by Dan Snapp
dan@patriotsdaily.com
A River Runs Drew It
“The best day of my year was always the day after the season when we landed in Whitefish and I could feel myself exhale. Like the pressure was lifted off my shoulders – a physical feeling when we would get into Whitefish. I always looked forward to that day every year and it never let me down. The worst day of my year was always that last day of my summer. I would sit on the dock at my house on Whitefish Lake with my legs dangling in the water before I would fly back on the plane to training camp,” – Drew Bledsoe, from the “Drew Bledsoe and the Art of Football” interview in the inaugural issue of “The Whitefish Review” (http://www.whitefishreview.com/).
Well, there you have it. Mystery solved. Now we know.
Drew Bledsoe doesn’t like football.
Is that too strong a statement? OK, we’ll be fair. He likes football, but in more of a “I’ll show up when I want to show up, put in the requisite amount of work but never improve my game, take the blame publicly but let my surrogates point fingers elsewhere, and oh yeah, I’m your starting quarterback” kind of way.
Still too nasty? It’s hard to know the right tone with Bledsoe. I mean, you hate to bash what seems like a nice guy, and he did have a fairly decent career, what with the four Pro Bowls and the passing records and all. And man, that was a pretty cool moment when he stepped in for Tom Brady in the 2002 AFC Championship Game. But then you remember the rest of it.
Maybe we’re making too much of this. Maybe it’s just a benign comment in an otherwise banal interview, with Drew telling the local scribes, “I’m going to Whitefish” because he never got the chance to say, “I’m going to Disney World.”
But we know better, don’t we? It’s no secret he wasn’t as dedicated to the craft as, say, Brady is. “Off to Montana” was as much a Bledsoe cliché as “MINNESOTA GAME”. Bledsoe’s unguarded admission to the Whitefish Review only confirms what we already knew.
Resurgence and Fan Frenzy
This offseason, Bledsoe joined in retirement two other icons of the team’s 1990s resurgence: Bill Parcells and Curtis Martin. Overshadowed only by Robert Kraft’s Homeric efforts to keep the team cemented (literally) in New England, their efforts rejuvenated a franchise’s spirit, culminating in a Super Bowl appearance.
Bledsoe’s career got off to a rollicking start, what with thrilling comebacks his rookie season, and then record yardage in the sophomore one, leaving fans with visions of Marino dancing in their heads. In hindsight, the comparison wasn’t fair, but it stuck. So long as he was throwing a heap and amassing yardage, all other means of charting his play were blocked out. We thought he was better than he was.
Fans eventually struck upon a yearly mantra of “This will be the year he puts it all together”, and the needle got stuck. Different perceived obstacles to his development were manufactured in our heads: “He’s had a different coordinator each year”; “He never had a quarterback coach”; “The line let him down”. The excuses shifted to other positions in the post-Super Bowl years: “He misses Martin back there”; “He can’t count on Glenn”; and “He needs a dominant tight end to succeed”.
We never took the time to consider that any quarterback would flourish with the luxuries we deemed necessary for Bledsoe to succeed.
At the same time, Bledsoe cultivated a media-friendly image that was impervious to criticism. He was Boy Scout Drew with the Dad who “Parented with Dignity”. He jumped through all the proper media hoops. He was modest, self-effacing, and generous with praise to his teammates, whether they deserved it or not.
Those two forces – the perceived greatness and the Aw Shucks persona – generated a fan and media army ready to do battle whenever a threat to his mantle arose. So when a skinny sixth-rounder succeeded with the same parts reckoned defective under Bledsoe’s lead, the fandom split. Some just weren’t ready to trust their disbelieving eyes.
When Bill Belichick announced Brady would be starting the rest of the way in 2001, mouths dropped. Ron Borges was furious, and leapt off the cliff of reason at that very moment, never to be right about anything Patriots again.
“Some people learn from their mistakes,” Borges wrote that week. “Others are doomed to repeat them. If you wonder which is Bill Belichick, go ask people in Cleveland if they’ve ever heard the story of the guy who benched Bernie Kosar for Todd Philcox?”
