Tom Brady doesn’t believe young quarterbacks are being developed mentally and emotionally as much as they should be.
The seven-time Super Bowl winner shared his dissatisfaction with quarterback development during an interview on FS1’s “The Herd,” expressing that young quarterbacks need just as much investment in their minds as in their physical attributes from coaching.
“I think we’ve dumbed down the game in so many ways to allow for a lesser caliber developed player to get in there and lead an organization,” Brady said.
Brady agreed with Colin Cowherd’s sentiment that there’s more development at the quarterback position from a physical standpoint now than ever. But, as Brady knows, physical gifts can only take you so far. Of course, Brady became the most decorated quarterback in NFL history after being selected with the 199th overall pick in the 2000 NFL Draft.
As Brady showed that non-early-round quarterbacks can have success in the NFL, he isn’t blaming the players for the lack of development at the position. Rather, he believes some of the coaches take the blame for letting quarterbacks fall behind the eight-ball from a mental standpoint.
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“There’s a lot of people who have no idea what they’re doing when they’re tasked with coaching a quarterback or calling an offense,” Brady said. “Just like we rank quarterbacks 1-32, do you rank offensive coordinators 1-32? Do you rank quarterback coaches 1-32? What if you had the 32nd-ranked coordinator in someone’s mind or the 32nd-ranked quarterback coach? How is he getting the level of development that the guy [who has the best offensive coordinator or quarterbacks coach] is getting?”
Brady credited the coaching he got early in his Patriots career for helping him find immediate success. He actually pulled the curtain back a little bit and shared how Bill Belichick became the Patriots’ quarterbacks coach during the 2001 season following the sudden death of Dick Rehbein, revealing what the head coach did to help him.
“He decided to come in every week and talk to the quarterbacks about coverage,” Brady said of Belichick. “He would do these big write-ups, and I still have them all because I kept everything, and [he would say], ‘Tom, this is cover one. This is how they play it. This is who is responsible for who.’ OK, if we line up in a bunch formation, this is how they’re going to handle the bunch formation. This is why they do that. This is the weakness of that. Why they do that. You shouldn’t do this if that’s just how they cover this.’
“For one year, actually for more years beyond that, that’s how I developed and learned. … Nobody’s getting that type of development.”
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Beyond having arguably the greatest coach in NFL history, Brady also credited Drew Bledsoe for helping him develop mentally. The model of learning from a veteran quarterback might be a more viable path to developing mentally as a young quarterback, as Brady shared how another elite player at the position learned from his predecessor.
“I had a chance to talk to Andy Reid about [young quarterback development and I had a chance to talk to Patrick Mahomes about that this week,” Brady said. “Patrick flat out said, ‘I can’t thank Alex Smith enough for everything that he did for me. All I did was ask him questions in the meeting room my first year.’ I look at my first year, that’s all I did with Drew Bledsoe.”
Still, not everyone had the coaches or teammates that Brady or Mahomes had in order to help them develop and become the great players they turned into. So, Brady is calling for coaches to step up their game.
“There’s not many people who even know what to do,” Brady said of coaches. “It’s not like they’re CEOs of businesses. A lot of times, they’re football coaches, with all due respect, they’re not running large corporations. As Bill Parcells said, they’re PE coaches a lot of times that get elevated to coaching positions.”
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