Fantasy News
I’m looking at the Patriots today, trying to get a feel on how they’ll do. I mentioned the schedule deal a few weeks back – the easiest I’ve ever seen. That will help them. I’ll be surprised if they don’t win 14-plus games.
With the secondary getting pummeled in free agency, the defense definitely will be worse. That should result in their offense spending more time on the sidelines (and scoring fewer points).
But mostly, I think, it’s just not realistic to expect Tom Brady to throw 50 TD passes again. That’s just a hell of a number. They were totaling in sync and hungry last year, and defenses might/should do a better job against them this season. A few years back, we were in a similar situation, when Peyton Manning threw 49 TDs. We projected Manning to finish 40 the following year, and that ended up being way too high. Manning dropped to 28. I’m not saying Brady will take that kind of dive, but keep in mind that he’s not chasing the record this season – it’s more glamourous to go after somebody else’s record than to top your own.
The other guy to perhaps include in this case study would be Dan Marino. He threw 48 TD passes in 1984. The following year, he held out through training camp and Mark Duper got hurt, and Marino wound up finishing with 30 TD passes. He climbed back up to 44 TD passes in 1986.
Consider these numbers (for the team) from last year:
PATRIOTS, FIRST TEN GAMES
41 points per game, 38 TD passes, 9 TD runs
(38 TD passes in 10 games = pace for 61 in a season)
PATRIOTS, FINAL NINE GAMES (including postseason)
27 points per game, 18 TD passes, 11 TD runs
(2 TD passes in 9 games = pace for 32 in a season)
Now, those final nine games don’t exactly match up with the first 10. Weather and wind was a factor in a lot of those games, and they ran into some better defenses. But I think it’s a lead-pipe lock that New England is coming down a least a few notches this year. No way does Brady get above the low 40s. If I was setting an over-under in a Las Vegas casino on Brady’s TD passes in 2008, the number I would pick would be 38.
I will post a Tom Brady reader poll question. We’ll see where you readers think he will wind up.
--Ian Allan
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