“Brady would never have been sacked at all if his line didn’t stink and his receivers went where they’re supposed to,” Borges wrote a month later, venom and sarcasm dripping. “And his team would score on every possession if it would just listen to him. And who ever stepped up in the pocket better than Brady? It’s amazing his predecessor threw for more than 29,000 yards off his back foot all the time, isn’t it?”
Borges wasn’t alone. Bob Halloran, describing Brady as “incrediblyaverage” and likening him to “a sneeze guard at the salad bar”, proved we should never trust his football acumen again. Halloran even admitted he couldn’t enjoy the team’s success so long as Bledsoe wasn’t the guy leading it. Sadly, many shared the sentiment.
When Belichick dropped the second shoe, trading Bledsoe within the division, fans were apoplectic. Many suggested trading Bledsoe would be the Patriots’ Babe Ruth moment. One fan started constructing a weekly chart detailing the time Brady’s passes stayed aloft in comparison to Bledsoe’s.
Borges predicted doom. “Yesterday, Belichick bet it all on No. 12 and told the croupier, ‘Spin the wheel,’” he wrote. “He bet his coaching future on a guy who’s started 17 NFL games. As bets go, that’s how Las Vegas was built, although sometimes the house loses even there.”
In the gleam of the Patriots’ success, those voices are all muted now. The remaining doubters have converted, Bledsoe apologists like the Globe’s Nick Cafardo are no longer on the Patriots beat, and Borges is writing for the Kansas City Chiefs website. We also learned in hindsight that Bledsoe wasn’t exactly the good soldier as previously portrayed. Michael Holley’s and Pepper Johnson’s books told of a sourpuss Bledsoe in team meetings, and of his going behind Belichick’s back to Kraft’s office.
Bledsoe would never be seen in the same light. All the sediments he never pared from his game were now evident to all. He went from “The Next Marino” to “The Statue of Limitations”.
Grateful for What We’ve Got
It’s not Bledsoe’s fault the bloated expectations we built up for him. He never wanted to be a leader, memorably deferring that role to Bruce Armstrong when called upon to take the charge. He didn’t want the glory either, gladly passing that on to his teammates in his weekly conferences.
He did want the starting job, though, feeling his pedigree dictated it. He retired this year rather than face the ignominy of being a backup in any number of cities. Compare that to Vinny Testaverde, who at about the same age went to the Jets as a backup, and then had his best year ever. But that’s Bledsoe’s decision to make, and we can respect that. You have to love the game to want to be holding a clipboard at age 35.
His comments to the Whitefish Review aren’t all that shocking. After all, what players look forward to training camp? It’s the first part of the quote, though, that’s bothersome: “The best day of my year was always the day after the season.” What does this say about his seasons? That he expected them to end badly? He went to the Super Bowl twice, but the better day was the day after?
Seemingly every other player in the league longs just to get to the Super Bowl, and win or lose stores that day away in the photo album alongside their marriages and births of their children. Drew? He’s off thinking of the lake.
It certainly shed light on why he wasn’t going to last long under Belichick – Brady or no Brady. Belichick loves players who love football, really love football. And that just wasn’t Drew.
In the end, Bledsoe will be missed, just not for the reasons we may have projected for him on draft day 1993. Instead, he became the living, breathing embodiment of how great we’ve got it with Belichick. Every time Bledsoe held the ball too long in Buffalo, every time he threw deep into double coverage in Dallas, we had our tangible reminder of why Belichick’s the best at what he does.
Hopefully history will truly reflect just how ballsy a call Belichick made with Bledsoe, not once, but twice. To put it in Borges terms, the house lost, and only Belichick knew the dice were loaded.
This Monday, Michael Silver had a Bledsoe update on Yahoo.com:
“I’ve been sending the guys cell-phone photos, beginning with the first day of training camp,” he says. “The first was of my feet in a lake with a beer in my hand. There was a picture from a golf course, one from the boat when I was waterskiing and one when I was riding my motorcycle.”
There you have Bledsoe’s NFL legacy: all he really wanted was to be somewhere else.
