Tom Brady’s extraordinary NFL career began with him leading the Patriots to the Super Bowl championship in 2001, his first season as their starter. But Brady believes history could have been very different, if not for the tuck rule.
The infamous tuck rule was what turned an apparent game-ending fumble by Brady in his first playoff game into an incomplete pass, allowing the Patriots to keep the ball and eventually beat the Raiders on their way to the Super Bowl. Brady, who became the starter in 2001 when Drew Bledsoe was injured, said in ESPN’s The Tuck Rule documentary that he thinks if the Patriots had lost that game, Bill Belichick would have gone back to Bledsoe for the 2002 season.
“I’m probably the backup QB going into 2002,” Brady said, via NBCSportsBoston.com. “I’m not the starter if we lose that game.”
Even if Brady is right that Belichick wold have started Bledsoe in 2002, that doesn’t mean Brady wouldn’t have had a Hall of Fame career. But it would have been a very different career if it hadn’t been giving the kick start of an obscure rule propelling him to his first Super Bowl.
