That headline is a bit of a doozy huh? Fading the GOAT in 2022 football drafts is no easy pill to swallow.
After all, Tom Brady is just barely a year removed from another Super Bowl victory and he put up over 5,000 yards passing (which led the league) along with a 43:12 TD:INT ratio (and two more “rushing” scores) last season. One brief retirement announcement later that lasted as long as … well, one of Rob Gronkowski‘s retirements, and we’ll get another season of Brady with the Bucs.
He’ll be ready to take the league by storm yet again — but could 2022, when he’ll be 45 come season’s start, be the year Brady finally loses to Father Time?
Fantasy analyst Liz Loza and NFL analyst Frank Schwab discuss that in the video above.
Will Tom Brady falter in 2022?
It’s hard to root against — to fade — Tom Brady. He just continues to defy the expectations, to win, to put up unreal numbers.
But there’s a lot working against him in 2022 — beyond just his advanced age and declining physical prowess.
For one, he just lost one of his best weapons — perhaps his best weapon ever — in the aforementioned Gronk, who announced his retirement (will that last? Who knows). He’ll already be without another of his top weapons in Chris Godwin, set to miss the first few weeks of the season as he recovers from his season-ending ACL injury.
Brady also lost Bruce Arians, who retired from coaching. It’s hard to quantify how much of an impact that will have on the field.
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He still has Mike Evans and Leonard Fournette and the addition of Russell Gage, so it’s not like the cupboard is bare. But, and this is a question that needs to be asked: Just how invested will Brady be this year? There’s clearly nothing left to prove.
Should fantasy managers trust him when he’s clearly thinking about life after football? Check out the video above for more analysis on this.