Ron Borges, new cub reporter for the Kalispell Daily Catch, is planning a rebuttal for next week’s edition.
Nicely written, Dan. Maddening as all hell, but well done. Who knew Drew just wanted to be Tom Sawyer? Dangle his feet in the lake, whitewash Aunt Polly’s fence and maybe toss a football through a tire once in a while (and get into some late night hijinks with Max “Huck Finn” Lane).
While two-a-days were in full gear, Drew’s mind was drifting off to a Country Time Lemonade commercial. Well, now he can be there full time. Maybe he can start a second career as an accomplished ice fisherman, provided he doesn’t drop his line in the wrong hole.
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There isn’t a fisherman on this lake that is going to succeed if he is handed a new pole every single year. Which is a damn shame, because Drew legitimized this lake.
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Amazing he caught all those fish casting off his back foot.
I’ll stop now.
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How many fish did Drew catch?
Sacksfull
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Like most of us I was thrilled when Droop first arrived. His rookie year left me counting the minutes until the next season. Lo and behold, the next season arrives and the Pats make the playoffs! Unbounded optimism — we have Bledsoe and Parcells to lead us to the promised land!
Then they play Cleveland in the playoffs — coached by whom? BB of course. Droop struggled mightily in that game, but of course I wrote it off to inexperience. Surely he’d get better with more time in the league — oh yeah, and a better supporting cast. Little did I know. Well, he never got better than those first two years, and I also didn’t know back then that BB was beginning to expose him for the flawed QB he was.
Yup, it’s ok if Droop didn’t want to put in the crazy amount of work it takes to excel at that level. It doesn’t make him a bad guy, but just get the fcuk outta the way for someone who does. His sense of entitlement to the position was maddnening. My respect for him dwindled over the years to the point where I schadenfreude-enly looked forward his nationally televised games — just waiting for the big fcukup moment. Hey I’m human, sue me. To this day I still send Mo Lewis flowers and a card at xmas. Kraft needs to have a day for Mo sometime — he turned the franchise around.
Enjoy your retirement Drew — at least it’s official now.
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In my mind, Brady rides up on a pimped fan boat, beats Drew handily in the annual fishing tournament, then knocks up his wife. Script is still rough, but I’ve got Spielberg interested in directing.
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“Enjoy your retirement Drew — at least it’s official now.”
Great line.
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In all fairness we don’t know if Drew has improved at fishing over the past 15 years.
He’s probably still using a Mickey Mouse bobber, snagging trees and catching sunfish.
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This is probably the best article I have read about Bledsoe and his time in New England, giving proper credit to his stature on the team and pros/cons of his tenure. Pats fans generally get caught up in the “Bledsoe sucked” thing and dont look at it honestly. We are part to blame for making him a Hall of Famer after his second season. Tom Casale at patriots.com is probably the worst violater of this.
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Yet it doesn’t even rank in the top ten on Casale’s ever expanding Big List of Violations.
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I guess its easy to dump on Drew based on the information gleaned from this article. We always questioned his commitment to the game, especially when you compare it to the monomania of a Tom Brady.
However I often wonder if history might have been different if Drew had ever had the good fortune to play in the SAME offensive system his entire career. Both Manning and Brady have had the luxury being in the same system, using the same semantics, running the same plays over and over again for years.
Compare that what Bledsoe faced after Parcells left. For the rest of his career, IIRC, Bledsoe NEVER ran the same offensive system 3 years in a row. Almost every other year he had to go through different OC’s or systems. Litterally by the time BB became the HC, Bledsoe had been through 3 DIFFERENT OC’s from 1995-2000. Then BB comes in and there is another drastic change in offensive philosophy. One that directly emphasized skills that Bledsoe just didn’t have. He was doomed.
I just wonder if the attitude Bledsoe showed in this article wasn’t fostered to some degree by the frustrations of having to learn new offensive systems virtually every other year for what SHOULD have been the prime of his career.
BOTTOM LINE is that Bledsoe gave the Pats true value for their investment in him. He was tough to the point of courageousness. He always gave his best, and he helped bring this franchise back from laughability to respect. Bellichick and Brady then took it to the next level…greatness.
