'Whatever doesn’t kill us, right?'

Bruised liver. Crushing Super Bowl loss. Internal bleeding. A job lost to the greatest ever. Drew Bledsoe got to the other side... and has many stories to share. Here's the written Q&A from our chat.

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If anyone deserves a glass of wine this fine autumn, it’s Drew Bledsoe.

The longtime NFL quarterback was a throwback. A gunslinger in his own right who took more licks in the pocket than he could ever count — from a bruised liver at age 15 to, yes, the terrifying internal bleeding in 2001 that changed football forever. And the great thing about Bledsoe? He’s always an open book. We first chatted when I launched Go Long — here's that convo — and Bledsoe was an excellent resource on Ben Coates for “Blood and Guts.”

With the 2023 NFL season underway, we thought it’d be a good idea to catch up again.

The audio and video was posted earlier but, if it’s words you prefer, here’s our chat from this week.

We touch on some current issues. Bledsoe has thoughts on Zach Wilson and Josh Allen.

But mostly, it’s another wild trip back in time.

Thanks, all. I’m down in Atlanta this weekend for Packers-Falcons and a couple other features. See you in the Gameday Chat.

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We chatted a couple years ago all about your rise, all the crazy stories from the early Patriot days. Bills memories. With a little bit of wine on the side. So, I figured we were overdue to BS again.

Bledsoe: My pleasure. It’s a little early out here for wine, so I’m on this tiny cup of coffee. We’ll switch to wine in a little while.

Watching that whole documentary on sommeliers changed my whole perspective on wine. Growing up, I was like, “Eh, you’ve got your reds and your whites.” It is endless. I’d love to know how many different types of wines there really are in the world.

Bledsoe: It’s borderline infinite. Just in terms of the different varieties. I think there’s something like 170 just in Italy. Trying to keep track of all of it makes my head spin. It’s also ripe to be made fun of. There’s people who take it way too seriously. At the end of the day, we’re making a beverage and it’s supposed to make you happy. We don’t need to go too deep into the details on every little thing. Sometimes, it’s great to just drink wine and enjoy it.

What’s your go-to right now?

Bledsoe: Probably Pinot noir. We’re doing a lot of Pinot, and we’re making some really good stuff out there in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. And then we just released a wine that I think is really super cool. It’s in honor of my Dad. It’s called “The Mac.” We just released that to our wine club. It’s a really cool looking bottle. It just says “The Mac” in script on the black bottle. The juice is just terrific. That one’s been a lot of fun here recently.

So, it’s Doubleback in Wala Wala, Washington. Bledsoe Family Winery. Anybody anywhere can get their fill?

Bledsoe: A lot of the wines are sold out. But people can get on there, get on our list, and we’ll let you know. Being sold out is a good thing. But we’re making more wine. So if you can’t get to stuff you want this year, hopefully you can get it next year.

Obviously, you’re here to announce that the Jets are trading for Tom Brady.

Bledsoe: Right, right, right. Inside knowledge. I know the scriptwriters for the NFL write some crazy, crazy shit. But I think writing a script where Tom Brady plays for the Jets, that’s a bridge too far. I don’t think that’s realistic.

Beyond Rated-R. Special screenings. Too cruel.

Bledsoe: It’s pretty crazy, though. I feel bad for Aaron. It’s going to be really interesting. We have some friends who have a kid on the team with the Jets. And the interesting thing they said was watching the improvement in Zach Wilson with Aaron there as a mentor. It’s been pretty dramatic. It’s going to be really interesting to see how Zach plays the rest of the year with the old Grandpa there as his mentor. But I feel bad for Aaron. I never feel bad for the Jets. I don’t really care if they ever win. But I do feel bad for Aaron and, honestly, that was going to be a really interesting storyline the rest of the year. It’ll still be interesting. I hope Zach Wilson plays well, except when he plays the Pats, and the Bills, and anyone else really. But I’m happy for the kid to get another opportunity.

I think everyone saw Zach Wilson against the Bills and said, “This is the same old Zach Wilson. He is terrible.” But you’re hearing progress? Maybe with a week of gameplanning he can find himself?

Bledsoe: He’s obviously a very talented kid. Everything I’ve heard out there is that Aaron’s doing a great job of mentoring him. Everybody’s going to miss being able to watch Aaron but it’ll be an interesting thing to watch.

