It hasn’t been three months since Tom Brady retired from the NFL and his legacy is already in trouble. To be fair, Brady’s legendary status in Foxborough will live on for decades to come. The man won 6 rings along with HC Bill Belichick at the helm. However, one particular former teammate and fellow quarterback may have seriously undermined TB12’s impact on the New England Patriots dynasty in a recent interview.
Tom Brady’s predecessor in the Patriots’ pocket, Drew Bledsoe, does not deny TB12’s greatness. However, he did think that fans should not solely credit the initial success of the franchise to Brady and Bill Belichick. According to him, there were a few other key factors that people often tend to forget.
Drew Bledsoe doesn’t think Tom Brady deserves all the credit
After Drew Bledsoe got injured in the Week 2 game against the New York Jets, there was no looking back for Brady. The 199th draft pick proved everyone wrong as he led his team to their maiden Lombardi. Since then, Brady and the bunch have added five more to the silverware shelf at Foxborough. Brady even got one with the Buccaneers in 2021. However, while fans still wish for their favorite quarterback to come back from retirement, chanting “GOAT” all over the internet, Drew Bledsoe thinks otherwise.
Drew Bledsoe thinks that the Patriots locker room already had some stellar leadership before Brady joined. Players, who had already instilled a winning mindset in the roster. “There was a culture where people expected to win and he (Tom) had some really strong personalities on some of those teams in the early part of the dynasty,” Bledsoe said on an episode of Pass the Torch.
“Tom is a huge part of that whole thing, and I would never discount that. But when you talk to him about it, even he talks about how strong the leadership was in the locker room,” Bledsoe added.
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The 1993 first-overall pick named some of the integral cogs of the NE Patriots machine that he thought were more influential than Brady. This included Tedy Bruschi, Lawyer Milloy, Ty Law, Willie McGinest, Ted Johnson, and present-day Tennessee Titans head coach Mike Vrabel.
Bledsoe didn’t put too much emphasis on Bill Belichick’s importance either
Tom Brady wasn’t the only pivotal Patriots member slightly discredited. Drew Bledsoe also had a few words for Bill Belichick. “I don’t think it really required the same level of direction and leadership from Belichick and from the coaching staff that other organizations might have. Because the players were driving that thing,” he said.
There is no denying the Patriots’ powerhouse of the late nineties and early 2000s. However, fans can’t forget Brady’s contributions either. Also, Bledsoe and Brady shared a strange relationship in the past, and the former even thought his career was a footnote to Brady’s. So exactly how much of Bledsoe’s present analysis is precise remains to be seen. Bledsoe became a wine merchant after retiring and Brady hasn’t commented on this matter yet.
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