While it appears Tom Brady, at age 40, is New England’s quarterback of the future, things weren’t always that way for the five-time Super Bowl champion.

In 2001 — his second NFL season — Brady was a backup to veteran Drew Bledsoe, who had just signed a then-record 10-year, $103 million contract with the Patriots.

“We all knew Tom was looking better and better,” retired linebacker Tedy Bruschi told ESPN’s Ryen Russillo. “But I think we had the old school thinking of ‘Here’s a quarterback. He’s got a $100 million contract. Tom’s getting better, yes. But here’s Drew Bledsoe, and he’s going to be our quarterback.’ That’s the way we all thought.”


During the team’s Week 2 matchup against the New York Jets, however, Bledsoe went down with a sheared blood vessel in his chest, which gave Brady the opportunity to finish the game. Brady went on to start the following seven contests and led the team to a 5-3 record, but his job as a starter was by no means solidified when Bledsoe was cleared to return in November.

“Throughout the course of the Bledsoe-Brady drama, you could feel in the locker room that, ‘Drew’s getting better, Drew’s getting better. What are we going to do when Drew gets better? What’s [coach] Bill [Belichick] going to do?” Bruschi said. “Because all would say always was ‘If you’re playing, and you’re playing well, then you’re going to stay in.'”

As a hopeful Bledsoe continued to prepare for his return, Bruschi remembers what he calls “one of the most regretful things” he’s ever done throughout his 13-year playing career.

“I’m walking off the field. Practice is over,” he recalled to Russillo. “But that’s when Drew — he wasn’t getting reps, he wasn’t getting real reps — would go and get drops in with the receivers, with the backup receivers, and make sure his timing was still there and everything.”


“And I knew that hit was still on his mind,” he said, chuckling. “So he dropped back, and as we linebackers were walking off the field, he was like dropping back into us. I sort of got in front of him to sort of give him a little, ‘Ah, here comes the rush.'”

When Bledsoe threw the ball, however, his finger hit Bruschi’s thigh and subsequently broke.

“That’s how he broke his finger because I was messing him,” the 44-year-old said. “It just glanced my thigh, I swear, but that thing broke. I went home, and I was just beside myself. Because I didn’t know if Bill had thought he was going to be the starter again.”

“That’s the worst I had ever felt in my life.”

Bledsoe did end up returning to the field, with a taped finger, for part of the AFC Championship game against Pittsburgh in January 2002. His performance helped New England secure a Super Bowl berth that year, but he never regained his starting role with the Patriots and signed with the Buffalo Bills the following season.

As for whether Bruschi thinks the broken finger incident made a difference in the quarterbacks’ competition, the former Patriot laughed at the thought of the magnitude of its impact.

“Maybe it was an excuse,” he said. “Belichick might have thought, ‘Hey, he broke his finger. Now he’s really out, so now I’m not going with him.'”