But just because, for a number of reasons, Bledsoe ended up being a very good NFL QB, but with flaws in his game, we shouldn’t minimize Bledsoe’s important contribution to Patriots history.
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Hi Ken,
Thanks for reading. Sorry you think the article piled on Drew. I think I gave full credence to Drew’s contributions to the Patriots resurgence.
One quibble: you think he gave the Patriots full value for their investment? Wasn’t there a point where he was the highest compensated player over a 10-year span? Do you think he offered as much return on investment as players who made less over that span?
Also, I wonder about a chicken-or-the-egg element to Bledsoe’s multiple coordinators. Did he struggle because of the constant turnover, or were there always new coordinators because of Bledsoe’s struggles?
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Ken, if even you question his commitment to being the best player he could be, how then could he always have done his best? He didn’t always do his best. In fact, he rarely did. And Dan has done a thorough job here explaining why. Yet still you reference Ernie Zampisi, who was with Bledsoe for one year out of Drew’s 13 year career. If the guy had any interest in doing anything but stand back there and chuck it he would have perhaps approached the myth that some have created, using the same arguments you cite here. With a little work on the basic fundamentals of his position (footwork, ball handling, his arm slot, you name it) at some point over 13 years, he might have overcome that grueling 12 months with Ernie. But he didn’t think it was necessary, or he just wasn’t interested. His important contribution to Patriots history was being asleep at the wheel in Montana while a Super Bowl team circled the bowl and quickly departed in just three seasons after thinking it beat the Packers in New Orleans. And by the way, that ‘laughable’ franchise you speak of had some pretty good football teams over the years, despite the revisionist history practiced by those who – for whatever reason – are more comfortable thinking that the previous 33 years was just an endless succession of Rod Rusts. The mid 70’s Patriots, or the team’s of the mid-80’s, would have destroyed any team quarterbacked by Drew Bledsoe.
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Look, I’ve come around to love Brady (in a sports man-love sort of way, that is) as much as the next person, but I think you are reading way too much into the quote. No human wants to endure double-sessions. Also, I think you forgot about 1997, the year of the broken finger and the 2 games won in the last seconds on Bledsoe TD passes, one with a fresh break, and one with a gruesome pin protruding from the index finger of his throwing hand. That doesn’t sound like a guy that wants to be somewhere else.
Just some counter-thoughts.
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Nothing I’ve ever seen or read about Bledsoe has given me the feeling that he ever had a burning desire to be any better than he was on day one in the league. How many years did he drop back and ‘just effin’ sling it’? I give him all the credit in the world for playing with a pin in his finger (!), but that credit gets washed away in my mind by his unwillingness, year after year, to hone or adjust his game. Maybe if he paid a little more attention working to minimizing his flaws and a little less to the siren song of Whitefish Lake, he (and the Patriots) may have had more success.
The Siren Song of Whitefish Lake, in theaters Summer 2008.
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But his ‘toughness’ was never questioned by anybody. But those two games, plus his consistant willingness to take a hit to throw the pass he wanted, still don’t counter the obvious lack of desire to address his own weaknesses and lead the team to something better. Which, I would suggest, is what you should be expecting from your franchise quarterback in exchange for paying him more than anybody. Drew didn’t want to compete for the coveted parking spot in front of the stadium; he believed he was entitled to it purely based on his physical abilities. I cannot see how anybody could argue differently. This really only becomes an issue for me when people want to continue mythologizing him as some historic figure that legitimized the team. No more true than believing in the Easter Bunny.
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Ken,
It comes down to this for me:
One guy with relatively less ability busts his a55 to make himself the best in the game. The other guy with all the natural gifts was content to not do that, so when playing at the highest level (NFL) he eventually stagnated and actually regressed. I’m supposed to respect that?
AFA as Drew “saving the franchise”, I say no. Kraft saved the franchise. It was Kraft who bought the team; Kraft who hired the right people; Kraft who built a new stadium; Kraft who kept the team here. It may sound like toady-ism for Kraft, trust me it’s not. Drew didn’t sacrifice any of his game checks to keep the team here. He played and got paid, nothing more nothing less.
