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Spotlight - QB Tom Brady, New England Patriots

Posted on 8/8, exclusive to Footballguys.com

Jason Wood's Thoughts

It's hard to believe that, just a few years ago, Tom Brady was considered a much better real-life QB than a fantasy one. While he was clearly an elite NFL signal caller capable of winning multiple Super Bowls, there always seemed to be a handful of more prolific passers to choose from on draft day. Well, needless to say, those days are long gone after an historic 2007 season:

• 18-1 record [NFL record]
• League MVP
• 398 completions [5th all time]
• 578 attempts
• 68.9% completion rate [7th all time]
• 4,806 yards [3rd all time]
• 50 TDs [1st all time]
• 8 INTs
• 496 fantasy points [1st all time]
• 225 VBD points [1st all time]

A season for the ages.

I needn't tell you that Brady is VERY unlikely to match those numbers again in his career. In fact, he's probably not going to come close to them. I'm sure you've seen the comparisons to Dan Marino and Peyton Manning in many other places, so I'll save you the analysis once again. All you need to know is that both Marino and Manning came back to Earth after the their record-breaking TD seasons.

But that's not really relevant to his draft value this year. What you really need to know is whether Brady is worthy of his lofty ADP. In just about every league, someone is going to draft Brady in the 1st round. Is he worth it?

To answer that question, we need to first establish the average VBD value of a 1st round draft pick. For the sake of this analysis, we'll assume a 12-team league.

Over the last five years, the 12th best fantasy player has finished with an X-value of 88. Putting that in layman's terms, in order for a player to be truly worth a 1st round fantasy pick, they need to score 88 more fantasy points than the baseline player at their position. In a QB's case, that means a QB must finish at least 88 points higher than QB12 in order to be "worth" a 1st round selection in most years.

Now let's turn our attention to the consensus projections for Tom Brady this year, as well as the site's consensus projections for the 12th ranked QB (Derek Anderson):

Average Tom Brady projection (2008)

• 357 completions
• 541 attempts
• 4,238 yards
• 36 TDs
• 12 INTs
• 74 rush yards
• 1 rush TD
• 377 fantasy points

Average Derek Anderson projection (2008)

• 266 completions
• 463 attempts
• 3,344 yards
• 24 TDs
• 18 INTs
• 71 rush yards
• 1 rush TD
• 264 fantasy points

So, by my calculations Tom Brady is worth a 1st round pick easily.

• 377 fantasy points MINUS
• 264 fantasy points EQUALS
• 113 fantasy point differential

In fact, if we're anywhere close to approximating Brady's 2008 numbers, he would be worth somewhere around the 7th overall pick [see the table above].

Positives

• Brady has become one of the best players in the game, equally valuable as a fantasy player as he is to his real-world team
• The Patriots have a stacked offense and coaches that put the players in a position to execute against any defensive scheme
• Fantasy owners reluctance to draft QBs in the 1st round may allow you to steal Brady if you draft late in the 1st round

Negatives

• The Patriots aren't likely to match last year's historic output
• Bill Belichick loves to flip the script and, while unlikely, it's possible the team could move to a more balanced offensive attack in 2008 b/c opposing coaches won't expect it
• Brady's fantasy schedule is one of the more difficult, according to Clayton Gray's Ultimate Strength of Schedule analysis

Final Thoughts

Tom Brady is obviously going to be the 1st QB drafted and will, more than likely, be a 1st rounder. Don't focus too much of your energy on the fact Brady isn't going to throw 50 TDs or 4800 yards again. Instead, remember that he only needs to produce a fraction of that output to justify a 1st round draft pick. Based on current consensus projections, we believe Brady is worth a mid 1st round pick, and any chance to grab him later than that is a viable strategy.

Quotations from the Message Board Thread

bostonfred:
It's trendy to pick Tom Brady to regress to the mean. There are a million statistics that will show that Manning, Marino, and others have fallen off dramatically after putting up their historic seasons. And with Brady nearly doubling his best season TD total last year, it seems hard to imagine that he could approach 50 TDs again.

But there is good news for Brady's fantasy stock. While some of the all time great seasons have been followed by a substantial dropoff the following season, Favre followed up his 38 TD season with 39 the following season and 35 the season after that, and he didn't have Randy Moss. It's difficult to imagine Brady improving on 50 TDs, but there's no reason to assume he'll drop off the face of the planet just because other QBs have dropped off. Other factors:

Schedule: After playing a relatively difficult schedule last year, the Patriots play the league's easiest in 2008. Manning, on the other hand, went from the softest schedule in the league during his historic run, to a more challenging one the following year. A more interesting question is whether the Giants gave the league the blueprint for stopping Tom Brady. With three or more defensive ends in the game on passing downs, the Giants were able to create havoc in the backfield and keep Tom Brady from having time to complete his passes. Of course, not every team has the defensive talent to do this, and Brady is the best in the league at getting the ball away on quick slants and screens. The Pats may face a lighter defensive schedule this year, but you shouldn't be too giddy about it.

