BakoSaint

I was thinking about it recently and believe it or not, Aaron Brooks and Tom Brady have a lot of things in common.

They are both 6'4" and were born in 1976 and 1977, both played 4 years in college, in the 1998-1999 season they both led 9 wins teams to bowl berths, where Virginia lost the Peach Bowl by 2 points (facing Georgia in Atlanta) and Michigan won the Citrus bowl against Arkansas.

Combining their junior and senior seasons, Brooks and Brady had nearly identical stats: Brooks 4601 yards passing, 32 TDs, 16 INTs, Brady 4644 yards passing, 30 TDs, 16 INTs.

They entered the NFL around the same time, 1999 and 2000 respectively, both as mid round picks, Brooks in the 4th and Brady in the 6th. When they entered the league, they were both stuck on the depth chart behind the starting quarterbacks of Super Bowl 31, played in the Louisiana Superdome, Brett Favre and Drew Bledsoe.

Brooks took no snaps his 1999 rookie season and was traded to the Saints in a package for a 3rd round pick pick in the 2000 offseason, when the Patriots drafted Tom Brady, who took almost no snaps his rookie season (1 for 3 passing on the year). In the 2000 offseason both joined new 1st year head coaches who were previously defensive coordinators under legendary head coaches named Bill (Cowher, Parcells), who went on to make the hall of fame and both win and lose Super Bowls.

The Saints greatest achievement prior to Brooks was appearing in the playoffs, but losing, which they had done multiple times, in the Louisiana Superdome, including blowouts in both their first appearance in the 80's (44-10) and most recent appearance in the 90's (36-20). In the 2000 season, his first year as a starter and second year in the NFL, Brooks replaced an injured Jeff Blake, a veteran QB from a draft class 7 years before his own, and carried his team to its first ever playoff victory where he achieved the franchises proudest moment to date and exorcized their past demons in the Louisiana Superdome with a win over Kurt Warner's Rams by a 3 point margin of victory despite Kurt Warner having a big game passing for 365 yards.

The Patriots greatest achievement prior to Brady was appearing in the Super Bowl, but losing, which they had done multiple times, in the Louisiana Superdome, including blowouts in both their first appearance in the 80's (46-10) and most recent appearance in the 90's (35-21). In the 2001 season, his first year as a starter and second year in the NFL, Brady replaced an injured Drew Bledsoe, a veteran QB from a draft class 7 years before his own, and carried his team to its first ever Super Bowl victory where he achieved the franchises proudest moment to date and exorcized their past demons in the Louisiana Superdome with a win over Kurt Warner's Rams by a 3 point margin of victory despite Kurt Warner having a big game passing for 365 yards.

Kurt Warner only lost 4 playoff games in his career. The Quarterbacks who defeated him were Aaron Brooks, Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger, and Drew Brees. These 4 quarterbacks have combined for 10 super bowl wins and all except Brooks are expected to be inducted into the hall of fame. In eliminating Warner from the playoffs, Brady threw for 145 yards with 1 TD, Brees for 247 yards with 3 TDs, Roethlisberger for 256 yards with 1 TD, and Brooks for 266 yards with 4 TDs.

Brady and Brooks were both very durable QBs initially, being among the only about 10 QBs drafted before 2000 who started their career with 80+ consecutive starts once they won the starting job.

Both Brady and Brooks never saw a head coaching change on their first team they started for. After leaving that team, both went to teams named after some form of sea pirates (the Raiders and Bucs), hoping to get back to the level of play those teams had under John Gruden or with John Gruden's players, when both teams reached their last peak in Super Bowl 37 against each other.

While Brady had success making Tampa forget Jimbo Fisher QB project Jameis Winston who immediately preceeded him in Tampa, Aaron Brooks struggled with injuries, leading the Raiders to draft Jimbo Fisher QB project Jamarcus Russell to proceed him, who the Raiders then immediately wanted to forget also.

Maybe there are more things in common, anything else I am missing?

Obviously Brady is the GOAT and Brooks is mostly forgotten, but I think its interesting to consider how similarly they started their careers in circumstances and results, especially both beating Warner in the playoffs under such similar circumstances.

It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if Brooks ended up with Belichick and Brady with Haslett. I think Brady would be forgotten if he played with Haslett, and Brooks might have got a ring with Belichick, though probably not GOAT status.

