-Drew minority still around.

I think it was like 1998 where the nickname 'The Statue' started getting tossed around though, it seemed we could sense what was coming.

I wonder if Brady got the mildly derogatory 'game manager' tag because he was so good at knowing what the defense was doing and throwing the ball away when it was clear the play was breaking down. Fans were just not used to that style of play back then.

Unfortunately for Drew he never learned that style, he was the coach's son and raised to be a hero, he was gonna go for everything he could get even when it might have made sense to get out of the play early:



At least Drew got a measure of revenge: