It seems to happen every year lately. The annual, inevitable demise of Tom Brady rears its ugly head. He has enough juice left in him to stop it out, but what about for fantasy football? Tom Brady plain hasn’t been good lately, and he has a tough matchup ahead of him in the fantasy football finals. Tom Brady currently has 93% ownership in Yahoo! leagues, but is Tom Brady droppable?
The Recent Performance
Things haven’t been going great for Tom Brady lately, who has finished with fewer than 15 fantasy points in five of his last six games, and fewer than 20 in seven-of-eight. Things get a little worse for Tom Brady if you dig deeper. Scratch that, things get a lot worse for Brady when you look beneath the surface. Where do you want to start? As it currently stands, Tom Brady is the QB22 on the week, with Drew Brees and Jacoby Brissett yet to play. Let’s split the difference and call him QB23 on the week. That makes one game as QB12 or better (a startable player) since October 10. That makes two games inside top-20 QBs on the week over the last two months.
I will give you the caveat that he had a good week in week thirteen, a 326-yard, three-touchdown performance at Houston. Coincidentally, Houston allows the sixth-most fantasy points to quarterbacks. Outside of that performance, he has one game with multiple touchdowns (two), and two games with no TDs. Since week five, he has four games with interceptions and two games over 260 yards passing. He’s been bad. His average finish since October 10 is QB18. His pace since week five is 3,872 yards, 20.5 touchdowns, and nine interceptions. Those are essentially the same as Sam Darnold (37% owned). And Tom Brady didn’t even get mono, despite open-mouth kissing his son.
The Matchup
It’s fantasy football championship week, which means that we have exactly one matchup left to worry about this season. Unfortunately for Tom Brady owners, it’s the Buffalo Bills. The Bills and Patriots already met once this year, and Tom Brady’s line in that game is enough to steal some confidence from Tom Brady’s fantasy football owners: 150 yards passing, zero touchdowns, one interception. It was Brady’s lowest passer rating of the season and a true low spot for Brady owners. So, let’s hop right back into it against the Bills again, right? Wrong.
The Buffalo Bills are literally the third-worst matchup in the league for fantasy football quarterbacks. Since one of those matchups is the New England Patriots, Tom Brady faces his second-worst case scenario for the fantasy football finals. The worst? The Bills allowed two 20+ fantasy days to opposing quarterbacks in weeks fourteen and fifteen, but Lamar Jackson and Dak Prescott chipped in 65 combined rushing yards to make those fantasy points happen. That isn’t something that Brady has the luxury of keeping in his back pocket. The Bills have more games with multiple picks than games they yielded multiple passing touchdowns. In the nine games since their bye, opposing quarterbacks average below 200 yards passing, just over a touchdown per game, and just under a pick per game. It’s truly an awful matchup.
The Verdict
The saying tells you to never count out Touchdown Tom. Don’t worry, if you’re asking yourself if you should drop Tom Brady, you are not counting out Touchdown Tom. It means that Tom Brady has let you down. He’s duped you. Tom Brady is fully droppable and has been for a long time. His 90%+ ownership is truly mind-boggling. Let your opponent get him and play him against you. In fact, go drop Tom Brady now, and see if you can get your opponent to blow his waiver on him.
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