News broke yesterday that Tom Brady decided to accept the NFL’s four game suspension, instead of trying to further appeal. I believe that myself and other analysts believed that Tom Brady would end up playing all 16 games, just as he did last year, but it looks like that won’t be the case. So, now the question everyone wants to know is, “what does this mean for Brady’s Value?”
I believe that this news is bad for the patriots obviously, but it could play out well for fantasy owners. Before the news broke Brady’s ADP was 7.05, which translates to the 7th round, 5th pick. I expect his ADP to drop tremendously, considering how deep the quarterback position is this season. If I had to make an estimate, I would say Brady will be going off the boards anywhere from the 11th to 13th round, depending on the league you play in. This creates an exceptional value on draft day, because in these later rounds you can take a guy like Kirk Cousins or Matthew Stafford, and still draft Brady as well. Whereas before, if you drafted Brady you probably weren’t selecting another QB.
So, now there’s some excellent flexibility with your decision on draft day. You can take Brady late and pair him with another quarterback for the first four games. From there, you could choose to ride out the current player drafted, such as the previously mentioned Kirk Cousins, and trade Brady, because people are going to be willing to pay a high price for a player of his caliber. Or, you can go another route and trade the other quarterback you choose to draft if they start out hot for a WR or RB, if you choose to stick with Brady for the rest of the season. This will allow you to not have to worry about streaming or matchups. Here’s a list of quarterbacks who are going in the 11th round or later, who have an easy schedule to start out the season:
I believe that this news is bad for the patriots obviously, but it could play out well for fantasy owners. Before the news broke Brady’s ADP was 7.05, which translates to the 7th round, 5th pick. I expect his ADP to drop tremendously, considering how deep the quarterback position is this season. If I had to make an estimate, I would say Brady will be going off the boards anywhere from the 11th to 13th round, depending on the league you play in. This creates an exceptional value on draft day, because in these later rounds you can take a guy like Kirk Cousins or Matthew Stafford, and still draft Brady as well. Whereas before, if you drafted Brady you probably weren’t selecting another QB.
So, now there’s some excellent flexibility with your decision on draft day. You can take Brady late and pair him with another quarterback for the first four games. From there, you could choose to ride out the current player drafted, such as the previously mentioned Kirk Cousins, and trade Brady, because people are going to be willing to pay a high price for a player of his caliber. Or, you can go another route and trade the other quarterback you choose to draft if they start out hot for a WR or RB, if you choose to stick with Brady for the rest of the season. This will allow you to not have to worry about streaming or matchups. Here’s a list of quarterbacks who are going in the 11th round or later, who have an easy schedule to start out the season:
Of course, I would like to see Tom Brady play an entire season, but since he is being suspended, I need to analyze his new value. So, I went back and looked at Tom Brady’s last seven seasons, because he has played all 16 games since 2009. I found out that Tom Brady’s average line of stats over a seven year span are 592 attempts, 64% completion percentage, 4511 yards, 33 touchdowns, 9 interceptions, and a 68.66 quarterback rating. In other words, Tom Brady is really, really good. I took his average stats and turned them into fantasy points for a standard scoring league. I then multiplied that by 75%, because that is the amount of the season he will play, excluding injury. The number I came up with was 223.83 fantasy points for the 2016 season. After looking at the Patriot’s schedule for the season, the only games that Brady should suffer in are two away games against division rivals Jets and Bills, an away game against the Broncos, and possibly the Seahawks at home. So, 4 out of the 12 games he will play should be tough, the rest should be easy or middle of the pack defenses. After pouring through the stats I expect Brady to score somewhere around 20 fantasy points a game and end somewhere between 215-250 fantasy points for the season.
Now is where things get complicated, what does the suspension mean for the patriots offense? Well, I expect all the key players (Dion Lewis, Gronk, and Edleman) to be fine overall, but you will see their production dip in those four games without Brady. Another problem with this is, one, we haven’t seen what Jimmy Garoppolo is capable of, and we don’t have a split of how those players play without Brady because they’ve never had to play without him. Out of all three of the key players, I think Edleman suffers the most in this situation. Lewis will be fed the ball more with Brady gone and should see an uptick in run opportunities. Gronk will be a safety blanket for Garoppolo, so I don’t expect his value to dip too much. Edleman is coming off an injury, and he is the kind of player that doesn’t take the top of the defense, most of his value came from the connection he and Brady had. If you take Edelman’s target pace, plus his past two seasons with Brady, he is averaging 147 targets a season. That accounts for 25% of Brady’s attempts on the season. That’s why I believe Edelman’s value comes from volume, which I don’t believe will be there as abundantly to start the season. Right now I have him as a WR2/WR3 option.
Brady will definitely be on my radar this year, unlike most years, because I can take him later in drafts. I prefer to wait on quarterbacks and fill my roster with skill positions, rather than taking big name QB’s early. I will certainly take a guy like Brady in the 11th round and find somebody to get me through the first four weeks of the season. At the end of the day, I’m just glad that the deflate-gate scandal will be behind us and we won’t have to worry every offseason if Brady will be suspended or not.
Now is where things get complicated, what does the suspension mean for the patriots offense? Well, I expect all the key players (Dion Lewis, Gronk, and Edleman) to be fine overall, but you will see their production dip in those four games without Brady. Another problem with this is, one, we haven’t seen what Jimmy Garoppolo is capable of, and we don’t have a split of how those players play without Brady because they’ve never had to play without him. Out of all three of the key players, I think Edleman suffers the most in this situation. Lewis will be fed the ball more with Brady gone and should see an uptick in run opportunities. Gronk will be a safety blanket for Garoppolo, so I don’t expect his value to dip too much. Edleman is coming off an injury, and he is the kind of player that doesn’t take the top of the defense, most of his value came from the connection he and Brady had. If you take Edelman’s target pace, plus his past two seasons with Brady, he is averaging 147 targets a season. That accounts for 25% of Brady’s attempts on the season. That’s why I believe Edelman’s value comes from volume, which I don’t believe will be there as abundantly to start the season. Right now I have him as a WR2/WR3 option.
Brady will definitely be on my radar this year, unlike most years, because I can take him later in drafts. I prefer to wait on quarterbacks and fill my roster with skill positions, rather than taking big name QB’s early. I will certainly take a guy like Brady in the 11th round and find somebody to get me through the first four weeks of the season. At the end of the day, I’m just glad that the deflate-gate scandal will be behind us and we won’t have to worry every offseason if Brady will be suspended or not.