Keep in mind, this has nothing to do with Drew the man, just Drew the football player (“It’s only business Sonny”).
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Story picked up by Deadspin. Congrats, Patriots Daily crew.
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Seriously, could someone explain to me how Drew Bledsoe “saved” football and the Patriots franchise in New England along with Bob Kraft and Bill Parcells?
I mean, honestly, how? By being the first pick? As I remember it, people were excited when Parcells was hired in 1993 and bought up tickets. They already had the number one pick prior to the hiring and that hadn’t inspired them to buy tickets. Hiring Parcells did. Now, I’ll grant you the Patriots eventually picked Bledsoe and that probably excited the fan base, but wouldn’t the fan base have been excited by ANY rookie #1 pick? And by the time they were 1-11, Kraft was already about to buy the team. He bought it prior to the end of that season.
Once Kraft bought the team….they WERE NOT moving. And he did that or was well along in doing so before Bledsoe really did anything. Remember, Drew was hurt for the middle of that first year and missed several games. The fan base would have been equally excited by Rick Mirer. In fact, Mirer had a better rookie year than Bledsoe or at least very similar. Both were thought to be headed towards great careers following their rookie seasons. Kraft bought the team by the end of 1993, what is the big thing Bledsoe did in 1993 that saved the team prior to that occurring? Seriously.
I just have always had a real hard time understanding what did Bledsoe do besides get drafted and play respectable football? Couldn’t hundreds of other players in the NFL done the same thing? I just don’t get it. Had they drafted Mirer, they’d still be here….Kraft would still be the owner and not much would have changed. So what exactly, with no disrespect to him, did Drew Bledsoe do?
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The Easter Bunny is taking a hell of a pounding. Kevan Henry and Mike Vrabel are almost certainly in line to post.
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Greg, you’ve got it wrong, Bledsoe saved the NE Patriots a ton of money on their car insurance.
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Great, now I have a Cyndi Lauper song in my head. Get it out!! Get it out!!
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To say Bledsoe never wanted to play is just plain stupid. He started all 16 games 9 times in his 14 year career, got sacked a ton, took physical abuse as well as fan abuse for throwing brutal picks or never living up to their expectations of him.
If he never wanted to play, he would have had 10,000 excuses to stay on the sideline. Don’t forget, even in the Mo Lewis game he went back in there. In his own words: “Nobody ever had to come and get me off the field,” he said. “Even in New England [in ’01 after Mo Lewis of the Jets leveled him with a hit that sheered a blood vessel] I went back out there and they had to tell me to stay out. I never once stayed down.”
Does that sound like the words of someone who never wanted to play?
Just let it go people. He had a nice career here. How many more Superbowls do we need to win to just leave the guy alone?
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Greg, you don’t see the contradiction between “I never once stayed down” and a guy that couldn’t manage to carry out the fundamentals of a decent play action fake once in his 13 year career?
And far as ‘let it go’ – look, we came across the article, thought the comments were interesting based on our own impressions of Bledsoe, and so we wrote about what we read. Judging from the e-mails and comments we’ve gotten today, we weren’t alone. I don’t think you’ve seen another article about Drew Bledsoe on this page, have you? Yet one is too much?
As far “how many Super Bowls do we need to win to just leave the guy alone” – well, I don’t even know what the hell that means. I guess we’re not the only ones who makes points that are “just plain stupid”.
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How quickly you ingrates forget that this is the same man who took out a full page ad in the Boston Globe thanking the fans for their support. He didn’t get an 1/8 of the page or go the Craigslist route – he went FULL page in the Boston Globe. He could have taken the easy way out, but he didn’t.
Pin in the finger
Multiple coordinators
Offensive line
Big tight end
MINNESOTA GAME!
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Interesting response, Scott.
You say:
‘Greg, you don’t see the contradiction between “I never once stayed down” and a guy that couldn’t manage to carry out the fundamentals of a decent play action fake once in his 13 year career?’
