FOXBORO – Since 2014, the Patriots have spent three draft picks on quarterbacks they would think, perhaps, hopefully could be Tom Brady’s successors.
And when each of the young boxers got their chance, they broke.
Jimmy Garoppolo made it through five quarters in 2016 during Brady’s DeflateGate suspension. Then Kiko Alonso came on Jimmy G. and pop went off someone’s handsome shoulder.
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Jacoby Brissett came in relief. He completed that game then a week later tore a thumb ligament in a win against Houston. The Patriots were waxed in their next game by Buffalo and a reduced Brissett eventually needed surgery.
Jarrett Stidham came into this training camp with a decent chance of winning the runway. And even if he did not, he at least had a chance to give the Patriots some optimism that their future was in competent hands. He did not do so through the first week of refurbished practices before suffering a hip injury, after reports he will be affected for several weeks.
The tender body of Stidham (good band name) will not be a career-end. He will live to fight another day in the same way Garoppolo and Brissett did. But there are not many “other days” to burn as the Patriots plow forward through this shortened camp.
If Stidham are restricted for a while, he simply will not need the reps to make a case that he is ready to start over Cam Newton as Brian Hoyer.
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It will be ironic to me that Bill Belichick has spent the past six seasons at Brady, checking his watch and asking himself, “How much longer?” while every fresh face brought in to press Brady could not sustain without being hurt.
Brady, of course, was indestructible. He spent the early part of his career battling shoulder pain. He had a lot of ankle sprains, rib ulcers, chest bruises, thigh cones and round bells.
But in the first decade of his career, he missed 16 games with a torn ACL. And in the second decade of his career, he did not miss a single game due to an injury.
He’s leaving and it’s either Newton, whose seasons since 2015 have alternately ended with shoulder and foot injuries and Stidham who have not even hit the ground this week.
That’s the aspect of Brady that is overrated. The guys living next to him in the ‘Greatest Ever’ conversation were not even close to being as sustainable AND productive as long as Brady was. Not Joe Montana, who did not play a full 16-game season after 1985 to 1994. Not Peyton Manning, whose neck gave out and – in the end – was a brain in a jar that miraculously led the Broncos to a Super Bowl. Not Brett Favre, whose arm was junked by 41 or John Elway, who eventually moved like a packwinner.
I know. You do not want to hear it. Now playing for Tampa. Death to you. I get it. And watch the team practice this week, there is no viewing drama now that Brady is gone. It’s totally for the best, even if the team on the position is reduced.
But what we’re seeing right now is how the other 31 teams live, where the quarterback position is in a constant state of “Who knows?”