There should be zero empathy for the New York Jets. Talk about cruel script-writing. It becomes folklore and we’ve talked about it before obviously. We don’t have to do the full blow-by-blow, but I don’t know if people really remember what you went through in 2001 (on the Mo Lewis hit) — physically. The internal bleeding. Your brother wondering if you’re dead. By the time you woke up there’s a tube in your chest pumping blood out and it’s getting recycled back in. They said they almost had to tear open your chest?

Bledsoe: Yeah, almost cut my rib cage open and went inside. But I made it through. Whatever doesn’t kill us, right? And ultimately, life’s been pretty damn good, man. So I don’t have any complaints. But, yeah, that was a crazy time in life for sure.

How did that all make you as a human being, beyond football?

Bledsoe: You go through something traumatic like that, I think in a lot of ways it’s harder for the people around you than it is for you personally. You get through it and keep living and go on. When you’re the person the thing happened to, you worry about it less than the people who are around you. Your loved ones around you. I’d love to tell you that I started to appreciate life more and be a little more cautious. But No. 1, I always appreciated life. And, No. 2, I didn’t really get more cautious. I would say I’m getting a little more cautious now. Maybe. Finally. Developing a little bit of that frontal lobe at the age of 51. But I made it through some crazy stuff. Before I started to get a little more cautious.

I’m so blown away by that desire to want to play the second you were able to play. You were out 51 days? When you were cleared? And you’re gung-ho. There’s no second thought. You said the only time you wondered if you’d play again is, “Well, is this other quarterback going to ever get off the field?”

Bledsoe: Yeah, right. If you’re going to do anything this dangerous, you have to live in the world of denial a little bit. We all think we’re invincible and 10-foot tall and bulletproof. I was just with Todd Rucci, who’s one of my dear friends from my playing days. We were drafted together. We were watching some football games. The two of us were sitting there — and he’s a little bit older, I think he’s 53. I’m 51. We’re watching these games and we’re like, “Can you believe we did that? It looks like that hurts. You lined up and ran into the strongest guys on the planet play-in and play-out, week-in and week-out. I stood out there back when they were able to hit the quarterback, and just got drug through the mud. Can you imagine if that happened now? They’d have to immediately take us to the hospital and have us on life support if that happened right now.” You have to live in that world of denial a little bit.

You were pretty close to that verbatim in 2001 and that decade before was the glory era for pro football. The 90s.

Bledsoe: It’s always been good and I think the game’s still great. But that was a good era, particularly for the Patriots. Just because we went from irrelevant to pretty relevant over that period of time. Yeah, it was a special time. And those were amazing teams to be a part of because we were so young. We had the worst facilities in the NFL — by a mile. So there was this underdog, us-against-the-world mentality. It almost felt collegiate in the business of professional football. Because we were so young. Because we were underdogs. Because we had bad facilities. It did feel like college, even though we were pros.

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You had to check out for the pair of socks (from the equipment staff). What else does it look like those early days with the Patriots?

Bledsoe: They actually had a soda machine in the locker room that you had to put money in. So you’re a player, if you want to buy a Coke, you’ve got to go throw 75 cents in the Coke machine in the locker room. It was not a great operation when we got there. Thankfully, the teams we were on changed it. And obviously when Mr. Kraft bought the team things really started to change from the way it was managed from the top-down.

Green Bay, similar. Early 90s. Pre-Ron Wolf, pre-Brett Favre, pre-Mike Holmgren. I don’t think anybody in the NFL can really conceptualize what it’s like being a professional athlete in that environment. How did you change everything with the New England Patriots?

Bledsoe: When you’re in the middle of something like that, you’re not stepping back and saying: “Hey, we’re going to change the culture of this thing and make an organization relevant.” You’re just going to work. You just go to work every day and try to get better every day. And then if you’re successful, you look back on it and it looks like it was a carefully orchestrated plan with these grand intentions. But we were young kids just trying to figure out how to win one game, and that was it. But in retrospect, being a part of that, it did change things. When you’re 21, 22, 23 years old, you’re not focused on making this big cultural change. Ultimately, because we had such a group of good people who were like-minded people who came from radically different backgrounds and came together to try to work hard every day, the fact that it was a big group of great people, we did end up changing the culture. But that’s certainly not what we set out to do. We set out to see if we could win a game. And then if we won that one, we tried to win the next one. But it was cool to be part of it now in retrospect.

