How do you feel Pats fans?

Also 206 interceptions, at least half of which were completely hilarious.

Although his last couple of years were "interesting" he was a very good player.

Someone is going to look at the numbers and the Super Bowl appearances and will say 'Drew Bledsoe should be in HOF'.

We should recognize him for what he was-a very good player.

Godspeed, Drew. You always fought the good fight.

But did you really, positively have to get injured in 2001? I mean... couldn't you just let that stupid backup of yours rot on the bench a couple of years, then get tossed out of the league? That was a really selfish, clasless move, man.

In all seriousness, though, too bad he's retiring. I hope he's not going out too battered (faint hope, I know).

But did you really, positively have to get injured in 2001?

Or at least thrown one of those interceptions towards the end of the first half of the AFC Championship Game, when you finally saw the field.

Ironically, Drew's most clutch career performance came as a backup.

I don't know how to really feel. Honestly, he should have retired two years ago. Mitigating this, I'm so Blue Dredsoe Psychic at this point I could call his interceptions, sacks, or sack-fumbles before the snap with a great degree of accuracy. Thrown in for good measure, he was the first Quarterback I ever rooted for as a mid 90s Pats fan. He's probably the player I've learned the most about over my years watching football, and I'll always remember him.

As a Pats fan I am sad to see him go. I rooted for him when he was a Cowboy (not when a Bill) and hoped he could have done well, but it was not to be. People will remember him for his last two years rather than what they should, that he was a gunslinger and made beautiful music with Terry Glenn.

I'll give Drew credit, he was a very good quarterback during his prime. Definitely not a guy I would have wanted to face.

That said, he really should have hung it up before he did. He didn't go out kicking and screaming, per se, but it was obvious the last couple of years that he should have retired sooner. Hopefully he got out with his health.

Either way, he seems like a good guy, and I wish him the best in his future endeavors.

I'm a Patriots fan, and I was a huge Bledsoe fan. I remember celebrating the night before the 1993 Draft when I learned the Pats would be selecting Drew Bledsoe, and not Rick Mirer.

I hated the way some Pats fans turned on Bledsoe after 2001.

At least he is not a first pick bust !
That's quite an accomplishment to success under the pressure of being the first overall pick.

He is the guy who forced Big Tuna to pass on almost every play one season with NE !

I'm happy he avoids the "mentor role".

Poor Drew just came into the league about 7 or 8 years too late. Big immobile QBs with canon-arms who take deep drops and fire the ball downfield used to be awesome players. Nowadays its all hot-reads this, option route that, and dealing with zany blitz packages.

Thanks, Drew, for making the Eagles pass rush look like absolute gods. We couldn't have done it without you...

More seriously, I remember his good years. He was a really good player in his prime.

My take on Drew...

If he had some into the league in the 1970s he would have gone down as probably the greatest QB ever. Put him behind the kind of line you could build and keep pre-free agency and add some deep burners and he would have been amazing.

Sadly for him, he entered in the mid-1990s. He was good for a while, but when the defenses passed a certain threshold of speed and complexity, he just couldn't deal. He couldn't or wouldn't do his progressions or check down. He had no feel for the pocket. And he locked onto receivers too often.

And while it was great for him to have his mini-Superbowl in his swan song in the AFC title game against Pittsburgh, don't forget that after he finished off the drive on which Flowers cheap-shotted Brady, he did nothing aside from one key 3rd-down completion. I'm sure Patriots Nation was face-palming after the "throw ball backwards over head while facing away from the defense" play.

As for people turning on Bledsoe, I think some of it was deserved and highlighted by the contrast with Brady. Not just the wins (though that was certainly part of it), but because unlike Bledsoe, Brady (like most of his QB peers) was willing to work on his game year-round (as opposed to hanging out at the Montana ranch for long periods after the season ended) and noticeably improved, whereas it was clear to all but the most hardcore Bledsoe-krishnas that he had (1) peaked and more damningly (2) didn't seem terribly concerned about that fact.

As a Pats fan it was also interesting/amusing seeing fans of each team he was traded to say how awesome he was going to be for them, and then within half a season start complaining about all the things Pats fans had seen as Pats fans nodded in quasi-sympathy.

