Bidding Him Adrew.

November 13, 1994: It's halftime of the Pats-Vikings game, and I've just turned the television off in anger (I know, it's difficult to believe). The Pats are 3-6, they've lost four in a row, and they're losing 20-0 at halftime. It's one of those situations where the score doesn't even come close to indicating how poorly the Pats are playing; they should be down 40-0. The season is collapsing before my eyes, and I just can't take it any more. There's no joy in watching them play like that, so I decide to entertain myself in a rather unusual way for a Sunday afternoon in the fall: I do something other than watch football.
It wasn't until that evening that I learned the Pats had come back to win the game 26-20 in overtime. Drew Bledsoe completed 45 of 70 passes--both NFL single-game records--for 426 yards and three TDs, including the game-winner in OT.
The Pats wouldn't lose another game in the regular season, winning seven in a row and making the playoffs as a wild card team. Two years earlier, they had been 2-14.
That day, in my opinion, was the beginning of it all--the beginning of the team that now stands as the benchmark for success in the modern-day NFL. That day was when the Patriots became the Patriots. And we have Drew Bledsoe to thank for that day.
Drew was an easy target after he left the Pats, playing for an inferior divisional rival, occasionally stumbling and fumbling around, and eventually getting replaced not only in Buffalo, but later on in Dallas, by younger guns. Meanwhile, his original team won two more Super Bowls, and all his success with the Pats was overshadowed by a guy who appeared to have come straight off the assembly line of the Acme Quarterback Factory.
Funny thing was, that guy was Drew just a few years earlier: first pick in the 1993 draft, great size, a cannon for an arm, smart, and a model citizen in the community. The perfect specimen of quarterback.
So what happened?
Well, honestly--and this seems to get easily forgotten--a lot of good things. Drew put up Marinoesque numbers, and he also won a lot of games. He led the team to the Super Bowl in '96. He was well-liked by everyone--fans, teammates, coaches. Although he regressed a bit (along with the rest of the team) at the end of the millennium, he was still a damn good player (he was a Pro Bowler as recently as 2002), and the team was competitive, even without the Tuna.
So although he's probably not leaving on the exact terms he would have liked, I don't think anyone should be feeling sorry for Drew. He has a Super Bowl ring, he has a boatload of impressive stats, he has an even bigger boatload of money, and, hopefully, he has his dignity and self-respect. He was, quite simply, a good guy, who played the game the right way. While some might remember the occasions when he suffered from brain lock or showed something less then perfect coordination, I will remember two of his many successes, the bookend performances of his Patriots career: the very last game of his rookie season, when he hit Michael Timpson in the right corner of the end zone to beat the 'fins in OT, ending the season on a four-game winning streak and planting the seedlings of what was to come; and his relief perormance in the 2001 AFC Championship Game, where he earned his ring with a performance that must have been scripted in Hollywood.
Yeah, Drew . . . you were alright.