Look, I’m not going to lie, it’s not easy seeing Tom Brady in a Tampa Bay Buccaneers jersey.
I mean, really, Tom? Tampa Bay? They’re a swamp city, they shouldn’t even have a football team. But, whatever. You followed a traditional pattern: New England guy retires to Florida. I get it, Giselle was tired of the winters, and you wanted to market TB12 in the Sunshine State. Fine, that makes sense.
But really, my first thought was, man, in those pictures he looks old. That, in turn, made me realize how much more OK I was with this now than I would have been, say, five years ago. Back then, it would have seemed like a betrayal: now it seems more like a natural transition. In fact, despite what one might expect from a lifelong New England Patriots fan, I’m not at all disappointed by Brady’s departure at this point. In fact, I’m looking forward to the post-Brady era right now.
If you’re a fan of another football team that’s had a long-term quarterback, like the Green Bay Packers (who’ve been blessed by two in a row) or the New Orleans Saints, then you might understand this. It’s nice to have the most important position in football locked in for a decade or more, and to just have to worry about finding the right pieces to place around him. It’s like knowing what you’re going to grill for dinner that night, and then just having to pick between potato salad, coleslaw, or mac and cheese as your side dish. It’s comforting.
While it’s comforting, though, having the same quarterback for a long time can become boring. Just as I wouldn’t want to have a hamburger for dinner every night - no matter how much I like them, and no matter how many different toppings you can put on them - it’s nice to have change on your sports teams, too. That’s part of the fun of sports. While the Brady-Belichick Era has certainly been a wonder to behold, I’m truly a New England Patriots fan, not just a Tom Brady fan.
I remember that Drew Bledsoe was no slouch, and that he was there for almost a decade before Tom showed up. I remember that the 2001 New England Patriots were looking like a good team even before the football gods gave us Tom Brady: They had a stellar defense, with players like Ty Law, Lawyer Milloy, and Tedy Bruschi. They had a great running back in Antowain Smith, solid receivers like Troy Brown and David Patten, and a reliable offensive line. Led by a starting quarterback with Super Bowl experience, there was good reason to believe that Drew Bledsoe would’ve made a great run with that roster - but then he took that hit from Mo Lewis and football history changed forever.
Fortunately, the transition away from Tom Brady wasn’t quite so traumatic, literally or figuratively. A lot of Patriots fans may have been hoping that Bill Belichick would either trade up in the draft or sign a big-name free agent, but the reality is that he’s going to roll with Jarrett Stidham, Brady’s backup last year who went to the University of Auburn.
If you’ve never heard of him - even if you’re a big-time football fan - that’s understandable. Although he had a solid college career under center at Auburn, he was unheralded out of the draft, which is why he fell to the fourth round in 2019, where the Patriots picked him 133rd overall. Does that sound familiar? It should - the Patriots famously picked Tom Brady in the sixth round of the 2000 draft, 199th overall. Early on, it was clear that Belichick had a lot of confidence in Stidham, as he released Brian Hoyer, elevating Stidham to being Brady’s backup. Letting go of Hoyer might not seem like a big deal, but it’s important to have a reliable backup when you’ve got a quarterback over the age of 40, and Hoyer was intimately familiar with Belichick’s coaching style and the Patriots offensive system.
Stidham has a similar height and build to Brady, albeit a bit shorter - but he’s also faster. Unlike Brady, Stidham has an ability to run: over three years at Auburn, he had 224 total running yards - 374 more than Brady had in four years at Michigan. Much of the initial criticism of Jarrett Stidham’s abilities as a quarterback, and the reason he was picked so low in the draft, seems to be that he needs to improve his decision-making. Fortunately, that is an area that is very coachable: Not even Bill Belichick can make someone taller or smarter, but he can teach them. On the infamous Wonderlic intelligence test used by the NFL, Stidham had a slightly higher-than-average score at 27 out of 50. That’s lower than Tom Brady’s 33, but it’s comparable to Peyton Manning’s - and the highest score ever by a QB was Ryan Fitzpatrick, so maybe don’t take that one measurable as gospel.
I’m certainly no professional scout, so I won’t try to write my own scouting report for you on Jarrett Stidham. As a longtime Patriots fan and season-ticket holder, though, it’s easy to see why Belichick has confidence in him. He was certainly impressive in the preseason last year - more impressive than Jimmy Garoppolo, who won his first seven starts in the NFL and led his team to a Super Bowl appearance last year.
None of this is to say that I expect Stidham to immediately lead the team to another 12-4 season in his first year (whenever that is), but I don’t think they’ll be 0-16 either. I do expect, however, that he will be competent and fun to watch, improving under the tutelage of an excellent coach, just as Tom Brady did. Whether he ends up being the long-term solution for the team at quarterback remains to be seen, but there’s no reason for Patriots fans to immediately despair for the future of the franchise or lose faith in Bill Belichick. Bill isn’t crazy to believe in Stidham, and he’s not secretly trying to tank the team for a number one draft pick or anything.
I realize you younger Patriots fans haven’t been through this before, but trust me, the Patriots season next year may be different than watching them march towards yet another inevitable postseason run, but it will surely by interesting - just in a new and different way. Continue to believe in Bill, continue to schedule your Sundays around the Patriots schedule (not the Buccaneers one), and you’ll have fun with this, believe me. Letting go and moving on is always difficult, but now is the time.
Jim Fossel is a Maine native and weekly columnist for the Portland Press Herald who may be found easily on Twitter.
Pats defense is too good for them to tank. After seeing what they did with Matt Cassel that one year (and what everyone else did with him after that) I think 10-6 is very reasonable.