All that said, any Pats fan has to be thankful Bledsoe was chosen instead of Mirer and give him his due as someone who along with Parcells and Kraft finally pulled the team out of its then 30+ year history of being a laughingstock.

Mmm... this gives me more time to eat burgers.

As a Bills fan, I remember two Bledsoes. First, he was great. For exactly 8 games in his first year in Buffalo. After that, he was just bad. It was like he'd been exposed or something.

Second, he was always professional. Not a word validly used to describe many "pro" athletes. I'd like to see him get into broadcasting.

12- That's funny that you juse described Jemarcus Russell.

Drew Bledsoe was a means to the End for you Pats fans.

What a pity that tonyhomo.com isn't still running..

He could be blogging for months on this news...

As for Bledsoe he turned into a dinosaur in this league and he did not quit in time.

The points about Bledsoe's being "of the wrong era" are apt. But it's interesting to note that Bledsoe's era was a bad one for virtually all young quarterbacks. If an argument is ever made for putting Drew in the Hall of Fame, it'll be by comparison with the Klinglers, Marinoviches and Georges drafted around him.

Between Aikman in 1989 and Manning in 1998, the only surefire HoFer drafted at QB was Brett Favre. McNair was probably the next best, and certainly the only other passer with as worthy a claim as Bledsoe.

Yet during that "era", Bledsoe was one of many QBs that put up big single-season numbers. Once or twice. However, he was able to kick around for longer than Erik Kramer, Chris Miller or Elvis Grbac.

I agree with PatsFan. Bledsoe was a victim of NFL front offices living in the 1970s while defensive co-ordinators got with the times.

#16,

Hahaha thank you so much for that! I had honestly totally forgotten about that blog!

Nice career, class act.

He'll be missed.

Drew Bledsoe should transition very well into a new career as an art school model.

His greatest contribution to the game was lending his name without approval or endorsement to TonyHomo.net. If thats not worthy of the Hall of Fame, I don't know what is. Hell, John Madden made it in on a video game endorsement.

Count me in the minority that still thinks Bledsoe would be an excellent backup, and also in the apparent minority that thinks we haven't really seen the last of him. Think he won't be right at the top of the short list of guys to call when someone loses two QBs by week 4? I think this "retirement" was driven more by the fact that no teams are interested in him right now than by his not wanting to keep playing.

#13: Eh. They beat the crap out of the line with Romo in there as well. Dallas just didn't have a good offensive line. When Romo came in, his mobility allowed him to mitigate it slightly, but when New Orleans showed he couldn't make plays in the pocket, the old problems showed up again.

Honestly, I'm not sure Bledsoe's problem just wasn't the fact that for the last 5 years, he's managed to find some of the worst pass protecting offensive lines in football. He's got a reputation for being a statue (and he is) but keep in mind: he was sacked about twice a game in 2004, and Holcomb and Losman were also sacked about twice a game in 2005.

Likewise with Romo: Bledsoe was averaging about 3 sacks a game in 2006. Romo started off with fewer - about 1 or 2 for a few weeks - but by the end of the season was hitting 3 and 4 sacks regularly again.

I actually think it's too bad Bledsoe wasn't content to be a backup. He probably would've been a good one for a better team.

Kinda sad to hear about this, mainly because of how he was treated in the media and by the respective fan bases over the past few years. I think that when compared to guys like Brady, Manning, and guys like Rivers and Big Ben who played well in the first years as full time starters, Drew looks bad. But when compared with his peers, he really stands out. Sure, he never won a ring, but if anything, the 2000 Ravens showed that you don't need a great QB to win a ring.

If anything, that would be the knock on Bledsoe, that he couldn't "manage a game" like some of the other QBs that have come into the league since he was drafted.

There goes my dream of seeing him in the Silver & Black. :*-(

#26 - Technically, Bledsoe did win a ring in 2001.

The 2000 Ravens and 2002 Buccaneers are the exceptions that prove the rule. You DO need a great quarterback to win the championship. The only alternative is building an utterly invincible defense, and the 2006 Bears showed us even that has limitations.

#29 - Thats not entirely fair to Brad Johnson. He had a very good year in 2002. He didn't throw for massive yardage but his stats were Top 5-10. His DVOA was 25% and he ranked 4th among starters. 22 TDs and 6 interceptions.

