Bill Belichick Makes Understatement Of The Century On Drafting Tom Brady Over Tim Rattay: 'I Guess We Took The Right One'
BOSTON (CBS) -- The NFL may have had to cancel this year's Hall of Fame game due to poor field conditions, but with the game originally scheduled for Sunday, reporters asked Bill Belichick about the time he coached the 2000 Hall of Fame Game between the Patriots and San Francisco 49ers. In looking back on the game, Belichick recalled the best draft best decision of his career.
A then-relatively unknown sixth-round pick out of Michigan named Tom Brady played sparingly in that game, going 3-for-4 passing for 28 yards while ceding most of the snaps to Michael Bishop. But on the other side, Tim Rattay went 10-for-21 playing quarterback for the 49ers. Belichick drafted Brady just 13 selections ahead of Rattay in the 2000 NFL Draft - and when asked about the game in Sunday's presser at Patriots training camp, he couldn't help but make the comparison.
That was an interesting game because we started out a little bit on the Tim Rattay trail and Dick Rehbein went down there and worked him out at Louisiana Tech, or wherever he was from. They ran a big spread-offense and he had a lot of big numbers and all of that and we kind of liked him and thought that might be a late-round pick. Then we got on [Tom] Brady, so it was kind of Brady and Rattay in that seventh round. Then, as luck would have it, we took Brady and they took Rattay and then they were playing against each other, and so we kind of got a look at that, those two quarterbacks in the sixth round, or whatever Brady was, but the same thing. I guess we took the right one.
Rattay is not one of the infamous "Brady Six," the quarterbacks selected ahead of Brady in the 2000 Draft where No. 12 famously went 199th overall. Giovanni Carmazzi (65th overall), however, was one of the six, and he also played in the Hall of Fame Game for the 49ers.
So while San Fran may have been unfortunate to select just after Brady went to New England, they had as good a chance as anyone to beat the Patriots to their future Hall-of-Fame quarterback. Belichick may not have known exactly what he had at that moment in 2000 and seldom shares his thoughts on past draft day decisions, but he is at least willing to occasionally give a nod to how momentous it obviously was to draft Brady over Rattay.
