When Bill Belichick used the Patriots’ second-round draft pick on quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, it could have been seen as an affront to Tom Brady. But Brady says he’s taking it in stride.
“I felt like I had a pretty good idea we’d take a quarterback,” Brady told Peter King of TheMMQB.com. “Coach Belichick doesn’t care who the quarterback is here. He’s always going to play the guy who he thinks gives him the best chance to win. It’s not my role to choose players here, thankfully. And this is not the first time they’ve taken another quarterback either. There’s no entitlement in the NFL. I don’t expect to be given anything. I just hope I’m the one most entitled to play that position for a long time here.”
When a team with a 36-year-old franchise quarterback uses a second-round draft pick on a quarterback, it may be an indication that the team doesn’t expect that franchise quarterback to last much longer. But Brady says he’s still excited about playing many more years of football.
“There’s nothing that can wake me up at 5 o’clock in the morning on a Thursday morning in May like getting ready for a day of football,” Brady said. I want to play a long time. There’s nothing I like doing that’s close to football. What’ll I do when I’m done playing? I don’t know, but I know it won’t be nearly as fun. I can tell you neither me nor Peyton [Manning] will probably be very far from the game of football when we’re done.”
Brady won’t be ready to hand the reins over to Garoppolo any time soon.