Hindsight's easy. I tend to think that there are a lot of articles that were written in the fall and early winter of 2001 that people would like to take back. I don't know how robust this board was in 2001, but I'd be willing to bet that a
lot of posters are very happy that the search function doesn't go back 14 years.
If Belichick told Bledsoe that he would have a chance to compete to get his job back, as Borges reports, it was an empty promise from the beginning. Belichick knew there was little chance that Bledsoe would ever start again under normal circumstances.
BB has now said many times over the years that he thought Brady had outperformed Bledsoe during Training Camp in 2001 but gave the starting job to the veteran anyway. Why? We'll never know for sure, but it was probably some combination of Bledsoe's stature and Belichick's still feeling his way as a second year HC after getting fired from his last HC job. So, if Bledsoe competed for his job in practice, he would never have gotten it back. Belichick's promise (if indeed he ever made it) was empty.
But, in the end, however we might dispute the facts about who said what to whom and when they might or might not have said it, I will dare to run against the majority opinion in this thread and say that I think at least one of Borges' main points was correct:
"But of this you can be sure. If Bill Belichick is wrong and Brady doesn't become the future for the Patriots, Belichick will have no future in New England.
"If Brady is not a quarterback he can rely on to win for him and win immediately, he will pay the ultimate price, just as he did in Cleveland. He will get himself fired. The difference is this time he will not be given another head coaching job in the National Football League."
I think that statement was true. If Brady had fizzled and Bledsoe was playing well somewhere else, Belichick would not have lasted beyond the 2002 season. Belichick bet his career on Brady.
PS: in contrast to Borges' skepticism, there was a very interesting thread out here a few weeks back, in which the poster traced all the comments of Dr. Z. at SI on Brady in 2001 after the Jets game. It made for very interesting reading...watching the evolution of Zimmerman's thinking from "who is that guy?" to his recognition of what Brady might be. It would be great if the poster could resurrect that thread, as I have no idea how to find it.