It's hard to nitpick the reigning Super Bowl MVP who finished tenth overall in fantasy scoring and eighth among quarterbacks last year. Even though his downfield passing game has diminished in recent seasons, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has been the pinnacle of excellence. He's mastered the intermediate aerial attack and has operated as efficiently as ever.
Despite all that, ESPN NFL insider KC Joyner believes Brady is headed for a down year in fantasy football this season.
"This all boils down to some simple math," Joyner wrote. "Remove one-quarter of Brady's 2014 fantasy points (267 points minus 67) and he drops to low-end QB2 territory," Joyner wrote. "Even if Brady does manage to make up some of that ground, as the current ESPN 2015 fantasy quarterback point projections have him doing, his point total still ends up outside the average QB2 level.
"This is not to say that Brady should be avoided in fantasy drafts, as savvy fantasy owners can find a way to fill in for the first five weeks of the season if Brady's suspension is upheld (the Patriots are on a bye in Week 4) and then put him in the lineup as a strong QB1 the rest of the season. But if the ranking is based on overall point production, not a fantasy owner's draft strategy, Brady is highly overvalued as a low-end QB1."
Given Brady's current average draft position (79.9), Joyner may be overreacting just a bit. While 38-year-old QBs are normally not a strong bet to repeat past performance, this is Tom Freaking Brady we are talking about. Yes, he'll likely miss four games due to suspension. But if Rob Gronkowski is healthy and Julian Edelman is still doing his best Wes Welker 2.0 impression, why can't Brady put up the same type of numbers he did over the same 12 game stretch as last year?
Patriots head coach Bill Belichick is a mastermind at getting production out of unlikely places and adding in interesting new wrinkles from week-to-week. Assuming good health all around, there's no glaring reason to believe Brady won't be atop the leader boards for another year. I'd feel comfortable taking Brady sometime after the tenth round as long as I had a Tony Romo or an Eli Manning on my roster as well.