Bill Parcells scared the hell out of some guys, right?

Bledsoe: He really liked playing that role of the godfather, especially if there were cameras around. He really liked it then. But he was definitely an intimidating guy for young guys. Especially the first couple times you meet him, you feel like it’s a movie character that you’re talking to.

You guys butt heads?

Bledsoe: When you’re 21, you don’t really talk back to him. A little bit later in my career, yeah, we butted heads a few times.

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I was just re-watching the Super Bowl against the Packers, and it was closer than maybe most people remember. You had a moment there. You had the lead.

Bledsoe: Yeah, we had the lead there for a little bit. I’ve actually never watched that game. It hurt. It’d hurt to watch it. When you get to that game and you don’t win it, it’s more painful than not having gotten there. So I’ve never watched that game. I do know that Desmond Howard ruined it. I did “GameDay” with him four or five years ago and I told him, “Man, I’ve still never forgiven you for ruining that Super Bowl.” In that four-year stretch to go from the worst team in the league to being in a big game, it’s pretty cool we were able to get there. But, man, when you get to play in that game and it doesn’t go your way? That’s really, really hard to swallow.

What are the good memories?

Bledsoe: There’s tons of great memories. That’s why I’ve never watched that game. I just focus on the good memories. There are millions of those. We had some great games that year. In ’94, we had the (overtime) game against the Vikings. Being in Foxborough, winning the divisional game against the Steelers and then being able to host the AFC Championship Game and win that in Foxborough when there hadn’t been playoff games there in so long was very, very cool. One of the things that happened for us that year was we played that divisional game on Sunday. And on Saturday, the Jaguars surprised everybody and beat the Denver Broncos who were the odds-on favorite to go to the Super Bowl. So all of a sudden, when the Jaguars do that, we’re looking at it like, “If we win, we get to play at home.” We were at Scott Zolak’s house watching that game and we got pretty fired up. Like, “Holy shit. If we can just find a way to win this game, we get to play next week at home.” Both things happened. That year, we had some people on the inside helping to write the script, and they wrote a good script for us. We enjoyed it.

Your style of play does seem like a lost art, as the quarterback — at your size, in the pocket, when you can hit the quarterback, pulverize the quarterback — taking shot after shot. Where did your toughness come from?

Bledsoe: My Dad was an offensive lineman. And both my Mom and Dad grew up on farms. They were both hard-working people. I remember when I was a sophomore in high school, I got my first start. I got hit. It ended up being a bad hit. I did go to the hospital after that one. But I’m laying on the ground. I’m 15 years old and I can’t breathe. I look over to my Dad on the sideline, who was coaching, and he just looks at me and goes: “Get up!” OK, I guess I’ve got to get up. I got up and I couldn’t call the play in the huddle because I couldn’t catch my breath. Kept playing. Staying down on the field was never really an option. That was never something that came into your mind. You just get up and keep going.

So when you went to the hospital, what happened?

Bledsoe: I had a bruised liver. A guy hit me in the gut and I bruised my liver. So I couldn’t play for a few weeks after that. But I finished the game.

I didn’t know you could bruise your liver.

Bledsoe: Yeah, I didn’t know that either until then. It’s usually something they see in car crashes. But it was never an option to stay down on the field. You just get up and keep going.

At 15 years old, it’d be really easy to say, “This football thing? There are other sports I can play.”

Bledsoe: Let’s go try tennis or something. But, no. I just loved it.

What about football kept you coming back for more?

Bledsoe: Everything about it. When you’re in high school, it’s the camaraderie with friends you’ve grown up with. Bus rides on Fridays going to your big game. Friday night lights with the whole town coming out, especially in a tiny little town like I grew up in. That was the big event of the weekend — the Friday night football game. So, everything about that. And then you get into the teamwork and strategy and all the tactical stuff you’ve got to go through. And then as it grows, you get to do that in college in front of 40,000 or 50,000 people, and then in the pros 70,000 or 80,000 people. A lot of people are watching. The whole thing is pretty magical.