I’m sorry, I don’t. Can you please explain the contradiction to me?
There’s no contradiction to comparing someone’s ‘desire’ to play and their inabilty to perform a particular aspect of their job. Tim Wakefield can’t throw a fastball over 70MPH, yet is a starting pitcher. Does he not have a desire to play baseball because he can only effectively throw one pitch? A real contradiction would be me saying something along the lines of – Bledsoe is the best QB of all time and then saying, as I did, he threw brutal interceptions. That’s a real contradiction, correct?
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You offered his toughness and durability (which are not in dispute) to counter the points of the article. Yeah, he was tough – as far as I’m concerned, all 53 of them are tough. So what?
“There’s no contradiction to comparing someone’s ‘desire’ to play and their inabilty to perform a particular aspect of their job.”
I can NOT believe you can post that with a straight face considering who the quarterback is now and how he got there in the first place, and what that ethic has meant to this organization. Its not about a desire to play. Its about a desire to be better, every day.
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What I find interesting about Bledsoe is this myth that he was some mad bomber. In fact Drew always struggled to throw the deep ball (except his first season with the bills). His best throws were always the intermediate routes, and probably threw the best deep out of any QB in last 20 years. His downfall was obviously some other issues. Drew helped put us on the map, and give some respectability. Teams feared our air attack. Outside Ben Coates, he made Vincent Brisby, Michael Timpson, Leroy Thompson dangerous threats. After Marc Wilson, Tommy Hodson, Hugh Millen…come on – he played role as savior for as long as he could.
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Scott, I think you misunderstand what the word ‘contradiction’ means.
Believe it or not, there is a difference between someone’s ‘desire’ and someones ‘ability’. Regardless of practice and “getting beter every day” someone like Drew is always going to be held back by athletic ability. I’m sure he would love to be Boomer Esiason on the Play Action, Tom Brady in the clutch and Vince Young in the open field. His ability will never allow him to be.
You seriously don’t think that the article on this site makes some big assumptions? It takes a quote from a publication in the Pacific North West and throws away a 14 year NFL career that includes statistics that rank in the top ten of ALL TIME NFL passing stats. To think that there was no ‘desire’ to get there is wrong. If he didn’t have a desire to play the NFL would have eaten him up.
Here’s a quote from his retirement article on espn.com:
“I feel so fortunate, so honored, to have played this game that I love for so long, with so many great players, and in front of so many wonderful fans, except Scott from patriotsdaily.com”
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I think its a stretch to say he didn’t have the desire to play…How many people who don’t like to play football would have gone back out on the field with a pin hanging out of their finger? If he didn’t enjoy playing so much, wouldn’t he have just sat it out? No one would have blamed him there…
Anyone who saw his face at the end of the AFC Championship game when he came in for Brady, and still says he had no desire for the NFL, is just looking for an excuse to bash Bledsoe. He may not have been the greatest QB ever (our current QB is) but, he was a competitor and a fine one at that.
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I’m apparently not the only one who struggles with misunderstandings, Greg. You think Drew had trouble with the fundamental aspects and responsibilities of his position because he was limited athletically? There’s only one Boomer when it comes to play action, but there’s been plenty of NFL quarterbacks that have been more than effective at it, including the guy that plays here now. I’m presuming he wasn’t born with perfect fundamentals, but maybe he was. Maybe there’s no difference between ‘getting away from football” and being the first guy to the stadium every day. You’re either born with it, or you aren’t.
I didn’t write the article, but if you think I needed to read the flipping Whitefish Review to know something about Drew Bledsoe as a player, you’re mistaken.
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I’ve come full circle on Drew. When he played for my NE Patriots, all I remember is the interceptions. They were constant… couldn’t stand the guy.
Then the ultimate nightmare happened to him… TWICE. Brady gets promoted over Drew, and then Romo in Dallas years later. Imagine you’re out sick for a week, and return to work to find that your assistant is now doing your job, and doing it better. That’s the story of Drew’s career… you get to feel bad for a guy like that.
