The GOATest Story Ever Told, Chapter 1: Tom Brady Becomes the Greatest Draft Pick in the History of Sports, 21 Years Ago Today

Author's Note: Some time ago, it was suggested to me that a series of posts on Tom Brady would work as a regular feature. Sort of a retrospective of his life and career. Given that I tend to get caught up in the here and now when it comes to the GOAT, I like the idea of pulling back every so often, from the Google Street view of him to the Google Earth perspective. Lord knows there's enough there to cover. And since today his draft card became old enough to buy itself a drink, it seems like as good a time as any to begin celebrating the most remarkable athletic career any of us have ever seen. 

In his landmark, influential work, "The Hero With a Thousand Faces," Joseph Campbell writes of the concept of the Monomyth. A universal device as old as storytelling itself, the Monomyth details the "Hero's Journey," an archetype that has guided stories from ancient myths to fairy tales, the Bible to Shakespeare, "The Wizard of Oz" to "Lord of the Rings" to "Star Wars." And the first common element that is a thread running through all of them, the one that precedes the call to adventure, the setbacks along the way and the eventual triumph, is the so-called "Ordinary World." What we would more commonly refer to as the humble origin story. 

As heroes' origins go, they don't get much more humble than Tom Brady's. (Maybe Zeus', since before he became the Big God on Olympus Campus, he started out life about to be eaten by his father, Cronus. His mother Rhea saved him by feeding her husband a rock wrapped in a baby blanket instead. I don't imagine there was a similar dynamic between Mr. & Mrs. Tom Brady Sr.) 

By now it should be familiar to everyone. He was the 199th pick taken, thanks in large part to the fact he was constantly losing the starting job at Michigan thanks to Lloyd Carr and a terrible showing at the NFL combine. There were six quarterbacks taken ahead of him. I can't remember the names of half the people I've met in the town I've been living in for 25 years. But without looking it up, I can name The Brady Six in order: Chad Pennington, Giovanni Carmozzi, Chris Redman, Tee Martin, Mark Bulger and Spergeon Wynn. They even inspired an NFL Network show, where we found out that, while Brady is the GOAT, Carmozzi is a goat farmer. And he refuses to talk in public, so he is literally The Lonely Goatherd. 

And Brady's selection has long been credited to Patriots quarterbacks coach Dick Rehbein. The discussion in the war room as the 199th pick approached was whether to take him or Tim Rattay out of Louisiana Tech. By all accounts, Rehbein is the one who metaphorically stood on the proverbial table and insisted he preferred Brady, whom he'd worked out and was very high on. Then coming out of training camp, Rehbein's bullishness on Brady's future was instrumental in the team carrying four quarterbacks that rookie season (he was fourth on the depth chart behind Drew Bledsoe, veteran John Friesz and running QB Michael Bishop). Tey've never carried four quarterbacks since. And as far as I know, never in the 40 year history of the franchise before that. But did so, thanks to the QB coach. That's significant because Rehbein died of heart failure during training camp the following year and never saw him become a starter, much less become a legend. They say a society truly becomes great when an old man plants a tree under whose shade he will never sit. Here is a perfect example.

There are a few things that are lesser known about Brady's origin story. One is who the Patriots lost in free agency in order to get pick 199. The answer is we will never know. The NFL's formula for determining compensatory picks is secret sauce, the recipe for which is understood by no one. For all we know, it's communicated in the NFL offices only by Navajo Windtalkers, and their code is unbreakable. 

What we do know is that after the 1998 season, a year before Belichick took over in Foxboro, the Patriots let lineback Todd Collins, punter/backup QB Tom Tupa, defensive tackle Dwight "Wimpy" Wheeler and offensive lineman Dave Wohlabaugh walk in free agency. In return they got picsk 127, 199, 201 and 239 in the 2000 draft. So we can credit those four guys for changing the world forever. 

Another weird subplot of the Patriots getting Brady so low - finding their Moses in a basket floating down the Nile, if you will - involves, of all things, the New York Yankees, who had drafted Drew Henson as a 3rd baseman. There's a belief that the reason Brady was fighting for playing time, despite quarterbacking circles around Henson, was that George Steinbrenner was trying to lure Henson away from Michigan by offering him a guarantee he'd bypass the minors and go straight to the parent club. Not because Steinbrenner was convinced he was the next great corner infielder, but just to help out his beloved Ohio State. True or not, the rumor demonstrates once again that everything in the late 90s/early 2000s came back to the Yankees and Red Sox. 

Here is a much younger Mike Tirico and Mel Kiper, Jr (who is weirdly the exact same age) reporting Brady's pick and mentioning how all he did for the Wolverines is win games that Henson could not:

And for the record, here's Kiper's scouting report on him:

Smart, experienced big-game signal-caller, getting very high grades in the efficiency department this past season. Brady cut his interception total from '98 in half, tossing 20 TD passes compared to just six interceptions. He threw for 2,586 yards, completing an impressive 62.8% of his aerials. For his efforts, Brady was named team MVP. After working as Brian Griese's backup in '97, Brady went on to start 25 straight games with the Wolverines. 

He's a straight dropback passer who stands tall in the pocket, doesn't show nervous feet, and does a nice job working through his progressions. He's not going to try to force the action, rarely trying to perform beyond his capability. …He's accurate, throws a very catchable ball, and also knows when to take a little off the pass.

This past season, Brady completed over 60% of his passes in eight games. … At the pro level, his lack of mobility could surface as a problem, and it will be interesting to see how he fares when forced to take more chances down the field.

Sure, he doesn't have the total package of skills, but you have to be impressed with his level of performance this past season. …

Combine note: Ran a 5.24 40-yard dash and had a 24½-inch vertical jump.

Aside from the questions about him taking chances down the field, I defy anyone to find the flaw in any of this. It's assessments like this that have kept Kiper as the apex on the draft guru foodchain all these decades. 

The rest, as they say, is history. Brady arrived in Foxboro, famously told Mr. Kraft that drafting him was the best decision the team would ever make:

… and never looked back. And it all started on this date, April 16, 2000. The best 48th birthday present any man ever gave to himself.