FOXBORO, Mass. — Brett Ratliff took over Randy Moss' older locker, and he's hoping to steal some knowledge from Tom Brady's brain.
That’s quite the whirlwind for Ratliff, who was added to the Patriots' practice squad Thursday. He took Moss' old locker stall, right in the middle of Brady's and rookie punter Zoltan Mesko's.
Per usual for any quarterback who joins the Patriots, Ratliff is ecstatic to learn from a player of Brady's caliber.
"I'm very excited," Ratliff said. "I've been very fortunate to play under a couple different quarterbacks — Chad Pennington, Brett Favre, Jake Delhomme — and it's just always nice when you get an opportunity to learn under great players like that. I'm excited to learn under Tom and see how much I can learn from him."
Ratliff played one season of college ball at Utah — after Urban Meyer left the program for Florida — and signed with the Jets as an undrafted free agent in 2007. He played on their practice squad as a rookie and was their third quarterback in 2008 before getting traded to the Browns in 2009.
He was Cleveland's third quarterback all of last season and went through the Browns' 2010 training camp before getting cut. He then signed to Jacksonville's practice squad but was released two weeks ago.
Now, Ratliff will join Brady and Brian Hoyer in New England.
"I'm just excited to get to know [Brady] as a person, as a player, pick his mind as much as possible and do whatever I can to help the team," said Ratliff, who has never thrown an NFL pass.
The Ratliff acquisition might have flown a bit under the radar because it came on the heels of the Moss trade. Now that Ratliff has jumped into Moss' old locker — the team's decision, not Ratliff's — he was asked if he had any opinions on the trade that rocked the league this week.
"It was surprising, but that’s football," Ratliff said. "It's a business. They're going to do what they're going to do, and I'm just a player. I'm going to come in and do my job every single day."