Another interesting scenario would be what if Brett Favre's health had broken down following Super Bowl 31 and Drew Bledsoe never missed a game for a decade, leading Aaron Brooks to inherit the Packer's starting gig and Tom Brady to be traded as expendable to the Saints under Jim Haslett, where he would emerge following an injury to Jeff Blake?

It is worth considering whether Tom Brady would have ever won a Super Bowl if Aaron Brooks had not beat Kurt Warner and the Rams a year earlier. Consider that the 2001 Patriots were playing the Super Bowl in the Louisiana Super Dome, at that time the most accursed and unfavorable venue in the history of their franchise, where they lost both of their previous Super Bowl appearances in blowouts by a sum total of 50 points. The Rams were highly favored and the Patriots were set up to lose in the last possible place they would want to play. The only silver lining for them was that the Rams had also been eliminated from the playoffs in the same Louisiana Superdome the year before. If Brooks had not beat Warner, if Hakim had not dropped the ball, then the Rams go into the Super Bowl in a stadium where they won a playoff game the previous year, against a Patriots team that had only been blown out in the stadium, and a game decided by only 3 points could easily have gone the other way against a more confident Rams team and a Rams fans base more enthusiastic to travel to New Orleans after a win the previous year. Honestly its very possible that had Brooks not knocked off Warner, the Rams would have won the Super Bowl in 2000 and faced Brady as back-to-back champs. True, they were only 10-6 that year, but Warner took a 9-7 team to the Super Bowl in 2008, and besides Brooks he only lost playoff games to Super Bowl winning HOF QBs, where beating Brooks he would only have had to go through Daunte Culpepper, Kerry Collins, and Trent Dilfer to win a ring. The path beyond that game was dominated by strong defensive performances by the Giants and Ravens, but those defenses did not have to face a QB like Warner in the playoffs who might have found the holes and forced their weak offenses to keep up. In fact, Warner beat both the Vikings and Giants in the regular season, and Warner's quick release would have been the perfect antidote to the Raven's pass rush. Losing the Super Bowl as a rookie perhaps would have shaken Brady's confidence, or perhaps the Patriots would have gone back to Bledsoe.

Another reason this is interesting to think about is man, I bought a lot of numbered Aaron Brooks rookie cards on Ebay the year he broke out and took us to the playoffs. Some were numbered like /3 or /10. If I had been a Patriots fan, or things had turned out a little differently, those would be worth something.

SmashMouth

Somewhere... Aaron is smiling and laughing.

saintsfan1976

Brady didn't smile after throwing interceptions.

BakoSaint

Belichick didn't teach Brady that excuses make the world go around, every loss is just a matter of a bad bounce, and you can always shrug and just say we have to execute better. Aaron Brooks smiled when he threw interceptions because his head coach taught him that nothing mattered, there was an excuse for everything, and also took away a weapon he had that Tom Brady didn't, in ordering him to stop running and become a pocket passer behind a suspect oline.

Aaron Brooks played better than Tom Brady in college and was a higher draft pick. In their junior and senior years combined, both threw 16 interceptions on about 600 attempts. In their rookie campaigns, both had similar INT%. Where things diverge is after their rookie campaigns, because one had a coach who demanded excellence and the other had a coach with an excuse for everything.

saintsfan1976

I wonder how many other QBs were "just as similar" to Tom Brady.

BakoSaint

I found a few more facts to add to the list, I don't think any other QB can beat this string of coincidences:

The Saints greatest achievement prior to Brooks was appearing in the playoffs, but losing, which they had done multiple times, in the Louisiana Superdome. In the 2000 season, his first year as a starter and second year in the NFL, Brooks replaced an injured Jeff Blake, a veteran QB from a draft class 7 years before his own, and carried his team to its first ever playoff victory in the Louisiana Superdome over Kurt Warner's Rams by a 3 point margin of victory despite Kurt Warner having a big game passing for 365 yards.

The Patriots greatest achievement prior to Brady was appearing in the Super Bowl, but losing, which they had done multiple times, in the Louisiana Superdome. In the 2001 season, his first year as a starter and second year in the NFL, Brady replaced an injured Drew Bledsoe, a veteran QB from a draft class 7 years before his own, and carried his team to its first ever Super Bowl victory in the Louisiana Superdome over Kurt Warner's Rams by a 3 point margin of victory despite Kurt Warner having a big game passing for 365 yards.

Although I guess Payton and Eli Manning have a lot in common too...