Put Trent Dilfer on the 2002 Bucs and you might not have a Super Bowl champion team. Remember they stomped Oakland defensively, and laid on some serious points to boot.

I have been a Pats fan since 1970 so I have seen the good, the bad and the downright embarrassing. I will always remember Drew, Bill Parcells and Bob Kraft as the three people who brought the Pats back to respectability. I loved Drew early and thought he was one of the three best in the NFL. After Brady replaced him, I gradually realized that once Parcells and Belichick left, he was exposed by them and never was the same QB again.

29- I wouldn't call the Bears D invincible. Especially without Tommy Harris.

30- Brad Johnson was an efficient quarterback.

Bledsoe took a lot of heat as being called a "statue", and the "old school" of drop back quarterbacks. A lot of fans would rather see the young mobile guys run around.

Re: 32

'Bledsoe took a lot of heat as being called a “statue�, and the “old school� of drop back quarterbacks. A lot of fans would rather see the young mobile guys run around.'

Actually, a lot of fans would like to see guys not not get sacked all the time. Manning is a statue too, but he doesn't take sacks and he's extremely popular.

Re: 32

No, we wouldn't like to see them run around. We would have liked to see Bledsoe demonstrate even a shred of pocket presence.

For example, Brady is almost as much of a statute as Bledsoe. However, Brady has a good sense of what's coming and can do that last-second step up or side step that gives him a chance to avoid the sack and get the pass off. Bledsoe was terrible at that.

Marino's another good example of how you can overcome being a statute. He had horrible mobility, but he had a quick release and could move just enough as the pressure was coming to avoid the sack.

I prefer Byron (the old school guy), who could be called the new Bledsoe, to Garrard (the mobile guy). And Jacquou de la Rivière too.
And the trend to go after scramblers seems to die.
Neither Russel nor Quinn are scramblers, neither Cutler nor Leinart, Croyle,or Jackson or Rodgers, Manning, Rivers...
Indeed, the only scramblers I can remind drafted before the third round recently are Young, Big Ben and Smith (if they can be qualified as scramblers).
rapid search :
in our new millenium, 35 QBs were selected in the first three rounds of the drafts, of them, I count 9 scramblers/mobile guy(Young, Losman, McCown, Vick, Carter, Tuiasosopo and Smith, Campbell, Big Ben). I can be wrong, I don't know all these players.
And in these nine players, three were picked the year the Vick experiment started...
I think a drop-back passer with a strong arm, good field vision and good delivery still rules.

I think it's pretty easy, on a day like today, to overrate Drew Bledsoe. Bledsoe was never a great passer. For his first few seasons in the league, he was notable for throwing tons of passes, having a low completion percentage, and amassing yardage through sheer persistence. After Parcells left, the Bledsoe/Pete Carroll era was quite painful to behold. The two of them characterized that era for the Pats: always good enough to win a bunch of games and look decent at times, but never so strong that the very good teams (esp. the Broncos) were threatened. The signature game for that era was when the Broncos slaughtered the Pats on Monday night, and Shannon Sharpe made his famous fake phone call to the President on the sideline.

Bledsoe was a good QB, but not a great QB. He had a terrible knack for throwing into coverage, and I always had the feeling that he would flounder against the best defenses. In short, he was exactly the kind of QB who would fail in the playoffs time after time. I think that would have been true no matter what era he played in. Having a strong arm (and he certainly had one) can only get you so far.

The contrast between Bledsoe and Brady has been stunning. All of the things that Pats fans hated about Bledsoe are not there with Brady. Brady doesn't try to win the game by himself. (Well, he usually doesn't.) He doesn't force passes into double- or triple-coverage. He doesn't stand motionless in the pocket until he the inevitable sack comes.

From the perspective of a Pats fan, Bledsoe will always be at about the Grogan level - pretty good, but not quite good enough.

As for the Hall of Fame, anybody who thinks his candidacy should even be considered is balmy. QBs are already over-represented in the Hall; we don't need to start including second-tier QBs. About the only QB of the Bledsoe generation who should go to the Hall (after Marino, Elway, Aikman et al, and before Manning and Brady) is Brett Favre.

