Pats need star man to locate his mojo quickly, says Simon Veness
Thursday 2 October 2014 09:36, UK
It’s amazing how much Fantasy Football can mirror the Real Thing in NFL terms these days (and vice versa).
It can pinpoint issues almost before they’re full-blown issues, and it highlights growing concerns that have a real echo in the actual pads-and-helmets world of the game. Take Tom Brady, for example.
Only last week, all the Fantasy chatter was about how the New England quarterback was no longer worthy of starting in standard 12-team leagues.
He has looked human before. But he has rarely looked so completely and utterly helpless.
How he had not put up a worthy points-scoring performance since last year; how he was not making the deep throws; and how little time he was getting behind an increasingly makeshift offensive line.
He had managed just one touchdown in each of his first three games and was averaging barely 10pts a game, Fantasy-wise.
And then Kansas City happened. Everything the fantasy pundits had been talking about in the pretend pigskin world suddenly came to vivid 3D life before our eyes on the real gridiron as we witnessed the potential complete and total eclipse of one of the greatest talents of this NFL generation.
Brady has looked human before. He has struggled behind porous offensive lines before. He has looked as he if has no-one to throw to before. But he has rarely looked so completely and utterly helpless as he did against the Chiefs, and the talking heads have been in overdrive about it ever since.
It has been the subject of every opinion show and news bulletin you care to name, with the possible exceptions of Ellen and Oprah (although, even then, I’m sure they could squeeze in a mention, as long as they linked it to what Tom’s missus, Gisele Bundchen, was wearing this week).
The simple, sad fact is Brady had only one more Fantasy point (4) than he had turnovers (3), and it could easily have been worse as his first fumble was recovered by team-mate Nate Solder.
And it had all been completely analysed and predicted in advance by the Fantasy gurus, who were all advising owners to ditch Brady and run as far away as possible (to the extent that the likes of Cleveland’s Brian Hoyer and Geno Smith of the Jets were deemed more suitable options. Ye gods. Can you imagine – starting the F-bomb king by choice?).
Direct from the fantasy statistics pages comes this little observational tidbit: according to ESPN Stats & Information, among all NFL quarterbacks who have started each game this year, Brady's 31.8 percent completion rate on throws more than 10 yards is the lowest in the NFL.
It is not quite the final nail in the Brady coffin for 2014, but you have to think it is a situation and a message the Patriots are finding it hard to digest right now, to the extent that the often-monosyllabic Bill Belichick became even less communicative than usual in his Wednesday press conference. If it’s possible to be completely non-syllabic, that was Surly Bill this week.
The bad news for New England is that they have seen this movie before, and they didn’t much like it first time around either. Because, if Brady truly is reduced to the realms of just an ordinary passer, a journeyman in Hoyer/Orton/Fitzpatrick territory, then Pats fans have only to think back to 2008 and the last time their iconic passer was less than himself (OK, so he missed 15 games with an injury).
It was the only time in the past 10 years the team HASN’T won the division and it is a harbinger of doom in the worst possible way in a division that already looks more wide open than the sweetshop door at a chocoholics convention.
Because the bottom line for New England is that they are the most one-man team in the league, and, without their 37-year-old talisman, there isn’t a lot to fall back on.
The Grey Hoodie is obviously renowned for getting MUCH more from individual players in talent terms than just about anyone in football not called Lombardi, but he may have finally pushed this act too far and spread the bedrock talent too thin for even he to salvage anything from it.
True, they are still only 2-2 in a potentially soft division, but seven of their next eight games are against genuine play-off contenders, including this week at Cincinnati and a veritable murderer’s row of five successive games with Denver, Indianapolis, Detroit, Green Bay and San Diego that could easily derail their season without a fully-functioning Brady.
And, if the Patriots are already ankle-deep in doo-doo, Philadelphia might just be right behind them, according to the Fantasy soothsayers.
LeSean McCoy is Exhibit A on this week’s Prognostication File, with many pundits asking the question: To McCoy, or not to McCoy?
Just listen to Sports Illustrated’s Michael Beller: “Through four games this year, LeSean has just 192 yards on 70 carries, the second-lowest total since 1975 for a running back with that many totes.
"Twenty-six running backs, including Mark Ingram, Antone Smith, Bobby Rainey, Isaiah Crowell and team-mate Darren Sproles, have more fantasy points than McCoy to date.”
According to the experts, the problem is not so much McCoy himself – although he is a frustrated figure of his former self so far this term – as the people in front of him.
It is a pretty damning indictment of last year’s leading rusher and it doesn’t figure to get any better anytime soon, according to the experts, as the problem is not so much McCoy himself – although he is a frustrated figure of his former self so far this term – as the people in front of him.
Like New England, the Eagles offensive line has become a patchwork quilt due to injury and suspension, and it is a paper-thin quilt at best, able to provide little more protection than the average notebook (A4 size, of course).
With McCoy bottled up, Philly’s much vaunted fast-break offence looked about as racy as a Model-T Ford, and not nearly as menacing, in the loss at San Francisco, and it is hard to see them re-tuning the machine anytime soon, although they do have the potential refuge of a Week 7 bye to get a few bodies healthy again.
True, the Eagles remain the league’s third-highest scorers, but fully five of their 14 touchdowns to date have been scored by their defence or special teams, while Cody Parkey has booted his way to 38 points, good for third behind Adam Vinatieri and Nick Novak.
Philly certainly can’t count on their defence and special teams to continue to bail out the offence, and suddenly the ‘soft’ part of their schedule – home games with St Louis and New York Giants – doesn’t look like a walk in the (Lincoln Financial) Field any more.
The good news for Eagles fans – unlike their counterparts in New England – is that the Fantasy world at least sees some redemption in future for McCoy. At 26 he is deemed too young to stay in the doldrums for an extended period, but it is a big test for Kelly to piece together enough of a rush-lane-creating presence in front of him.
Week 2’s win on the road at Indianapolis was a merit-worthy success, but those against Jacksonville and Washington were merely holding serve, doing the expected.
Losing to the 49ers was as big a setback as the Indy victory was positive yardage, so in real terms they are only treading water, with some of their biggest tests still to come.
Overall, a team that was the pundits’ pet after three weeks and already earmarked for post-season glory has suddenly become a big question mark. To McCoy or not to McCoy?
And that is no fantasy.