In a locker room, you really do have people from every conceivable background needing to come together for a common cause. It’s not cliché and corny. There is something special about the sport that you can’t get in many other professions.

Bledsoe: It’s really true. When people talk to me about what I miss and what I enjoyed most about being able to play in the NFL, it’s usually the first thing I mention. In what other arena are you going to have this small-town kid from the wheat fields of southeastern Washington with guys who grew up in the city and Miami and guys from the deep south and surfer boys from California. Just radically different backgrounds and different perspectives on life and you get thrown together to work toward a common goal. The thing that I always point to, you hear about societal issues and all of these things that are going on. I think it’s something that should be pointed to as an example for how you do it. Because in the locker room, it’s not a touchy-feely place. (Laughs) You’re busting each other’s chops on a daily basis. But at the same time, there’s a great mutual respect in the locker room and equality never really comes up. We’re all equals and we know that there. It’s just “What can you bring to the table?” and “What can you do to accomplish your part?”

And, with that, there’s also these great conversations that go on. I remember talking to Bruce Armstrong about how he grew up vs. how I grew up and it couldn’t have been more different. I grew up in a place where I didn’t know where our house key was. We never locked our house. Bruce grew up with bullets flying. To be able to have those kinds of conversations with somebody you have great respect for in a very intimate way… and learn. That was the deal: I want to know what that was like. It couldn’t be more foreign to me. Bruce is the same way with me: “Tell me what that was like? What was it like growing up out there?” The funny thing is, there was one moment with Bruce. We’re sitting there. We’re having this conversation talking about what it was like for me growing up and what it was like growing up for him. He goes, “Man, we really grew up in different worlds, didn’t we?” I said, “Yeah, Bruce. We sure did.” He goes, “Man I’ve gotta tell you. I like your world so much better.”

It was a unique, cool thing to have guys who became — it’s cliché to say “brothers” — but guys who became very, very close friends who really counted on each other in a hostile environment and you came from such crazily different backgrounds. It was a great thing and something I feel blessed to have been a part of.

So, Bruce was from Miami, Fla. A little different.

Bledsoe: A little different. But Bruce and I are still friends to this day. I got to see him a few months back. It had been a long time. But we’re great friends. I love him to death. It was really cool to become that close with somebody who grew up that differently and really try to understand what that was like.

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Meanwhile, he’s protecting your ass out there. You’ve got Bruce Smith in the midst of a 200-sack career trying to rip your head off and this is the person impeding that from happening.

Bledsoe: That was my guy. I was always nice to those guys no matter what. They were taking care of me. They had my life in their hands, so I was going to take care of them no matter what. But Bruce (Armstrong) and I actually formed a pretty cool friendship as well. His battles with Bruce Smith were legendary. Those were two of the very best in the game at their respective positions. We always equated it to the Saturday morning cartoons where you’ve got the sheep dog and the wolf. They come in: “Hey, how you doing Bob? Good?” “Good. How’s the family doing?” “Good.” Then, they punch the clock and try to kill each other for the course of the day. And then at the end of the day, they come punch the clock and say, “Hey, tell your wife I said ‘Hi.’” But while they’re at work, they’re literally trying to kill each other. That’s what it was. Those battles were absolutely epic.

And like you said, it’s a different time. Any other hits — to this day — you’re proud to be able to take and get back up from?

Bledsoe: My very first game, at Buffalo. Bruce Armstrong, it was his first game back after a catastrophic knee injury so he wasn’t at 100 percent. Bruce Smith got the best of him. One time, he beat him inside and put on one of those hits on me that ended up being in one of his commercials. His Nike commercial the next year. It was the slow-mo one where I’m standing there and, all of a sudden, you see my head snap back as Bruce put his helmet right between my shoulder blades. Today, it would’ve been a $100,000 fine. But back then, it was just football. I popped back up and ended up throwing a couple touchdowns. They beat us in the last minute of that game. But I remember I got to meet Bruce Smith after the game. He was of course standing there talking to Bruce Armstrong. And “Army” said, “Hey, come over and say ‘Hi.’” I said, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Smith.” I had just watched him play in the Super Bowl a few months before that. Now, we’re playing against each other. But, yeah, he put one of those “for real” hits on me in that game. He goes, “Respect, rookie. I put a good one on you. You got up and kept going.”

