I am not saying Brady was a world beater in 2001. What I am saying is by the next season, his first full season as a starter, he was already a top 5 QB in the league so he wasn't just along for the ride for 3 super bowls. Brady may have been in the backseat for a good amount of 2001 but he showed flashes of what he could be whether it was shredding the Chargers, battling back against the Jets, or leading the game winning drive in the Super Bowl. Charlie Weis didn't manage Brady when he had a 1:30 to get in field goal range in the biggest game of his life.
His next season Charlie Weis and company let it fly, they allowed Tom to sow his oats and they did what coaches do... develop the player.
Sure, he led the NFL in passing TD's in year three, but he also threw the most interceptions of his career, had the 4th highest interception percentage of his career. His yards per attempt was also ranked 23rd in the NFL, he used to be called a
"dink & dunk QB," or a
"system QB," because he was.
Also what nobody seems to remember those first few years were the sacks and fumbles. Early on the coaches told Tom rather than screw up and throw an interception, to just take the sack... which he did. His sack percentages in those first few years were the highest of his career. He also put the ball on the ground by fumbling 12, 11 and 13 times from 2001-2003, by 2004 he cleaned that up to 7 times followed by 4 times in 2005.
In 2002 he was ranked 10th in QB Rating, so while he might have ranked somewhere in the middle of the league... calling him top five is being generous.
This isn't to disparage Tom, it's to provide a reality check for the revisionist historians of Patriot nation, or those who were too young to remember and see things through a prism of fanboy nostalgia.
Tom was a flabby 6'4" 211 pound project with a
"weak arm" who sat for a year watching Bledsoe, who beefed up in the strength and conditioning program closer to 225 pounds by 2001, and who needed multiple years of development to become a top five QB by year four.
This notion that he arrived and saved BB's ass, or set the NFL alight with a passing explosion is total nonsense. He was more efficient than Drew so BB liked him, but he was nowhere near the talent Bledsoe was... which is why most of the media and fans at the time were calling for Drew to start in week 13 when he was cleared.
BB knew better... now he's getting skewered in some Kraft produced hit piece for doing something few would have the balls to do, sit the 100 million dollar QB for the 6th round pick making 300K. Ridiculous.