New England Patriots: the Tom Brady Effect.

The hit that was heard around the fantasy world; Tom Brady is out for the 08 season. For those poor souls who grabbed up Brady with their single coveted first round pick, this was a guarantee. A guarantee in a world of constant turmoil, where the first round routinely cycled into fantasy busts or underachievers.

Even to those that have been winning championships for many years using the tried and true model of RB/RB with their first two picks were surely tempted this year to use their second or even first round pick on the holder of the NFL record for most TD passes in a season. His loss is devastating, in so many ways.

For some, Brady's season-ending injury means almost certainly the end of their fantasy season as well. For others, especially the Patriot faithful, nightmares and sleepless nights are sure to follow. For me however, only feelings of relief and comfort in the fact that I was not quite so blinded by his oh so impressive numbers.

Let's start at the beginning.

Some of you might have known for quite some time that the record setting QB has spent more than a few games on the injury report. To be exact, the entire last season for starters. Countless times he has been listed as either probable or questionable Saturday night and yet still played seemingly perfect football come kickoff time on Sunday afternoon.

Bill Belichick playing mind games? Perhaps, perhaps not. That doesn't even matter though. Fast forward to the week before the Super Bowl and now he's got a leg brace on.

For those who watched him play any games towards the end of the season, you also probably noticed that the vaunted Patriots were no longer blowing out teams, most of us at the time just accredited it either the other teams playing better or just having more film and more time to plan better. The Eagles, the Ravens, the Giants, the Chargers, and finally the Giants again in the Super Bowl. He just didn't look like the same quarterback that through the first three quarters of the regular season was accused of running up the score more than once.

Starting to get the picture?

Ok, again fast forward to training camp and now he's listed as having a foot injury and doesn't even play for a single snap in any of the four preseason games.

Now before I go any further, I'm going to admit right here and right now that in the past I have held more than a certain bias towards Tom Brady and with good reason. I bet against him when he beat the Carolina Panthers in the Super Bowl and again when he beat the Philadelphia Eagles in another Super Bowl. I have silently prayed for him to go down with an injury countless times before, especially when he was about to play my beloved Baltimore Ravens.

The fact that I spent so much time scanning the Internet for news about his injury status allowed me to collect all this information to share with you today. Hopefully the Patriot faithful with understand and will leave my car untouched when I finally go to bed tonight.

So finally, this takes us up to the point where this year's regular season begins. Tom Brady declares himself ready to play a few days before his season opener, along with a handful of others who had been inactive throughout the preseason, and most if not all drafts are finally complete.

I personally weighed my options, as most of you do, and made an educated choice based on the information at hand on whether or not he was worth drafting onto my team. To say that I knew that he would be injured in game 1 would be completely false, I had no idea just like everyone else and was thoroughly shocked when I finally saw it on ESPN Sportscenter that night (I was completely focused on Joe Flacco running for 36 yards and a TD against Cincinnati at the time).

What I can say is that many things were pointing in that direction, and for exactly that reason I chose not only not to draft him, but also not to trade for him and advised my friends to do the same thing. Some of you might say that another highly valued QB, Peyton Manning, who also did not play a snap during the preseason. But, Peyton has not been on the injury report an entire season and for what its worth seemed rusty in a loss to the Chicago bears in his season opener.

Let's wrap this up.

In short, I was lucky enough to spot a serious trend this year, and therefore did not make the mistake of choosing Tom Brady in the draft. His loss will affect his team much more seriously than the Patriots are making it seem at this point in time; I would go so far as to say that with his loss, the Patriots almost instantly went from a lock for 11+ wins and being handed the division title to a bitter struggle to win 9.

Some may look down in contempt when they read this, and to them I have only one thing to say and one question left to ask. The Patriots barely won their opener against the lowly Kansas City Chiefs, how much faith do you have in a quarterback who was almost cut from the team not even 2 weeks prior. -M