Hearing that from Bruce probably carried a little weight as a rookie.

Bledsoe: That was cool. I just wanted his autograph.

That was the iconic commercial, right? “Bad things?”

Bledsoe: Very bad things, yeah. With Dennis Hopper. Exactly.

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The Bills days, there’s nostalgia. You guys came out like gangbusters in 2002.

Bledsoe: That was fun, man. We really had a great time playing in Buffalo. Most everybody who gets a chance to play in Buffalo — it’s very, very different from what people think from the outside. Particularly back then. It was, “Oh, man. I don’t want to be exiled to Buffalo.” But then you go there and, oh man, the fans are so loyal. The fan base is so strong. It’s a small town. Buffalo and Green Bay are the two small-town environments that NFL players get to play in. It was a really cool thing to be a part of. Very different from 30 other teams in the league in terms of how you’re embraced in the community. You go out to dinner and people are like, “Hey, good luck this week.” And that’s it. They’re not going to sit down at the table and break down your third-down calls. They’re just going to wish you luck. It was a cool experience to be a part of that.

What did you like doing in town here? Did you enjoy living in Western New York?

Bledsoe: We loved living in Western New York. And for us, we were a little bit older. We had kids. The thing that was different there, because it’s a small-town environment like that, the players all hung out together. Instead of everybody going out into the nightlife of a big city — we’d go downtown to Chippewa every now and then — but for the most part we’d just have get-togethers at guys’ houses. Maybe an after-practice beer at the Big Tree. We’d just hang out. We had a killer property there with fishing ponds, so we’d go out with the kids and they’d catch fish. I didn’t even know this was a thing, but we got to go to elk camp during the season. One night after a game. Hung out with the guys, trying to kill some elk. We went pheasant hunting during the season one time. It was very, very different from playing any place else. We really, really enjoyed it and the people were absolutely awesome.

You probably popped down to Jim Kelly’s hunting lodge in Ellicottville.

Bledsoe: Yes, exactly. That’s exactly where we went. It was cool, man. We absolutely loved it out there. And honestly I wish it could’ve lasted longer.

The ’02 team started 5-3. Set all those records. Even the ’04 team won six in a row and almost snuck in.

Bledsoe: We were off to the races and we just couldn’t sustain it. We had some injuries, particularly up front and we just couldn’t quite sustain it which was heartbreaking because we really, really wanted to bring a championship to the Bills. I still, to this day, and I’m always careful when I say this because I don’t want to piss off any Patriots fans. But, man, if the Bills finally do break through and win a championship, I might paint my face. The fans out there deserve one. They’ve been so loyal to the Bills for so many years. Making the Super Bowl four times in a row. As I was saying earlier, when you make it to that game and you don’t win it, it’s almost more painful than never having gone. I know that’s how the fans feel as well. They’re super proud of their teams. If the Bills finally do break through — and I know they will one of these days — if they break through and win a championship, I’m going to be pretty happy for all those fans out there.

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How would you compare Bills fans to Patriots fans? That was a fragile time for both fan bases, too. A lot of emotions all over the place.

Bledsoe: In Boston, the fans are just so diehard about all their sports. Sports radio has been a thing here forever and ever. It’s really where it took its foothold. So, it’s engrained in everything they do all day, every day. Their sports teams. In Buffalo, you’ve got the Bills and you’ve got the Sabres. But then people are also doing other stuff and living their life and so on. I would say the biggest difference I would point to — in Boston, you have a guy like Bill Buckner who had an amazing career as a baseball player. Makes one error at the wrong time and I don’t think he came back to Boston for many, many years after he retired. They finally brought him back and gave him a big ovation and took care of him. Whereas in Buffalo, Scott Norwood misses the kick that would’ve beat the Giants in the first of those four Super Bowls. They had the big downtown parade and rally after the season and he didn’t want to come out in front of the fans. Until the fans started chanting his name. So, he misses the biggest kick in the world that year and didn’t want to come out. And the fans demanded that he come out so that they could cheer for him. So if you want to put a dichotomy between Boston sports fans and Buffalo sports fans, there it is. Buckner couldn’t come back to town. Whereas Norwood, they forced him to come out and accept his applause. So, just radically different from that standpoint.

