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Before he was an analyst for Fox Sports. Before he purchased a minority share of the Las Vegas Raiders. Before he won a Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And before he even took the New England Patriots on an absolute run after taking the starting spot away from Drew Bledsoe, Tom Brady was a Day 3 prospect competing for playing time with Drew Henson at the University of Michigan.
Now, in hindsight, the idea of Brady having to split playing time in college is crazy, as he's now firmly in the “GOAT” conversation at the NFL level but at the time, head coach Lloyd Carr didn't exceptionally comfortable with either player as his unquestioned top star and thus, would alternate the two future sixth round picks as he saw fit.
In 1999, there wasn't much Brady could do about his situation, but in 2025, when the transfer portal has changed the business of college football forever, would he have considered making a move away from Michigan to greener pastures and an unquestioned starting job? Well, Brady was asked that question on The Joel Klatt Show and had a very interesting answer indeed.
“It's such a hypothetical situation to a question to think about. The only thing I can answer is to say that based on what my experience was I wouldn't want it any other way than what I the way that I did it,” Tom Brady noted.
“My college experience was very challenging. It was very competitive. The lessons I learned in college that I referred to earlier, and certainly about competition, those traits transformed my life as a professional. I was ready to compete against anybody because the competition in college toughened me up so much that I had a self-belief and self-confidence in myself that whatever I was faced I could overcome that.”
Did Brady's time in college set him up for the challenges of the NFL, where he was promised nothing and had to compete for everything? In his opinion, that certainly contributed to it, but one thing is for sure: If Brady had been highlighted more on another team, he might not have fallen to the Patriots at pick 199, effectively changing NFL history forever.
