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The new millennium could have started with the drafting of a generational QB for the New York Giants. In 2000, the opportunity to draft the now seven-time Super Bowl Champion Tom Brady was on the table for Big Blue.
Unfortunately, the advice of then-NY Giants offensive coordinator Sean Payton was ignored, and as we all know, the New England Patriots hit the jackpot with the 2000 NFL Draft's 199th pick instead.
Sean Payton tried to get the New York Giants to take Tom Brady in the fourth round of the NFL Draft
Payton had exactly one member of the Giants organization who supported the idea of drafting Brady. Raymond Walsh similarly vouched for the Michigan product, but the G-Men ultimately passed on every single QB on the board in 2000.
It was hard for Payton to convince the organization on a guy who wasn't impressing at the NFL combine. The Super Bowl-winning coach with the Saints went through the entire pre-draft process with Brady, though, and described the experience to CBS Sports:
"So I'm in New York, and my agent is Don Yee, and Don also represents Tom Brady. Don would periodically call me with a client that he just signed, and he said, 'Hey! Will you call up Tom Brady? He's at Michigan, and I've got him, and just help him out with things that would be important for him at the combine.' Basically, I remember it being a half-an-hour phone call on what's important. Make a good impression, be prepared to answer some football questions. The interviews were much more informal at that time."
"We were (scouting) Brady. Now, this is going around the room, and everyone's seen Tom run the 40 at the combine. Everyone's seen, you know, you get the body, weight in pictures, all of that. So, you have a guy who is not fully developed yet, who was pretty much a one-year starter. You could tell that he needs the weight room. But Lloyd Carr (Michigan head coach) said this, I'll never forget it, he said, 'He's the toughest player that he's ever coached.' That meant something."
The New York Giants ended up becoming a Tom Brady killer in the Super Bowl
Until February 2018, New York laid claim to being the official Tom Brady killers in the Super Bowl. Besides Big Blue, no other team was able to beat Brady in the big game until Nick Foles and the underdog Eagles edged out the Patriots in Super Bowl LII.
If Eli Manning's career is deemed Hall of Fame worthy by voters, it'll be largely due to his triumphs four years apart against two distinctly different and dominant New England squads spearheaded by #12.
None of that would have happened had Brady been taken in the fourth round by New York in the 2000 NFL Draft. As fate would have it, though, Sean Payton wasn't persuasive enough to goad the G-Men into going for a physically unimpressive 23-year-old Tom Brady.