Receivers: Some might point to Donte Stallworth's departure as a negative, but he wasn't on the field full time last year, and Moss and Welker were clearly the focal point of the Pats' passing game even when he was. Marcus Pollard is no world beater, but the Pats love to run (and throw to) multiple tight ends in the end zone, so he may help Brady's value. Jabar Gaffney has been surprisingly solid, and Chad Jackson has the potential to be great. I'm mildly concerned about Moss from a motivation standpoint. On the one hand, he "plays when he wants to play". On the other hand, he showed this year that he is interested in his legacy, and worked hard to set the touchdown record. Will he try for 24? Or will he be make a run at Owens' numbers in an attempt to go down as the best of his era?

Running game: On the one hand, it's hard to imagine the Patriots forcing the pass this year, which may hurt Brady's statistics. But on the other, you have to imagine that Belichick would love to put up another historic season in the name of repairing his legacy. Maroney looked good late in the season and into the playoffs, but even if the backs get a bigger share of the scoring, the Pats ran for 17 TDs as a team last year. There's no reaosn to think the backs will get much more of a piece of the pie this year, unless they sign another veteran.

Motivation: Brady broke the record last year. If you believe he was forcing touchdowns to reach the record, then you have to question whether he will have the motivation to do so again this year. The good news is that, if Manning gets Harrison back, he may have his best set of receivers yet, and will give Brady a run for his money. I'm sure that if you ask either of them if they're concerned with regular season numbers, they'll both say the right things, but I wouldn't be surprised to see both of them show a competitive streak as they have established themselves as the premier QB rivals of this generation. After Manning's big season, his focus on numbers went away. This year, I can legitimately see both of them putting up big seasons en route to another postseason matchup.

Overall: The 2007 Patriots set the record for most touchdowns in a single season. The questions are whether you think that they can approach those numbers again this year, and whether you think that Brady will have as big a piece of the scoring pie as he did last year. If you do, you have to take Brady in the early first round. If you don't, you should be prepared to pass on him, because he won't last long in most leagues.

David Yudkin, FBG Staff:
Brady and the Pats overall were a bit of a tale of two half seasons last year. NE averaged 41 ppg in their first 10 games but 27 ppg in their last 9 games. Similarly, Brady average 3.8 passing TD in those first 10 games but 2.0 passing TD in the final 9 games.

His passing yardage totals also dipped to the tune of 30 yards per game (306 to 276 passing yards). That could be attributed to a lot of factors including the cooler weather, teams adjusting, closer games, an inconsistent running game, etc.

If you extrapolate Brady's last 9 games, that would yield 4416 passing yards and 32 TD. IMO, that's a pretty close assessment of what to predict for Brady this year...the league will have had a year's worth of tape to make adjustments defensively.

For those considering another lofty TD total for Brady this year, remember he more than doubled his TD output compared to 2007. And he never threw more than 28 TD in a season.

I foresee New England still being a pass happy team, but one that will score fewer points and TD in the sequel. I predict Brady's yardage total to stay high but his TDs to drop almost a full TD per game.

rzrback77:
Its a fairly good bet that Tom Brady will be the first QB drafted in almost every fantasy league this year and to get him, you will have to probably burn a first round lower pick or at the latest an early second rounder. He could score similar to last year when he led a lot of teams to fantasy championships. However, it is very reasonable to assess that he will regress more than just a small amount from his record breaking year in 07. Consider a few of his stats:

02 - 601 attempts for 6.3 ypa and 3764 yards with 28 TDs and 14 ints 110 rush yds & 1 TD
03 - 527 attempts for 6.9 ypa and 3620 yards with 23 TDs and 12 ints 63 rush yds & 1 TD
04 - 474 attempts for 7.8 ypa and 3692 yards with 28 TDs and 14 ints 28 rush yds & 0 TDs
05 - 530 attempts for 7.8 ypa and 4110 yards with 26 TDs and 14 ints 89 rush yds & 1 TD
06 - 516 attempts for 6.8 ypa and 3529 yards with 24 TDs and 12 ints 102 rush yds & 0 TDs
07 - 578 attempts for 8.3 ypa and 4806 yards with 50 TDs and 8 ints 98 rush yds & 2 TDs

That is extremely consistent QB play with one singular season that stands out from the rest. It was a perfect storm for the Patriots and those numbers will not be repeated. He may very well still finish as the QB 1, but it will be closer to the pack in 08 as his production falls back in line with other seasons. New England will run the ball more in 08 to keep the defense on their heels and keep Brady upright.

[icon]:
I completely understand predicting a degree of regression but the folks who are weighting prior years equally as a means of proving last year as an outlier are comical. Assuming all other things were equal then, yes, it's a valid argument. Things weren't equal. When you add Moss and Welker you throw out all old data as it's instantly rendered irrelevant. The Brady & Moss show will be slowed a bit as the records have been established so I expect them to mix it up a bit more.... but Brady will still continue to dominate.

Tom Brady Projections