As a Pat's fan I'll echo what #15 said above - Thanks Drew Bledsoe and best wishes! If it weren't for Kraft, Parcells, and Bledsoe the Pats would probably be playing somewhere else. There were some good times in NE before Drew left. It would have been nice if he had another shot at the SB, but it wasn't meant to be. Overall a decent NFL career with some great moments.

Good QB, but seemed like a class act off the field.

I agree that the passer is still king, but most fans don't know the difference between pocket prescence and mobility. Brad Johnson had excellent prescence in the pocket.

Mike Vick on the other hand is fast as hell, but dumb as a rock in the pocket. I don't know of any other quarterbacks that constantly LOOK at the Defensive ends rushing at them.

I wouldn't call Alex Smith, Jason Campbell and Toothlisburger scramblers. Yes they run sometimes, but they do go through their progressions.

Unlike some of these guys that make 1 read and then run. You know, like Mr. Mexico.

From the 2007 game charting info, one of the things we are currently looking at throw aways and sacks. Just a snipet of info, but behind substantially the same offensive line, Bledsoe ranked 4th worst in percentage of pass attempts that were throw aways (essentially sack avoidance) or actual sacks at 15.1% of attempts. Romo had an adjusted sack rate of 5.9% vs. Bledsoes 8.6%. Additionally, Romo had notably less pressure throw aways. His combined throw aways and sacks were less than half that of Bledsoe's at 7.3% of attempts.

Farewell Drew...

Bledsoe's first game as a Patriot was the first Patriots game I ever watched entirely through. I thought he was a fantastic QB. Something that a lot of non-Pats fans and younger fans probalby don't realize is that, for much of his career in New England when he was putting up big numbers, the Pats had no running game (I used to cheer when a Pats RB averaged 3.0 ypc), an iffy defense, and an only average O-line. Frequently, they were trying to come from behind, especially against the damned Marino-led Dolphins. Bledsoe was a gunslinger, much like Brett Farvre (and Packers fans will jump on me, but I think an argument can be made that Bledsoe may be as good as Farvre). He made beautiful music not just with Terry Glenn, but also with Ben Coates, probably one of the best TE's I have ever seen.

The comment that he was amazing for exactly half of his first season in Buffalo--it's no coincidence that his downturn took place when he had to face the Patriots. Nothing kills a QB with weaknesses in his game faster than having to face his old coaches, who know those weaknesses and who will demonstrate to the rest of the league how to exploit them. Matt Schaub, take notice of this.

I'm sorry he went to teams with poor O-lines--give him protection, and he'll get you yards and points.

But the comment about how Brady is superior because he works so hard is apt. One of the Patriots coaches was quoted in the Boston sports media not too long ago as saying that Bledsoe did everything that they asked of him with no complaints. No less...but also no more. He was professional and an exceptional athlete (in the ball-throwing sense and in the big, strong guy that is tough to tackle sense, not in the moving around in the pocket sense), but at the end of the day, he was held back by what holds back many exceptional athletes--he had so much confidence in his athletic skills that he never worked to become better the way Brady and Manning do.

There's a great Bledsoe story about how on the day after he signed his first contract he called his bank's automated customer service line.

The previous day he'd had like fifty bucks in his account, and on this day it was something like 14 million dollars. And he just kept hitting the repeat button to hear that automated voice say "your current balance...is...14...million...and..fifty...dollars"

I've always loved that story. Very talented player who always carried himself well.

I think it sucks that Simmons and others so eagerly tried to make him into a punchline.

"Manning is a statue too"

Actually, this past year Manning was significantly less of a statue. The difference in sack quantities was not huge (17 down to 14) but the latter was in over 100 more attempts, and just from what I saw with my own eyes he appeared to be moving around in the pocket and out of the pocket considerably more than in the past. It was like he took his one remaining flaw and minimized it.

I suspect that if Bledsoe were inducted into the HOF in a fit of madness, he'd have the lowest yards/attempt of any QB, possibly by a good .2 yards

What he lacked in quality he made up for in volume

All I remember is Manning being unable to pull away from Casey Hampton in the 2005 playoffs. Hampton didn't catch him, but Manning didn't run away from him, either.

