Fantasy Football Draft Advice: Is Tom Brady Worth Drafting?

Thursday, June 11, 2009 - So you are getting ready for your Fantasy Football draft this summer, and you’re not sure whether to pick up Tom Brady as your starting quarterback. Let’s see whether or not he’s worth drafting to your fantasy football team.

The only good thing about Tom Brady’s injury is when it happened. It happened in Week 1 of the NFL regular season. You can’t really do much better than that in terms of giving your knee time to heal without getting jacked up before the games even count.

Thus, the injury to Brady’s knee has had plenty of time to heal. However, knee injuries of Brady’s severity usually require a season and a half worth of healing before the player can really get back to being himself—quarterbacks included.

Take Carson Palmer, who went down in the 2005-2006 NFL playoffs against the Cincinnati Bengals. He wasn’t quite himself throughout all of 2006, but he finally bounced back in 2007.

Then there was Donovan McNabb, who went down in the middle of the 2006 season. He wasn’t himself until the last 3 games of the 2007 season, meaning he had to wait a season and a half before he was himself again.

So what this short history tells us about quarterbacks and their ability to recover from knee injuries is that it usually takes them a good season and half to start looking like their old selves. This is in spite the fact that they predicate their livelihoods on their ability to “throw” the ball.

Thus, I have no problem drafting Tom Brady as my starting quarterback, but only if I believe I have the players around him to get through the first part of the season without any consistency from the quarterback position. Granted, Brady’s numbers probably won’t hold you back all that much, given the kind of weapons he has around him. However, I do not expect him to outperform any of the top quarterbacks for most of his first 8 games, which would be a significant disadvantage against other fantasy football teams in week’s where you play a Drew Brees or a Peyton Manning.

My strategy in drafting Brady, given how high he is likely to go in most drafts (as most 2009 fantasy football mock drafts have him going high in the 3rd round), I’d take him if I did a really good job of getting 2 quality running backs.

But hear me out on this!

You should not draft Brady if you are not sure about one of your running backs. You can’t go out and get Marion Barber or Steven Jackson thinking that they will return to old form and draft Tom Brady that high in the 3rd round. I just don’t think you will see the kind of production you need from the quarterback position to cover your behind should a risky running back pick not pan out this season.

So to reiterate, only draft Brady in the 3rd round if you were able to get two solid running backs who will produce fantasy football points on a consistent, week-to-week basis! And when I say solid, I mean Maurice Jones-Drew and Michael Turner solid. Because if you get Brady with a risky running back, you may not be in the hunt for your league championship by the time Brady gets around to being the Brady of old.

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