Tom Brady knows that getting drafted into the NFL is a huge achievement, but at the same time, the job isn’t finished. If anything, it’s only just beginning. That’s why, as the 2026 NFL Draft unfolded with the Las Vegas Raiders selecting Fernando Mendoza first overall, Brady shared warnings about burnout and a few tips on how to handle it.

“When you’re a driven, high-achiever personality with a lot of goals, you need all the energy you can get in order to keep your goals on track and create the life you want,” Brady shared in the latest post of his 199 Newsletter, titled, Advice for the 2026 NFL Draft Class. “It can be very easy to lose a handle on certain priorities in pursuit of others. It can also be easy to lose track of any single priority while trying to pursue all of them at once. If you try to split your attention equally across ten priorities, not only is it exhausting, but each priority only gets 10% of you, and most important things in this world require much more than that, often for extended periods of time.”

In the newsletter, Brady pointed out that, like any young person chasing a dream in a highly competitive environment, rookies from the 2026 draft class are especially vulnerable to running out of gas. He even used his own experience after retiring from the NFL and moving into broadcasting, admitting he “never figured out how to refuel” himself at a core level.

That’s where his advice starts to take shape. Drawing from over two decades in the league, Brady laid out a couple of core priorities for the draft class, focusing on how to set them and, more importantly, how to manage them. He kept it simple. First, prioritize physical and mental health. Second, commit to something you’re genuinely obsessed with.

“The first priority every person should have is their physical and mental health,” Brady wrote. “I will never tell you what to do with your life, but to me, this is a non-negotiable. You can’t achieve maximum desired impact in anything you do if you don’t take care of yourself physically and mentally. I  would argue it’s impossible. If you’re sick, people are taking care of you. What are you taking care of?

“Beyond that, I think it comes down to finding things you’re obsessed with. Things that stimulate your head, your heart, or your wallet. If you find something that does all three, like football did for me, then you’ve truly hit the jackpot. But something doesn’t have to stimulate all three areas to become a priority.”

And that’s where it connects back to this rookie class. For most of them, the financial side is already taken care of. Some will also tap into the mental side through the game’s complexity. A few might even hit that rare balance of all three. But not everyone will, and that’s exactly Brady’s point.

It circles back to his main warning about priorities. Don’t spread yourself thin trying to balance everything at once. Instead, give each priority the time and energy it actually demands, especially for rookies like Mendoza, who is entering the league fresh off a national championship with expectations to turn the Raiders around.

“What I mean is, when these young guys hit the field for practice, football has to be their complete focu,s and everything else needs to go in a box until they walk out of the facility at the end of the day,” Brady added. “By the same token, they can’t allow those priorities to suffocate to death in that box. They can’t leave the box in their locker and forget about it.

“They need to bring it home every night and open it up to give those other priorities a chance to breathe, as well. Because it’s the entire complement of priorities that makes them unique, that defines their life, and determines how they should use their time.”

Put simply, Brady’s message is pretty clear. Don’t try to juggle ten priorities at once. Lock in on one at a time, give it your full attention, and then move to the next without letting one bleed into the other. As Mendoza and the rest of the 256 rookies gear up for their first NFL season, they’re stepping in with advice from someone who has already lived both the physical and mental grind of the league.

And for Mendoza, in particular, Brady already seems to have a plan in place to develop the former Hoosiers quarterback.

Tom Brady is going to push Fernando Mendoza

Following a dream season at Indiana, Fernando Mendoza is now set to be mentored by one of the best quarterbacks the league has ever seen, Tom Brady. But even before the Raiders drafted him, the former Hoosiers quarterback already knew what that relationship would look like. Brady wasn’t going to go easy on him.

“It was fantastic. He gave me the message that he’s going to push me, and he’s not going to be all lovey-dovey,” Mendoza said. “And that if the Raiders draft me, he’s going to be a mentor and wants to pour into whatever quarterback the Raiders have — whether it’s me, whether they draft somebody else.”

Now, fast forward, and the Raiders have taken Mendoza. And given the situation he’s walking into, it’s fair to say he’ll need that kind of mentorship. For context, he joins a team that went 3-14 last season and had the worst offense in the league, finishing last in both points and yards allowed. On top of that, an anonymous ACC coach even told ESPN that he doesn’t believe Mendoza has the traits to succeed at the NFL level.

“He’s a good decision-maker, but I don’t think he’s got the NFL traits,” the coach told ESPN. “They’re all back-shoulder (throws). That’s not working in the NFL. His receivers made plays to make him look better than he is. In the NFL, those throws are getting picked off.”

That criticism came from how Mendoza operated in college, which is completely different from the NFL environment. He was around an RPO-heavy system built on quick reads and outside throws, working primarily out of the shotgun. However, Klint Kubiak brings a Shanahan-Kubiak system that leans on West Coast principles, a wide zone run scheme, and heavy play-action usage.

So when Brady stated that he was going to push Mendoza, it was not an exaggeration. If anything, it lines up with what’s ahead. As things stand, Kirk Cousins is the likely Week 1 starter, which puts Mendoza in a spot where he’ll be learning from both Brady and Cousins as he adjusts to the league.