ESPN's Mel Kiper Reveals Tom Brady's 2000 Pre-Draft Scouting Report

On April 16, 2000, the New England Patriots selected quarterback Tom Brady out of Michigan with the 199th pick in the NFL draft.

As the tape shows, ESPN’s NFL draft guru Mel Kiper did like the sixth-round pick at the time.

19 years ago today, the @Patriots selected Tom Brady with the 199th pick.

Since then:

• 14x Pro Bowler
• 6x Super Bowl champion
• 3x First Team All-Pro
• 3x MVP
• 81,693 career pass yds (including playoffs)
• 590 career pass TDs (including playoffs) pic.twitter.com/ZJ1Y06m7yV

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) April 16, 2019

But how did Kiper feel about the surefire Hall of Famer before he was drafted 20 years ago?

In honor of the 20th anniversary of Bill Belichick and the Patriots selecting their future franchise quarterback, Kiper has revealed his pre-draft scouting report on Brady.

Prior to the draft, Kiper had Brady ranked as the No. 10 quarterback in the 2000 class and had him tabbed with a fifth-round grade.

Kiper described Brady as a “smart, experienced big-game signal-caller” and noted that the team MVP at Michigan had gotten “very high grades in the efficiency department this past season.”

“He’s a straight dropback passer who stands tall in the pocket, doesn’t show nervous feet, and does a nice job working through his progressions,” Kiper wrote at the time. “He’s not going to try to force the action, rarely trying to perform beyond his capability. He threw a TD pass in all 16 games he started against Big Ten opposition, while tossing 15 straight completions during the second half of action this past season against Michigan State. He’s accurate, throws a very catchable ball, and also knows when to take a little off the pass.”

While Kiper may have been wrong about Brady being worse than all the quarterbacks who were drafted before him, his scouting report seems pretty accurate all these years later.

In his year’s draft, Kiper likes quarterback Joe Burrow going No. 1 overall to the Bengals, followed by Justin Herbert being taken at No. 5 by the Dolphins and Tua Tagovailoa going at No. 6 to the Chargers.

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Evan Bleier

Evan is a senior editor with InsideHook who earned a master’s degree in journalism from NYU and has called Brooklyn home since 2006. A fan of Boston sports, Nashville hot chicken and Kentucky bourbon, Evan has had his work published in publications including “Maxim,” Bleacher Report and “The Daily Mail.”