We mentioned last night, while scrounging for any NFL-related stories, that ESPN will debut on Tuesday at 8:00 a.m. The Brady 6, a look at the inexplicable 198-spot free-fall one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history experienced during the 2000 draft.
Ian Rapoport of the Boston Herald already has seen it (that bastard), and he has written a couple of items about it.
Most significantly, Rapoport says that Brady gets extremely emotional about being passed over for six other passers, and 192 other players.
“I remember taking a walk with my mom and dad around the block,” Brady says, and then he chokes up, taking a full 11 seconds to compose himself. “They were just so supportive of me. They took it as emotionally as I did. Finally, when the Patriots called, I was so excited. ‘I don’t have to be an insurance salesman. Thank God I got picked here.’”
And, of course, the blunder by so many teams (including the Patriots on every pick they made before picking Brady -- Adrian Klemm, J.R. Redmond, Greg Randall, Dave Stachelski, Jeff Marriott, and Antwan Harris) gives the NFL a perpetual strategy for getting folks to watch the latter rounds of each draft.
The ultimate irony, of course, is that Brady is now one of 10 players whose antitrust lawsuit against the NFL will, if lawyer Jeffrey Kessler gets his way, permanently end the event that gave Brady the motivation that helped make him become the player he became.