Star wideout Chris Hogan spent about a decade in the National Football League. But his journey started on a whim, with no proper path to success or even a large ambition in mind. When a couple of the people he trained with in college were going to the NFL Pro Day, he also decided to tag along. Surprisingly, he crushed it with his 40-yard dash at 4.50 seconds. He later revealed that the fastest he was clocked at was 4.39, which is nothing short of incredible. However, to his surprise, Hogan didn’t get drafted in 2011.
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However, the Monmouth University alum got a call right after the draft. The San Francisco 49ers would take him in for a few weeks, but perhaps their paths didn’t align, leading to him getting cut from the club. It was the first time he got cut from anything in all his life — and that would be the tipping point, after which Hogan never looked back.
He prides himself on being a hard worker. At one point, even the hardest. But all his beliefs were pleasantly disturbed when he met the guy who he would catch passes from — Tom Brady. Hogan claims that TB12 ended up changing his career. Talking to Nick Barrotta about his journey, the two-time Super Bowl champ said that throughout his career, there was no other player who “leveled up every single player around him” like Brady could. He said,
“As a guy that had been in the league 16 years by the time I got to him… seeing how he prepared, how he practiced; Every single day taking snaps, practicing drop backs, doing the extra work,” followed by, “To me, I always prided myself as a hard worker and doing all the extra stuff but I see this guy doing it, who’s the best to ever to do it. And I knew that I had to do more. So, probably for me, the biggest thing I took away was I’m not doing enough. Dude, he changed my career.”
Accrediting all his football know-how to Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, Hogan then goes on to explain how the dynamic coach-QB duo taught him more about football in three years than he had learned in his entire career. And Hogan, who went to three back-to-back Super Bowls with the Patriots from 2016 to 2019, said that the way they took time to make you understand the basics of football in Foxborough, they did not do that elsewhere.
Chris Hogan Says He Never Wanted to Disappoint Tom Brady
Further into the interview, Hogan expressed, “It was just different being around him bro because you didn’t wanna disappoint him because I knew how much he did.” Talking about Brady’s dedication to the cause, he revealed, “We were winning games in 2016, I mean, every single year we won, and he would be watching film on the plane back.” Hogan, who spent four years with the Bills before coming to New England, said there was a different air about Brady and Belichick’s Patriots. And it didn’t take long for him to adapt to the environment as well.
Hogan ended up with a career-high 17.6 yards per reception in 2016. Without Brady, and with Brady, his numbers tell a very different story. He caught 12 touchdowns in his three years with the Patriots, almost twice what he achieved outside of Foxborough.
Nonetheless, it should be noted that he got the most starts in New England, but that could also mean that Bill Belichick was able to utilize his talents much better than any other coach. At the same time, Brady could get him the pigskin better than any other QB. The latter might have hung up his cleats, but his brilliance keeps impressing audiences. Such was the impact of this overachiever and over hard worker.
