Tom Brady – Top 5 pick in 2008?

Let me begin by saying that I was a proud Tom Brady owner this season. I drafted him in the 2nd round of a 14 team league and then rode him to a 13-0 regular season and survived the week 15 disaster, only to lose in the championship game (thanks to Purple Jesus – more on him next week).

Now, was I a psychic? No. I had a good feeling about Brady this year, especially since the league I drafted him has a point per completion and a penalty for incompletions – he generally has had a good completions percentage and was getting a bunch of new targets. But I had no idea he would break Manning’s record, or complete almost 69% of his passes, including nearly 80% in the first month. (Take a look at his September and October stats - I mean, holy shit! 20:1 TD:INT ration in October!) No one did. And this is what made him such a valuable player to have – you could get him in 2nd or 3rd round, having already taken a top back. If you hit with your top pick, you were golden with Brady (in the league discussed above, I got Westbrook in the first round).

But now, everyone and their brother is pegging Brady as a top of the first round player next year. Implicit in these suggestions is that Brady will be a dominant QB next year, with at least some significant separation between him and the rest of the field. Is he going to be a good value in that slot?

I think we can all agree that all bets are off if Randy Moss leaves New England. That would very radically change Brady’s set of options and would lead most people to temper their expectations for him. But, for our analysis, let’s assume Moss does return, and the offense next year looks pretty similar to the one from this year. What sort of season can we expect from Brady next year?

There’s an obvious analogue to Brady’s 2007 season – Manning’s 2004 season in which he set the record. In that year, Manning threw for 49 TDs, 10 Ints, and 4557 yards. How did he follow up that year? 28 TDs, 10 Ints, 3747 yards. Of course, Manning rested for most of the last two games that year, but that’s likely for Brady as well – the only reason he didn’t sit this year is because of the undefeated season and the chase for Manning’s record. But even if Manning had played the last two games, and we grant him his average output for them, he ends up with 32 TDs – a very good year, but not head and shoulders above the rest of the QB pack. In fact, Manning ranked third that year, behind Carson Palmer and a guy named Tom Brady.

Why would this happen? First, regression to the mean. Brady played at what was probably the absolute peak of his skills this year. It’s likely that he’ll play at a somewhat lower level next year, albeit still a very high one. Moreover, teams will have had a full summer to analyze the Pats passing offense, and will be keyed in to stop it next year. Bill Belichick and his coordinators are smart men – when they see teams overcompensating to stop the pass, they’ll call runs more often than they did this year, cutting into Brady’s passing stats.

Moreover, think about what taking Brady at the top of the first round does to a team’s draft. Let’s say you select Brady 3rd overall in a 12 team draft. Your team’s next pick is the 22nd pick. By that point, the top 15 or so running backs and many of the top 10 receivers will be gone. To be successful, you’d have to get very lucky on some running back flyers in the middle rounds, or catch lightning in a bottle off the waiver wire (which is pretty hard to do in years which the top 10 backs stay healthy – more on RB injuries next week). If Brady plays at a high level, but not a godly record breaking level, he’ll perform about as well as many QBs you could take in the sixth round or later. Which would you rather have – Brady and a 6th round RB, or Brian Westbrook and a 6th round QB?

Don’t agree? Let’s take a look at the top 12 QBs from this year, and let’s see where you could have drafted them.

I’m using Yahoo standard scoring (25 yards/point, TD – 4 points, INT - -1 point), and going off actual points accumulated (which means the scores may be lower than total stats because there’s no fractional scoring). ADP ranks come from myfantasyleague.com, and the drafts cover the last two weeks before the season.

QB Rank, Pts, ADP Rank, ADP #
1) Brady 386, QB4, 22.06
2) Romo 302, QB8, 56.69
3) P. Manning 282, QB1, 7.67
4) Brees 262, QB3, 21.69
4) Anderson 262, Not drafted
6) Roethlisberger 259, QB14, 88.52
7) Favre 252, QB16, 106.94
8) Hasselbeck 243, QB11, 62.73
9) Palmer 241, QB2, 18.42
10) Warner 216, Not drafted
11) Cutler 212, QB13, 86.77
12) McNabb 204, QB6, 35.38

This suggests you could get a very good starting QB very late in the draft. Reviewing my drafts from this year, I was able to snag Roethlisberger very late in several drafts, as early as the 10th round and as late as the 13th round. In one draft, I got Favre in the 11th and Ben in the 13th.

Or, look at my example above of combining a 6th round QB with Brian Westbrook. If you took a QB in the 6th round this year, you might have taken Tony Romo. A team with Romo and Westbrook this year was a very good one.

For reference, here’s the list of the top 12 in ADP, followed by how well they did.

QB ADP, Pts Rank, Pts
1) P. Manning 7.67, QB3, 282
2) Palmer 18.42, QB9, 241
3) Brees 21.69, QB4, 262
4) Brady 22.06, QB1, 386
5) Bulger 30.38, QB22, 115
6) McNabb 35.38, QB12, 204
7) Young 54.73, QB17, 159
8) Romo 56.69, QB2, 302
9) Rivers 57.65, QB15, 183
10) Kitna 58.68, QB13, 195
11) Hasselbeck 62.73, QB8, 243
12) Leinart 73.08, QB52, 31

Yeah, taking a top 10 Quarterback did not work out so great this year.

So where does Brady belong? I think he belongs in the back of the first round, in Peyton Manning territory. I’d select him at the point where I felt there was a drop in talent at RB. Manning as a 9th or 10th pick can be very effective, since he’s one of the most consistent QBs you can find and never seems to get hurt. Plus, since you’re taking him late, you can grab a quality RB with your 2nd round pick, mitigating the damage (although I won a 10 team league this year taking Manning at 9th, and then Maroney in the 2nd, so maybe you don’t even need to do that).

Thoughts and comments welcome and appreciated.