Seems like that’s all we’re really talking about. Bledsoe basically was average… his endless blunders and slow feet made up for his great arm. What makes his interesting, and sort of tragic, is how easily (and often) his understudies could succeed, and succeed wildly.
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Scott, why do you hate Bledsoe so much? Just curious.
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As a player, Drew Bledsoe was the best publicist this town has ever seen. Quoting him as evidence of his desire to play is a fool’s errand. The guy was a political operator of the highest order.
And this stuff about how he MUST have desire since he threw so many passes for so many seasons doesn’t wash with me either. As the author noted in these comments, the guy was the highest paid player in the league for nearly a decade. He got more out of the relationship than Kraft, Wilson, and Jones. Football was very good to Drew Bledsoe’s bank account.
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Todd, to that end, why do you and others love Bledsoe so much?
He is the single most overrated athlete in Boston sports in the last 30 years. He was OK as a player. Sometimes great. Most of the time OK. Sometimes brutal.
He’s not a legend. He’s not worthy of any particular level of esteem. Yet he’s revered. Why is that?
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It was the same bonehead mistakes from Drew from Day 1 until retirement.
Maybe there was “desire” on his face going into the AFC championship game, but there sure was a football in the gut as he almost threw the game away with that Bledsoe brain fart ™.
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HATE Bledsoe? A little dramatic, don’t you think, Todd?
Why don’t I think he was anywhere near the player that so many – even today – argue that he was? Because just as soon as he was forced from the lineup and replaced by a guy who didn’t duck his responsibilities but instead attacked them with a passion, all of a sudden the football got a lot better here in New England. Not to say that I’m not grateful for every minute of what’s happened since, but I’m sorry, I also couldn’t help but look back over the previous decade and wonder why we all didn’t figure out that it wasn’t just mobility that the other guy lacked. This becomes especially frustrating when I hear once again this gauzy mythology about how Drew was a sort of savior to the organization, because I know damn well that there were dozens that came through here in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s that were way better football players than Bledsoe, yet their contributions are distilled down – as Ken did above – to a one-liner about them being ‘laughingstocks’, while an undeserving guy is canonized by people with awfully short memories.
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Why do we love Bledsoe so much? Well, I have to start of by saying that I would rather have Brady any day of the week as a QB.
As for the Drew-love…He led my favorite team out from the dregs of the NFL to a SB appearance, with numerous, gritty comeback wins to his credit. He played injured plenty of times, as opposed to plenty of guys who sit out with any and every little bump and bruise.
Thats to say nothing about him being a role model off the field.
on another note…
You say “He’s not a legend. He’s not worthy of any particular level of esteem. Yet he’s revered. Why is that?”.
I love Steve Grogan but, couldn’t you ask the same question about him? He’s a legend, and held in high esteem around here…why?
Because he was a great guy, a tough athlete, who played through pain and succeeded. Like I said before, Bledsoe is not the greatest QB ever but, he deserves some respect and credit for a pretty distinguished career.
He’s in the top 10 for yards, completions, attempts and #13 currently in tds.
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Scott, not at all. Lots of successful QB’s struggle with the fundamental aspects of playing the position. For this conversation you seem to be putting all those fundamental elements into Play Action, but I’ll also assume you mean throwing off your back foot, forcing passes, etc. People like Brett Favre and others made a career of it, but overcame those with raw athletic ability (and maybe some pain killers here and there).
People always reference Bledsoe’s interceptions, including on this forum. Yet, on the same level, people absolutely worship Steve Grogan.
Grogans stats:
182TD’s. 208 interceptions (ouch)
Bledsoe stats:
251 td’s. 206 interceptions.
People’s opinions about Drew Bledsoe were formed prior to this article, no one is going to be able to convince people otherwise.
I’ll leave it at this. He was a real good player, played on some bad teams and had a good run. I too don’t need to read a ‘flipping’ article to know what I know about Bledsoe. I’ve seen every game he’s played in for the Pats (in person at home) and I was at the game against the Giants in 1996 in NY when he came back from 22-0 and threw a TD to Ben Coates (Meggett pushed him into the endzone), I was at the back to back OT TD wins at home. Those were amazing performances. I was also at the 5 interception game in Miami and the 34-3 game in Tampa. I dispute the notion that he never wanted to play and find that idea stupid.
