Courtesy Toronto Sun:

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Here in the rolling hills and pine forests of rural New England, the legend of Michael Bishop’s explosive right cannon remains alive and entrenched after more than half a decade.

At least in the minds of Tom Brady and Kevin Faulk.

“It is the strongest arm I’ve ever seen,” Brady said this week, shaking his head in disbelief.

Brady would know. He, like Faulk and a handful of other members of the New England Patriots, learned that lesson the hard way when they gathered on a practice field in Providence, R.I., after a training-camp workout in 2000.

They had seen this football freak of nature run and pass his way to superstardom during his college days at Kansas State, a one-man show who ended up as the runner-up for the 1998 Heisman Trophy to Ricky Williams.

But there still were questions. Here was this brash kid, a seventh-round pick of the Pats in 1999, boasting about how much pop he had in his muscular throwing wing.

Just who did this Michael Bishop guy think he was?

“He got the guys going,” Faulk said. “Everybody’s betting he can’t throw it as long as he thinks he can.”

With an entourage of beefy disbelievers looking on, Bishop picked up the pigskin, dropped back several steps and uncoiled.

The rest is history.

“Sure enough, he threw that thing the length of the field!” Faulk said. “Close anyway. It must have went 90-95 yards.

“It was amazing!”

Among those looking on in awe was a quarterback selected in the sixth round of the 2000 draft out of Michigan. Some baby-faced guy named Tom Brady.

“Incredible,” Brady said when asked to describe Bishop’s memorable heave.

“They didn’t believe I could throw it that far,” Bishop laughs now. “It was that way dating back to college. This was the same situation.”

Playing behind the likes of Drew Bledsoe and John Friesz, Brady and Bishop became friends during that 2000 campaign. Bishop finished the season completing 3-for-9 passes for 80 yards, while Brady, the Hall of Famer in waiting, went just 1-for 3 for six yards.

“We hung out a lot that first year. It was great,” Brady said.

“We were both near the bottom of the depth chart.

“Michael really worked hard and man, could he throw.”

All the while, they would talk about what would happen if they ever got the chance to showcase their talents on a regular basis with the Pats.

“We used to tell each other all the time: ‘If I get a shot, I know I can do it,’”Bishop said.

Brady got that shot the following season when he stepped in for an injured Bledsoe and led the Pats to their first Super Bowl title, upsetting the St.Louis Rams.

Bishop, on the other hand, never had the chance.

After being released by both the Pats and Green Bay Packers during training camp in 2001, he ended up in NFL Europe, the start of a multi-year journey that eventually landed him with the CFL Argos.

Tomorrow, in two stadiums just 120 kms apart, both will continue their quest for championships. Bishop will be at Rogers Centre attempting to lead the Argos past the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the East final, while, two hours to the south, Brady and the Pats will try to run their unblemished record to 10-0 against the Buffalo Bills at Ralph Wilson Stadium.

Bishop claims he is not bitter that Brady got the opportunity with the Pats, one Bishop never received. No sense in weeping over something you can’t control.

“I played a little bit on third down but I never got the chance there,” Bishop said. “Had I got the opportunity Tom got, who knows? The fact is, I never got it. Maybe if I had, our situations would have been reversed.”

It’s a nice thought. After all, the man with the rifle arm can dream, can’t he?