44.

Again, most of Bledsoe's career was playing for a team with absolutely no talent. NE was AWFUL when he showed up. Thats important to note.

Bledsoe, at no point in his career, ever played for a truly great team. Dallas last year, was probably the best, and wasnt honestly that good.

Hes got better stats then a good deal of the QBs in the HOF (bradshaw for instance) (6% higher completion %, and 40 more TDS, with less INTs, 17K more yards in only 30 more games.... not to mention he played on a significantly worse team)

I think Manning's lack of mobility in the '05 Pittsburgh game is exactly why he was more mobile this year.

Look at the TD pass to Wayne in the Super Bowl where he stepped up in the pocket and bought just enough time to make that throw. A year earlier I think he gets sacked on that play.

RE: 20

speaking of hall of fame, neither steve mcnair nor drew bledsoe deserve to even sniff the hall of fame.

Speaking of the hall of fame, please don't get soft and try admitting every running back with half decent credentials.

...and Bledsoe is not nearly as good as Favre.

Maybe Bledeso's best is as good as Favre now, but not in his prime.

Rich,

I don't know...the '96 Patriots were pretty good. That was one of the few years when they had a half decent running game (Curtis Martin), Ben Coates and Drew Bledsoe were both in their primes, Terry Glenn was amazing everyone as a rookie, Chris Slade and Willie McGinest were terrorizing QB's up front, and it was the debut year of "the Lawyer and the Law" pass defense. Six Pro-bowlers that year. I'd say that team had a pretty good amount of talent. They just had the misfortune to run up against a slightly more talented Green Bay team in the SB, with Brett Favre playing the best he would ever play in his career, while their coach was ignoring them to interview for his next job.

Desmond Howard with the return that snapped their neck...

Then Al Davis overpaying to make him a Raaiiida

I was in Buffalo in July of '03, after Bledsoe's first season there, and the city was FULL of people in #11 jerseys. They all thought Bledsoe was awesome (yeah, they finished 8-8, but compared to the previous few seasons that was the Norman Conquest) and some of them even trash-talked me about it..."Hah, we stole Bledsoe from you guys, you guys are crying now, ha ha ha!"
I was in Buffalo a second time in October '06, to watch the Pats beat the Bills 28-6, and at the game and in the bars afterward I heard everyone kvetching about how their quarterback always sucks. It was summed up by a guy at the Anchor Bar announcing, "I hate Losman, I hated Bledsoe, I hated Johnson! The last good quarterback we had was Flutie and the team screwed him!" And everyone nodded in agreement.
I'm sad to see him retire, actually, since there seem to be so few athletes I could hold up to my sons as examples of how a man should act, and now there's one fewer.

"I don’t know…the ‘96 Patriots were pretty good."

Yeah, and bledsoe passed for 4K plus yards that year. It wwas around 98, IIRC, that bledsoe started looking like he was high everytime he played, and started throwing the ball at defenders.

wwas around 98, IIRC, that bledsoe started looking like he was high everytime he played, and started throwing the ball at defenders.

In other words, about the time that Curtis Martin went to the Jets, Pete Carroll got his system fully installed ('97 was still esentially Parcells' team), and Ben Coates and Bruce Armstrong started getting old, and Bobby Grier did nothing to replace these guys other than draft badly. Methinks these phenomena are not unrelated.

Lose your future HoF RB--check.
Have your star TE who could catch the ball even when covered start aging--check.
Have your Pro-Bowl left tackle begin showing sides of age--check.
Let a personnell guy and ineffective coach wreck the franchise--check.

No wonder Bledsoe's career took a downturn.

right MJK, and then he spent the next couple of years on totally innept franchises.

I'm really starting to think that bad lines destroy young quarterbacks. Not just destroy their stats, but create bad habits, and ruin the rest of their careers.

Drew Bledsoe and Kurt Vonnegut on the same day?!

Here's the thing, though. I probably haven't revealed this yet, but I'm 15. My earliest football-related memory was Super Bowl XXX, or whichever one was Green Bay-New England. For some reason, everyone was rooting for the Packers where I was, and considering I was five at the time, I became a Packers fan for the next few years until I realized that the home team was the Giants.

