
It's time for the annual look back at Tom Brady at the 2000 NFL Scouting Combine.
It happens to us at least once in our lives. We enter a room full of people who take a good look at us and make a judgment about our ability to succeed at something.
For a young Tom Brady in the spring of 2000, he was judged on whether he could make it onto an NFL roster. Luckily, the New England Patriots thought so.
With the NFL Scouting Combine in full swing this week and into the weekend, it's almost become an annual thing to look back at Tom Brady and the scouts who got it wrong over two decades ago now.
It's a story we've heard time and time again: the 199th pick in the sixth round would go on to become the greatest of all time as he would hoist the Vince Lombardi Trophy seven times in his 23-season career. It all started with this photo below.
Brady looked like he should be writing about professional sports rather than playing them. He looked five years older than he was in the pic (22 at the time). Now he looks five or more years younger than he does now (48 years young currently).
Brady's NFL Combine stats were not particularly interesting. He ran a 40-yard dash in 5.28 seconds. It is one of the slowest on record and puts him in the 0.7th percentile among other QBs.
What Scouting Reports Said About Tom Brady
Brady dove deep into his past and recalled negative feedback he received at the Combine, which he mentioned in a 2017 Instagram post. "Poor build, skinny; lacks great physical stature and strength; lacks mobility and ability to avoid the rush; lacks a really strong arm; can't drive the ball downfield; does not throw a really tight spiral; system-type player who can get exposed if forced to ad-lib; gets knocked down easily."
As his father, Tom Brady Sr., said in the 2011 ESPN doc, The Brady Six, "They missed the most important part, heart; they didn't understand what drives somebody."
Other scouts also had some across-the-board things to say about Brady. One NFC team scout said, "He had that great bowl game, but I think he's just very common. He's a bony, very thin kind of guy. God, you can see his ribs in his build. His arm is just adequate."
Another NFC scout stated, "I don't like him. Smart guy. That's it."
One positive was that the Chicago Bears director of college scouting, Bill Rees, stated about Brady, "very accurate, good toughness, and good leadership." Rees also said that Brady was likely going to be a backup who would eventually make it to a starting position. "Has a chance to be a good player in the league in time. I think he'd be a real solid backup initially and end up growing into a starter."
Little did we know that a year and a half later, Brady would be key to the Patriots' first Super Bowl win in early 2002. Where Brady lacked in athleticism, he thrived in competitive prowess. He could not scramble, but he may be the best pocket passer of all time. Brady also wanted the ball in his hands with the game on the line.
Something he made a career out of for decades to come.
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