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.