Anyway, Drew Bledsoe has always seemed to quarterback teams I don't like. The Patriots while I liked the Packers, the Bills while I liked the Jets, and the Cowboys as I now like the Giants. Now who will I root against?

ZS
Maybe you should start by picking a team to root FOR and stick with them, first.

Secondly, there is nothing wrong with hating the cowboys (or Notre Dame, but that's a discussion for another website) regardless of who is playing for them.

Bledsoe was a pretty good player and a class guy.

His career reminds me a lot of Craig Morton. Both were statues with a cannon arm and knack for taking the sack or throwing the pick at the wrong time in the big games. Coincidentally, both were replaced by all-time great QBs (Stauback & Brady).

BTW, Jamarcus Russell is comparable to Bledsoe, Morton and Leftwich. Hardly worth the top pick in today's NFL.

MJK #51
The only reason the Pats made the SB that year was because Denver choked against Jacksonville in one of the biggest playoff upsets ever.

Another random Bledsoe story.

Somewhere around 95-96, with the Parcells/Bledsoe machine in top gear, Parcells made a comment during the season that Drew's kid brother Adam was an even better QB that Drew.

That was a huge deal around here, where Adam was a local high school QB (which also employed Mr. Bledsoe as coach, I believe). Of course Adam never quite matched the standard set by Drew, but that had to be pretty cool to get namechecked by the Tuna on national tv.

Drew will likely not get into the HoF, but does New England have something they do for the team? Like a ring of honor or a hall of greats or something? It'd be a nice gesture for the guy, and the fans would probably dig it.

Goodbye Drew. You always seemed like a good guy and a true professional. Good luck with whatever you doi with your post playing career.

Mike
The Pats do have something like that, but it's not inside the stadium, yet (like other teams). They have something in a facility right next to the stadium in Foxborough. I would agree that he should have his number/jersey retired, if for nothing else than being a major factor--along w/Kraft and (as much as I hate to say anything positive about the guy) Parcells--in bringing the francise from a laughing stock, to an actual contender.

59- That's what I'm saying. Somebody earlier in this thread said ( in a negative tone), that Drew Bledsoe came in the wrong era... he is big, immobile, drop back QB with a strong arm.

That same fan probably thinks the Radiers should draft Jermarcus Russel because ( in a positive light), he's big, and has a strong arm.

I don't get it?

I remeber my disappointment in Bledsoe's performance with the '96 Pats against the Packers in the Super Bowl. Bledsoe had been merely adequate in the two preceding playoff games, but I fully expected this 4 year starter to have his breakout moment ( a la Troy Aikman's first SB).
Instead, he threw 4 picks, was sacked on consecutive plays by Reggie White (coming from his sighted side), and was a major disappointment. Bledsoe was quite good early in his career, plateaued there for a few years, then become a caricature of himself in terms of "statuesque" play.

His stats are a function of his longevity ... nothing more. He never developed, and the word in NE is that, unlike Brady, he never really worked at his flaws. It came easy to him early, and he continued to rely only on his ability when it was clear that it wasn't enough.

There was a real funny story about Drew in one of Bill Parcells biographies, but I can't remember them. I think it had to do with Drew on a billboard advertisement or saying something back to Bill ( dealing with parcells always hassling his quarterbacks).

Chris: Are you saying that, if you were Al Davis and/or Lane Kiffin right now, in charge of making the monstrosity that is the Raiders offense vaguely respectable, you'd turn down Drew Bledsoe's early career?

David. People are prasiing Jemarcus Russell for the exact same traits they say Drew Bledsoe is useless for and don't find it ironic in the least bit.

On the other hand, that same poster described what he thought a "newer" quarterback instead needed and described Brady Quinn. But oh yeah, he can't win the big game and will be the next Joey Scarrington.

Big F'ing Deal. Shoulda happened mideason 2002. Apologies if someone said this already, I haven't read every comment. The thing that bugs me the most about Drew Bledsoe (even more than the sacks, interceptions, stupidity, and overall suckiness) is the reputation he got as a "nice guy". Basically he's white and he said the right bland things at press conferences -- except when the going got rough. He didn't whine and blame others quite as much as Peyton Manning does, but he certainly paved the way.

