Tom Brady figured Patriots would draft quarterback

Tom Brady doesn’t always comment on a new QB arriving in town, but when he does, it’s with his usual cautious candor. Brady toed the company line and kept the ball in coach Bill Belichick’s court when asked about the prospect of yet another quarterback being drafted.

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“I had a pretty good idea we’d take a quarterback,” Brady told MMQB’s Peter King.

“Coach Belichick doesn’t care who the quarterback is here. He’s always going to play the guy who he thinks gives him the best chance to win. It’s not my role to choose players here, thankfully. And this is not the first time they’ve taken another quarterback either. There’s no entitlement in the NFL. I don’t expect to be given anything. I just hope I’m the one most entitled to play that position for a long time here.”

You probably don’t have to cross your fingers too hard, Tom. Something tells me you’re going to be OK in a QB competition with Jimmy Garappolo.

The most interesting line of the quote is the ‘Belichick doesn’t care who the QB is here’ bit.

Does Tom mean to say that he even considers himself irreplaceable? Doubtful.

Rather, one has to wonder if Brady is tired of Belichick’s draft strategy.

Instead of beefing up the skill positions around Brady, Belichick continues to use draft assets to either trade back and get more unnamed assets or to add another mid-round quarterback.

The Patriots used a third-round pick on Ryan Mallett in 2011, then a second round pick this year on Garappolo. What could they have gotten instead of those? It’s hard to judge on this year’s draft because we know nothing about those prospects as NFL players, but a look at 2011 shows Belichick could have added tight end Jordan Cameron among others with that 74th pick.

Hindsight is a beautiful thing, but it’s still tough to tell what the thought process was in drafting a guy in 2011 who’s made four NFL throws in three seasons…then to draft another with a valuable pick a few years later.

Only Bill Belichick knows for sure, but one wonders how curious Tom Brady is about this whole thing, and what this means for the Patriots in two to four years.