Greg M. Cooper-USA TODAY Sports
You drafted Tom Brady as your fantasy quarterback and you were ecstatic. Locked in as a top five option in most formats, Tom Terrific should have no problem racking up fantasy points for you all season, producing big games when you need him most and leading you to a championship. Sure, he’s struggled in Week 1 and Week 2, mostly due to his rookie wide receivers looking more lost and uncomfortable than a guy dragged into the middle of a Victoria’s Secret by his girlfriend. Injuries to Shane Vereen and Danny Amendola most likely didn’t help either.
But he should be alright. He is Tom Brady, after all. It’s only a matter of time before the young wide receivers figure it out and Brady is what you wanted him to be, right?
Wrong.
It’s easy to make excuses for Brady, after all he’s won three Super Bowls, thrown 51 touchdown passes in a season, and been a staple of consistency for over 10 years now. So why should you abandon ship?
It’s the weapons around him.Who is he going to throw the ball to? Whose going to make plays for him to get you those fantasy points? Look, everybody was in love with undrafted rookie Kembrell Thompkins going into the season, and we were all rushing to our waiver wires to see if Aaron Dobson was available after his touchdown on his first snap Thursday night, but both those guys have already shown they’re going to struggle for weeks before they put it together.
Consider this: no rookie wide receiver has caught more than Deion Branch‘s 43 receptions for 489 yards in 2002 with Brady as their quarterback, so why should we expect Thompkins and Dobson to put up big numbers to help Brady’s value, especially when one is undrafted and the other was a fourth round pick?
In addition to Brady’s rookie woes, he also has to deal with the fact that the weapons he does have are either injured or historically injury prone. Amendola has talent in the slot, but he’s missed half his games over the last two years, and it looks like he may miss a few more this year. Rob Gronkowski might be back next week or the week after, but he also has to recover from back woes. Vereen is out until Week 11, taking another dynamic play-maker away from Brady. Julian Edelman has stepped up with 20 receptions in two games, but he also has had trouble staying on the field. It’s a mess, to say the least.
If I had the choice, I’d rather have Matthew Stafford, Colin Kaepernick, Andrew Luck, Robert Griffin III and even Michael Vick going forward. Those guys just have more weapons and more upside on a weekly basis.
Look, there’s no denying Brady is a great quarterback, but chances are, he’s going to disappoint you from a statistical standpoint. It might not be a bad idea to dangle him on the trading block and see what his name-value can get you before his value plummets.
Shawn Ferris is a Boston Red Sox and Fantasy Sports writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @RealShawnFerris, “like” him on Facebook, or add him to your network on Google+
