Mike the Brit said:
Some guesses about how teams missed on Brady.
1. Tom looked under-sized as a College quarterback: tall, but skinny. Scouts may have assumed that he wouldn't have the strength to play in the NFL.
2. Playing for a top program can be a mixed blessing. When they win it's: well, of course, they have so much talent elsewhere any quarterback would look good.
3. Tom did not have a great arm for long throws. Scouts may have assumed that he'd reached a limit and would be found out at the next level
4. Perhaps his "nice guy" personality worked against him -- the modesty may have concealed his drive and leadership qualities.
I'm just happy that we got him!
You nail the "explanation" as to why he was overlooked...my point is that each of these can be easily countered:
1. lots of assumptions indeed...at 6' 5", his size was nothing however that a few months in the gym couldn't -- and didn't -- remedy.
2. another widely-held assumption -- but in 98/99, he had 8 4th-quarter comebacks and was 10-2 in games decided by a TD...and everyone on the team said tom carried them...particularly in the 2 high profile bowl games they/he won.
3. this actually wasn't one of the assumptions made -- it was more about his lack of mobility and weight. the deep ball was a strength in college...he made it look easy, just as he does today -- Gil Brandt, the great scout for the Cowboys, was very impressed with his deep ball. IMO, he'll go down as throwing one of the prettiest and most accurate long balls in history.
4. TOTALLY AGREE! excellent point. to this day, he never toots his own horn...uncomfortable talking about himself or seperating himself from the rest of his team. He's plenty ****y on the field (the system bleeps out the word c-ocky, Beavis would have a field day in here). Just compare Tom's self-imposed modesty to Leinart who has already likened himself to Brady
.
I'd add a 5th point: scouts assumed that because Henson was in the mix at UM it meant there was something wrong with Tom.
to this day, I'm just not convinced these scouts do enough film watching...there is a lot of copy-cat syndrome to these reports and general laziness...pretty sad given the $$ involved.
but it wasn't just the independent scouts like Kiper, the TEAM scouts were lazy too.