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Tom Brady Weighs in on Patriots’ Decision Not to Start Drake Maye

Stephen Douglas

Tom Brady on ‘The Herd'
Tom Brady on ‘The Herd' /
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Tom Brady will call his first NFL game on Sunday as the Dallas Cowboys visit the Cleveland Browns in America's Game of the Week on FOX. Brady will call the game alongside Kevin Burkhardt and be the first person to break down Dak Prescott's contract situation and Deshaun Watson's recent struggles.

On Tuesday he joined FS1's The Herd to talk football with Colin Cowherd. Cowherd asked Brady if he would sit or start Drake Maye in the wake of Jerod Mayo's slightly confusing decision to name Jacoby Brissett the starter in Week 1.

Brady favors young players sitting, as he himself did.

"I've gone on record to say that I think that it's best in my opinion for young quarterbacks, or rookie quarterbacks to kind of watch a veteran do it," said Brady. "There's so much that goes on and quarterbacks need to process so much information so quickly and I think if you can have someone—I sat behind Drew Bledsoe my first year. What a great player he was. Someone that I got to watch and learn from. Aaron Rodgers watched, behind Brett Favre. Patrick Mahomes watched behind Alex Smith."

"So when you have.a real pro in front of you they can help with that learning curve," Brady continued. "Even though that young quarterback isn't necessarily going out there and losing confidence what his abilities are. Ultimately those young quarterbacks are going to get opportunities. The franchises need those young quarterbacks to come in and take a big step and lead that franchise on into the future. I just like to give them a little bit of time to acclimate themselves to the pro game, the pro schedule. I mean it's a big difference between college football and professional football."

Needless to say there was not quite as much interest in Brady starting his rookie year on the bench, despite the fact that Drew Bledsoe was coming off a season where he threw more interceptions than touchdowns. There are just slightly different expectations for first round picks like Bledsoe and Maye than there are for late round guys like Tom Brady.

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Stephen Douglas

STEPHEN DOUGLAS

Stephen Douglas is a Senior Writer on the Breaking & Trending News Team at Sports Illustrated. He has been in journalism and media since 2008, and now casts a wide net with coverage across all sports. Stephen spent more than a decade with The Big Lead and has previously written for Uproxx and The Sporting News. He has three children, two degrees and one now unverified Twitter account.

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