That’s such a great point, and unbelievable. When you’re the quarterback, too, they draft your replacement in the first round (J.P. Losman). And I imagine you’re hearing fans banging the table for this unknown to play. The fact that you have a lot of great things to say about the fans says a lot.

Bledsoe: We loved it. Fans are fans. They’re buying tickets. They’re paying our salaries. They get to express their opinion. I’ve never had a problem with that — ever. As long as it was done appropriately and not when I’m at dinner with my young family. In Buffalo, if we were at dinner, they might wave and say “hi” but that’s it. They were very respectful of us as players when we were there.

With these current Bills, Week 1, Josh Allen looked like a different Josh Allen. Four turnovers. He wasn’t himself. How can they get things back on track?

Bledsoe: They’ll get it going. The thing about the NFL is even with the turnovers and so on, it was still an overtime game. They’re a very, very good team. Josh is one of the best players in the NFL. It wasn’t his best night in Week 1, but they’re going to be in it. They’re going to be very relevant right to the very, very end. If they’re not a playoff team that makes a run, I’ll be extremely surprised. Everybody loves to overreact after one week of an NFL season. There’s 16 more of these games. Nobody’s going undefeated. Maybe somebody does, but the odds of somebody going undefeated in today’s NFL are ridiculously long. I think the Dolphins’ undefeated team can keep that champagne on ice. I’d be surprised if somebody’s undefeated through five or six weeks this year. There’s so much parity in the NFL. But the Bills will be there at the end. They’ll be in it. Don’t panic.

Do you enjoy the quality of play today? Like you said, it’s a totally different game.

Bledsoe: I do. It’s really fun to watch. They’ve made a lot of rule changes, which are all necessary and, in most ways, positive around player safety. They coddle the quarterbacks, of course. So all of us who played in the good ‘ol days are jealous of what they get to do now. You can’t touch ‘em. You can’t even really look at ‘em wrong now or you get a penalty and a fine. You can’t really hit the receivers. But from a fan standpoint, it makes the game incredibly fun to watch. So, I’m a big fan.

It is at the expense of football, though.

Bledsoe: It was a modern-day gladiator sport in a lot of ways. It has definitely changed. I’m not going to say I feel sorry for them, but I at least understand the misery of some defensive football players now where you come in — you get a free shot on the quarterback — and you have to figure out in the moment as you’re 1,000 miles an hour: “How do I go as hard as I can and then when I come to hit this guy, now I have to grab him and like pull him down on top of me?” And sometimes that can even be a penalty. Or if you’re in the secondary and you’re going as fast as you can to hit this receiver and then at the last second you’ve got to see the ball, see this guy and figure out how you’re not going to hit him too hard. So, I understand. I’m never going to tell you I feel sorry for them but I at least commiserate a little bit with the split-second decision-making and the split-second athleticism it takes to go that fast and then to be able to pull off and decide exactly how you’re going to hit this guy without getting a penalty requires really fast thinking and really incredible athleticism.

There was a play with Mahomes Thursday night where it wasn’t a total fake slide, but he kind of just pulled up a millisecond and you could see the Detroit player pause and lunge and miss him.

Bledsoe: Exactly. It’d be difficult. It’d be really, really difficult. But, again, admitting that I’m jealous. It’d be fun to play quarterback when they can’t hit you.

You look good. You sound good. Your memory is obviously sharp. Is everything on the inside OK?

Bledsoe: The NFL allows us to every five years get his comprehensive head-to-toe physical. I just got mine and got a clean bill of health. Brain seems to function fairly well most of the time, unless I drink too much wine. In which case, it slows down a little bit. But, yeah, I got a clean bill of health so I’m happy. It takes a little more effort when you’re in your 50s than when you’re in your 30s. But so far, so good.

Life today. What gets you up in the morning?

Bledsoe: Life today is good. We’re going to be on the road most of the fall selling wine. I don’t expect anybody to feel bad for me at all. It’s pretty fun. But traveling a bunch. We’re in Boston now, then back to Portland, then I go on this little odyssey. I’ll actually be back in Buffalo for the Dolphins game. It’s Chicago, Milwaukee, Kohler, Buffalo, Boston, then we’re going to London. Back to Philly. A lot of airplanes. But at the end of the day, we’re selling wine. It’s pretty fun.

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Drew Bledsoe, unfiltered