Brandin Echols had been hyping himself up all week heading into the Jets’ Week 17 matchup with the Buccaneers, where the one of the rookie cornerback’s football idols in Tom Brady would be leading the way.
For Echols, the best way to honor his idol would be to become one of the few to ever force him into a turnover.
So, once it happened, Echols wanted a way to commemorate the memorable moment forever.
“Throughout the week, I had it in my head, ‘I’ma get a pick against Tom Brady,’ Echols said. “I spoke it into existence and it happened, so after the game, that’s when I got my ball and I wanted to get it signed.”
Echols found Brady on the field after Brady’s Buccaneers completed a comeback win over the Jets, and asked Brady to sign the ball that Echols snatched out of midair late in the second quarter.
“I came up to him, I asked him to sign it, he said ‘Good job, keep doing what you’re doing,’” Echols said. “It meant a lot just to have a conversation with him.”
It wasn’t taken the same from a large contingency of social media, who criticized Echols for seeking out a Brady autograph after a deflating loss. But the rookie cornerback didn’t have potential criticism anywhere in his thoughts when he ran up to Brady, and doesn’t have any criticism on his mind after the fact.
“I thought it was like a normal thing,” Echols said. “I thought it was the same thing as getting a jersey swap, but people made it a bigger deal than it was supposed to be.
“It doesn’t really mean anything to me, because I’m the one going out doing what I’m doing every week. It’s good to just relax and live out your childhood dream for once.”
Brady has since said it was his first, and last, time autographing a ball that represents a mistake he made, so Echols’ memorabilia can now be considered one of a kind. While there may have been another avenue towards getting Brady’s signature, Echols doesn’t have any regrets in how he handled his memorable career moment.
“There most definitely could have been another way to get that done, but I was just excited to pick off Tom Brady,” Echols said. “I’ve been watching him since I was realizing what football was, so it was a big moment for me. I was caught up in the moment and felt like I needed to do it right then.”
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
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