INDIANAPOLIS — Tom Brady [stats] doesn’t think back to his time at Michigan much. This week, especially, he’s too consumed with preparing for a Giants defense determined to make his life miserable to focus on anything else.
But Brady said in the buildup for Super Bowl XLVI last week he wouldn’t be where he is today — a win away from joining Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw as the only quarterbacks with four Super Bowl rings — without his five seasons as a Wolverine.
“I think I was very fortunate in college to go through some pretty stiff competition,” Brady said. “A lot of the lessons that I learned when I was 18, 19 years old have served me well when I was 23 and 24. This game is about competition. You have to compete every single day in practice, because if you don’t, you’re not going to be around very long.”Brady’s path from contentious college starter to NFL icon is well documented. He went 20-5 as a starter at Michigan, but split time as a senior with local schoolboy legend Drew Henson.
In the 2000 NFL draft, Brady fell to the sixth round, pick No. 199 overall, and was the seventh quarterback taken. The luminaries in front of him: Chad Pennington [stats], Giovanni Carmazzi, Chris Redman, Tee Martin, Marc Bulger and Spergon Wynn.
That group served to motivate Brady, who barely played as a rookie and has barely come off the field since. Drew Bledsoe was injured in the second game of the 2001 season, and Brady started the final 14 games. He led the Patriots [team stats] to a 44-13 victory in his first career start and their first Super Bowl later that year, 20-17, over the St. Louis Rams.
In the 10 years since, Brady has two more Super Bowl rings — the Patriots won back-to-back titles in 2004- 05 over the Carolina Panthers and Philadelphia Eagles — and two NFL MVP awards. But he also missed most of the 2008 season with a knee injury and experienced the sting of losing a Super Bowl, four years ago to the same Giants he’ll face today.
“I don’t think it’s just that 2000 NFL draft (that motivates me),” Brady said. “What you’re always trying to do as an athlete is prove it to yourself. You go through a college career and think you do a decent job — not that you get overlooked, it’s just that there are other guys who they feel can do a better job — so you just keep working hard, you just keep believing in yourself and looking for your opportunity.”
Pressure cooker
Brady was at the top of the NFL when the Patriots and Giants squared off in the Arizona desert four years ago and New York had the perfect blueprint to beat him. They harassed him with their defensive line, rolled up five sacks and held New England’s high-powered offense to 14 points, the second-lowest total by any Super Bowl team in the p ast 10 years. Brady suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament seven months later, and some Giants say they’ve seen a different quarterback in the four years since.