And Brad, I don’t think Bledsoe is revered at all. As evident by the origins of this article.
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And Scott, Yes, I was being over-dramatic. I thought it was kinda funny.
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It’s futile to compare Bledsoe’s work ethic off the field to Brady’s. They are who they are. The Pats knew who Bledsoe was when they drafted him, and they got a lot out of him. They didn’t win a SB, but that wasn’t any more or any less his fault than anyone else on that team. Belichick arrived, decided he needed something different, and went on from there. He ended up with the next Joe Montana. Good for us.
Bledsoe wasn’t any different than a whole host of players in all sports–many of them very good, as Bledsoe was–who treat the game like a job and don’t think twice about it while they are gone. Could he have been better if he’d fished less in the summer? Maybe. But nothing he’d done over the summer would have made up for Corey Croom and Derrick Cullors, or would have convinced Bobby Grier to resign Curtis Martin.
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Like Greg says, I misunderstand a lot.
He’s also right that perhaps Drew isn’t as revered as I thought he was. Certainly, in my experience he’s been (I seem to talk to a lot of people like Ken from this morning), but as evidenced by this discussion thread, some others clearly fall in the other category.
Biggest day in the short history of the site, with pickups by Deadspin and now Matt Mosely at ESPN. Regardless of whether we agree on this issue, thanks to all you guys for stopping by today and for getting involved. That’s always been our goal here, and we hope you’ll continue to weigh in whenever you like.
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Really? One piece on an obscure website means he’s not revered?
Take the pulse of the local talking heads and fans who discuss his HOF chances and read the savior posts within this very section to see that he’s given more credit than he deserves for being an average player.
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Bledsoe is a stone cold lock for the Whitefish Chamber of Commerce Hall of Fame. First ballot.
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Scott, at least I didn’t say he was better than Brady! I found your site today from deadspin.com, I’ll be back to question your intelligence and your manhood every chance I get. (just kidding…kinda)
Brad, I guess it depends who you talk to. I tend to find that most people I speak with agree with you on this.
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Scott, Happy to throw my 2 cents in.
Brad, you have an odd definition of an average player. He’s got the stats of one of the better players in the game and was one of the top 5 QBs in the league for at least 5 years.
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Which 5 years was that?
He’s certainly worthy of credit for hanging in there game after game and putting up stats for a long period of time. But he never threw 30TDs despite consistently ranking near the top of the league in passing attempts.
He was also a horrendous performer in the 6 postseason games he appeared in,
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Here’s the problem Box O, if Drew Bledsoe is a divisive figure, and out there in this town right now he is a divisive figure, the Red Sox are in a penant race and people are talking about Drew Bledsoe ok. Is he going to help the Whitefish Chamber of Commerce? He is going to draw people who like him, but he’s going to keep away people who don’t like him. I am absolutely not saying he will hurt Whitefish, Drew was always a professional and he’ll do what he can to help Whitefish. But can Whitefish provide him with the help he needs, do they have a hotel ok, do they have a shopping area, you need help from the anchor stores. You can’t just go and fish, you need to have the infrastructure built up for the tourism, and Drew Bledsoe can’t do that all on his own. I think the people out there in that town are putting unrealistic expectations on Drew, he comes in and gets some quick attention for the town, and all of a sudden he’s the next Donald Trump.
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His acoustic duet with Kevan Henry and Joey Porter on the front steps of the Town Hall alone gets him into the Whitefish Chamber of Commerce Hall of Very Good. Weezer never sounded so meaningful or joyous. The three of them sounded like a 70 piece choir.
You throw in the hours he’s spent as an ambassador to the entire state and I am thinking we may need to name a whole wing after him.
FIRST BALLOT!
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Their cover of U2’s Desire was amazing, not as good as a Chris Daughtry U2 cover but as close as 2 mortals and Drew could make it.
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