Kellen Mond Believes Tom Brady Is The Greatest Athlete Of All Time
BOSTON (CBS) -- Mostly everybody in the football world believes that Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback of all time. But soon-to-be NFL draft pick Kellen Mond believes he's even better than that.
Ahead of this week's draft, the former Texas A&M signal-caller sat down for an interview with Pro Football Talks' Mike Florio. Among the topics covered was which NFL quarterbacks would leave Mond the most starstruck. Mond said Drew Brees would have fit the bill, but he retired. Mond then went to bat for Tom Brady as not just the greatest quarterback of all time but the single greatest athlete to ever play sports.
"I think -- I don't know necessarily how this statement will go, but I think Tom Brady's the best athlete of all time," Mond told Florio. "A lot of people would probably say Michael Jordan or multiple other different sports, but I think there's one thing about being a quarterback, and also being an offensive player in the NFL, and for a quarterback, you have to get 10 other guys on the same page as you. Whether if you're a track athlete or you're a basketball player -- you know, LeBron James, he may be able to win a championship with him doing it all on his own to a certain extent. But Tom Brady, just showing what he's been able to do on two different teams and get everybody on the same page and go out and win Super Bowls, it's truly amazing to see what he's been amazing to do."
Brady, of course, is a seven-time Super Bowl champion and a five-time Super Bowl MVP, having just secured his most recent championship in February, at the end of his first season with the Buccaneers at age 43. It's a résumé that nobody else can claim and nobody else likely ever will. And considering quarterback is a uniquely challenging position in sports -- both for the physical challenges as well as the requirements to drive an entire offense -- Mond has endless respect and admiration for Brady.
"So one, just me being a lover of the quarterback position but also a fan and just watching him and being able to learn from him, that's definitely a person I would like to meet," Mond told Florio. "I think a lot of people, when they look at leadership, it's somebody who's just constantly yelling or cussing. But I think one of the traits that I think I embody that I've also been able to expound on and learn is just poise. You know, you look at Tom Brady, just watching him this past Super Bowl, every time the camera was panned to him, he was just on the sideline looking down. He wasn't rattled. It didn't matter if good things were happening or bad things were happening. He's just constantly always poised. And so you see that, when he's able to get onto the field, it doesn't matter the down and distance, that translates over to his confidence, and I feel like that's a huge reason why he's been able to have success and he continues to have success."
It's unknown when Mond will get drafted this week, and it's unknown which team will add him to the roster. Likewise, it's unknown if the Patriots are interested in drafting him.
But what is known is that when it comes to quarterbacks to look up to, Mond clearly has taken an interest in learning from the very best.