Who are the biggest "what if" players of all time?

[TheFrenzy]

Originally Posted by gwgecko

Yeah, I still say if Bledsoe doesn't get hurt and keeps losing, and the 2001 Pats are like 1-5, then Brady probably gets some starts that year and an opportunity to win the job in 2002.

Edit:I don't think Brady was drafted with the intent to replace Bledsoe as the starter, but I think after going 5-11 in 2000 and starting 0-2 in '01, Bledsoe's starting days were numbered even if he didn't get hurt unless he and the team started playing a lot better. Belichick wasn't going to let Bledsoe tank his job with the Patriots if he wasn't performing.

That's funny because Benedict does in fact have quotes regarding how Brady's teammates felt about him taking over:

Members of the Patriots defense certainly didn’t have a lot of faith in Brady.“Bledsoe had the ability to carry a team and throw for four hundred–plus yards,” said linebacker Tedy Bruschi. “We didn’t think Brady could come in and do that. Everyone believed it was going to be harder. Tom had shown us nothing except for good practices. He was still learning.” When linebacker Willie McGinest learned that Bledsoe would be sidelined indefinitely, he warned his defensive colleagues that they’d have to shoulder the load. “Our mentality on defense at the time was that we were the catalyst for the team,” said McGinest. “It wasn’t as if our offense had been scoring forty-five points a game anyway. So when Drew went down, we were like: ‘F*ck it. If our offense only scores fourteen, we can only give up ten. We really gotta shut teams down.’"