Tom Brady is generally considered the greatest NFL quarterback of all time, and with good reason. In an unprecedented 23-year career, he set records for most games won (251), most touchdown passes (649), most passing yards (89,214), most competed passes (7,753), most Pro Bowl selections (15), most playoff wins (35 â more than twice as many as second-place Joe Montana’s 16) â and most importantly no one has ever won more Super Bowl championships. Brady won seven.
Those are just a few of the records on the long list of accomplishments that establish Brady’s credentials as the GOAT. But in his rookie year, 2000 â the year he was drafted in the sixth round with the 199th pick overall by the New England Patriots â Brady played exactly one set of downs all season â on Thanksgiving Day when the Patriots were in the midst of a blowout loss to the Detroit Lions. He completed one of three pass attempts.
Brady Believes Young QBs Should Sit Before Playing
But Brady has said that he benefitted from the season in which he was able to learn the position without the pressure of playing it every day â and he believes that rookie quarterbacks in today’s NFL are pushed to play too quickly.
“I think it’s just a tragedy that we’re forcing these rookies to play early, but the reality is the only reason why we are is because we’ve dumbed the game down, which has allowed them to play,” Brady said in an interview last year. “It discourages the coaches from going to deep levels, because they realize the players don’t have the opportunity to go to a deep level.”
But with the help of the team that drafted him and with whom he won six of his seven Super Bowls, the Patriots, Brady will get a chance to put his theory into practice in his new capacity as part-owner of the Las Vegas Raiders, at least to Fox Sports’ first mock draft of the free agent signing period.
In the new mock draft, by Fox Sports NFL reporter David Helman, Brady persuades the Patriots to trade their top pick, No. 4 overall, down to the Raiders’ slot at No. 6. But according to Helman, the deal works out for both teams because with the sixth pick New England gets what it has reportedly been most seeking in the draft â offensive line protection for new franchise quarterback Drake Maye.
Helman has that protection coming in the form of 6’4″, 332-pound offensive tackle Armand Membou, out of Missouri.
Brady Creates ‘Ideal Scenario’ For His Old Team
“What an ideal scenario for the Pats, courtesy of their old friend Tom Brady,” Helman wrote in his mock draft report. “By trading with Las Vegas, they gain another pick or two without losing their target â a franchise tackle for Drake Maye. With a crazy combination of frame and athleticism, Membou fits the bill. He’s also just now turning 21 years old.”
What do Brady and the Raiders get with the No. 4 pick? The Raiders already signed a quarterback, reuniting newly un-retired head coach Pete Carroll with his former Seattle Seahawks signal-caller Geno Smith. But according to Helman, Brady â who is believed to have signed off on Carroll’s signing of Smith â wants a young quarterback who can develop by watching and learning from Smith.
That quarterback, per the Fox mock draft, will be Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders.
“The Raiders will have some thinking to do if Sanders falls out of the top three,” Helman wrote. “The cost of a two-spot jump isn’t prohibitive. Smith turns 35 this fall. If Tom Brady, Pete Carroll and (Raiders general manager) John Spytek like Sanders, it wouldn’t be a shock to see them pull the trigger on a small move up for a quarterback of the future.”
Helman does, in fact, predict that Sanders â one of the two highest-rated quarterbacks in the 2025 draft â will fall out of the top three. After the Tennessee Titans take Miami QB Cam Ward with the top overall pick, the Cleveland Browns take Heisman-winning, two way player Travis Hunter (another Colorado product) at No. 2, followed by the New York Giants who grab Penn State defensive back Abdul Carter, the 2024 Big Ten leader in sacks, with the third pick in the Fox Sports mock draft.
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