69: Hey vanilla hater. Don Imus has an opening for you. Your Buffalo team has sucked for years...every QB whines when they get sacked non-stop. It's called challenging your OL to step up. Granted Bledsoe is no Flash, but he had the career that Testaverde and Jim Everett should of had with their talent.

If your talking about Manning after the Steelers game 2 years ago your off. The press kept repeatedly asking him questions about his blocking just so that they could get a sound bite of him talking about his blockers, so that it would fit with the "story". Eventually they ask him about the blocking, and YES it could have been better. He also said that it was partly his fault.

It's not like Manning ran to the Press after the game and started throwing his teammates under the bus.

Your boy Mike Vicks been doing it for years... Oh nevermind, they must have made it up because of his skin color.

Ooh I raised some hackles there. One impression I want to correct - of course I recognize that the Bills have sucked for years, why else do you think I'm grouchy? When I complain that Bledsoe sucks, I don't mean to say that the rest of the Bills since 2000 haven't sucked too. With enough time and better memory, I'd insult the rest of them by name too. If I didn't love them so much, I wouldn't bother to try.

Grouchy Bills Fan,

I wonder how much of the Bills' suctitude is karmic payback for squandering what was left of Doug Flutie's career...

Mike (61),

The Patriots do have a team Hall of Fame, of former Patriots who were significant to the team. Currently, it has 11 members, 3 of which are in the Pro Football HoF (it really should be 4, if ever the selectors would get off their butts and vote in Andre Tippet). I think it's quite likely that Bledsoe (along with Troy Brown and maybe Adam Vinateri) will be elected into it when they become eligible.

The team, like any team, can also retire a player's number to honor him (I think this is separate from the team HoF); however, teams are reluctant to do that given how few numbers they have to work with relative to training camp roster sizes and positional limitations on numbers. I don't thin #11 will be retired anytime soon.

Now that I think about it, Bledsoe would be an ideal fit for the Carolina Panthers. That offense would be great at hiding his weaknesses and making use of his talents:

Weakness-Solution
1) He locks onto receivers too often-Fortunately, it's ok to lock onto Steve Smith, because he's basically the entire Panthers offense anyway.

2) He's immobile, holds onto the ball too long, and takes too many sacks-Fortunately, Carolina's offensive line is good at pass protection (8th in the NFL in adjusted sack rate in 2006). All you'd need to do is go max protect and let Bledsoe throw to Steve Smith every play.

Am I crazy, or would this work?

Alex,

Substitute "Ben Coates" for "Steve Smith" and you just described the '94 and '95 Patriots offense.

#75: "Substitute “Ben Coates� for “Steve Smith� and you just described the ‘94 and ‘95 Patriots offense."

That's quite a stretch. In '94, when Coates had his only season with 1000+ receiving yards (1174), the Patriots had two receivers other than Coates gain 900+ yards, and in '95, Coates didn't even lead the team in receiving yards.

In contrast, in 2005, Smith was the only Carolina player to gain more than 500 receiving yards, and he had 1563. Even when he missed two games this year, he was still Carolina's leading receiver by over 300 yards.

I don't think they are really comparable in that respect.

#67 - I think it's pretty obvious that Chris is arguing that Bledsoe would not have Bledsoe's early years if he entered the NFL today, because the game has changed and Bledsoe-esque QBs are unsuited to the modern NFL. I think that's over-stating it a bit, but probably Oakland is the very worst place for a Bledsoealike to go. Having seen very little of Russell in action at all, I wouldn't like to comment on the aptness of the comparison. If he is harder working and better at reading defenses and making decisions than Bledsoe, he will very probably be a success. I have no idea whether or not he is.

Pats fans will always remember that '94 Minnesota game. That was Drew's finest moment. It is true that Drew helped "save the franchise" and deserves every Pats fans gratitude for that, but in fact he never did live up to the hype. He was probably the 4th best Pats QB in their history. I'd rank it like this:

1. Brady (no brainer)
2. Babe Parilli (sadly forgotten these days)
3. Steve Grogan (Bledsoe even at his prime was never as exciting or dynamic as Grogan in '76)
4. Bledsoe
5. Tony Eason
6. Jim Plunkett

No point in ranking anyone else.