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Tom Brady talked about the advice he gave Shedeur Sanders as he slid in the NFL Draft to the fifth round before the Cleveland Browns finally selected him with the No. 144 pick.
Brady was the No. 199 pick of the 2000 NFL Draft out of Michigan. The New England Patriots chose him. Drew Bledsoe was the team’s starting quarterback and Michael Bishop appeared in seven more games than Brady did in his rookie season. John Freisz also made an appearance in 2000.
When Brady received the chance to take the reins from an injured Bledsoe at the start of the 2001 season, he performed at an elite level. The rest was truly history.
Brady appeared on the “Impaulsive” podcast with Logan Paul and Mike Majlak. He was asked about Sanders’ draft slide. He said he wasn’t involved in Sanders’ evaluation process even as a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders. He critiqued the media’s narrative around the draft before he shared his words of wisdom to Sanders.
“So, nobody knows. I actually texted Shedeur because I know him very well,” Brady said. “And I said, ‘Dude, whatever happens, wherever you go, that’s your first day. Day 2 matters more than the draft. I was 199. So, who could speak on it better than me – what that really means. Use it as motivation. You’re gonna get your chances, go take advantage of it.’”
Sanders had an NIL deal with the Brady Brand when he was the quarterback at Jackson State. It helped start the relationship between the two athletes. Sanders then transferred to Colorado once his father, Deion Sanders, took over as head coach.
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Brady recalled watching the coverage around Aaron Rodgers during the 2005 draft. Rodgers was projected to be a No. 1 pick before the San Francisco 49ers took Alex Smith.
“I remember when they were talking about Aaron Rodgers sliding and Aaron slid to like 21 in the first round or whatever it was. I’m like, ‘Dude, you’re the 21st pick in the first round. I think they still think you’re pretty good. You’re still a great player. You’re still a first-round pick in the NFL. There’s only 32 of those guys every year.’ So, use it as motivation,” he said. “Wherever you end up going, it’s still about your performance. Like, what do you do when you get there, because you’re gonna get there.”
Brady mentioned that some of the greats he played with on the Patriots were not high draft picks or selected at all, including Rodney Harrison, Wes Welker, Julian Edelman and Danny Amendola.
He described the draft as “some overhyped day, where a lot of people are selling stories and saying, all right, this is the big day, it’s the draft. And it’s an important day, it’s fun, and I love watching it and seeing it. But I’ve also been there on Day 2, where they actually gotta show up and learn a playbook, learn (to) be a part of a locker room. There’s a lot of growth that needs to happen.”
Sanders will now look to win the starting job with the Browns. He has to beat out Kenny Pickett, Joe Flacco and Dillon Gabriel.
“He has to show up every day because, as a quarterback, you have to be a leader,” Brady added. “And to me a leader is, do I care about my teammates and do I care about what we’re trying to accomplish?”
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