Ranking Brady

Amid conflicting rumors regarding the status of his surgically repaired knee, back in mid-December I blogged over at FantasyFootballChamps about where to rank Tom Brady going into next year's fantasy football season. I contended that it would be tough to rank a healthy Tom Brady outside of my top-three quarterbacks heading into next season. Those that responded and commented on the blog seemed to agree.

Now, with this week's news per the Boston Globe that Brady is running, throwing, and more or less on track to be ready to go once the season starts, what do you think? The Globe's report is the first really solid, detailed update that we have had on his condition so we can with more certainty assume he will be ready to go once the season kicks off.

I personally would not feel comfortable taking Brady No. 1 at quarterback. I think I'd go the safe route and draft either Peyton Manning or Drew Bress instead. However, if it comes down to a choice between Brady and the likes of Tony Romo, Philip Rivers, or Kurt Warner, I'd have a tough time resisting Tom. After all, the last time we saw him play for more than one quarter, he was busy setting the single-season record for touchdown passes.

Of course, long before making such critical fantasy decisions we will know where Matt Cassel is playing. Cassel says he is open to the possibility of returning to New England next season as the backup to Brady, but free agency offers could make him change his tune. The Patriots might apply the franchise tag to the free agent-to-be quarterback as soon as next week. Doing so would tie up a giant percentage of their salary cap in two players that play the same position. Hence, the speculation that the Patriots will entertain trade offers for Cassel. And if they don't retain Cassel, letting him become a free agent, it will send a pretty clear message that the Patriots are confident that Brady will be ready.

What do you think? If you had to draft today, where would you rank Tom Brady heading into the 2009 fantasy football season? Is he top-three at quarterback? Is he No. 1? Or are you too gun shy to roll the dice on him as one of the top quarterbacks next season?

Bo is a member of the FSWA.

Do the Cardinals Have a Chance?

Here are my thoughts on this year's Super Bowl, originally posted in my blog over at FantasyFootballChamps.com:

I'm not a betting man at all so I had to do some searching to find out what the spread is for Super Bowl XLIII. After some Googling I see that the sportsbooks have the Steelers favored by 6.5 to 7 points and I guess I'm not surprised. The Cardinals are definitely the underdogs in the eyes of the betting public and sports media alike. Again, I won't be betting on this game, but if I were my money would be on the Cards. Do I think the Steelers are the safe bet to win this game? Yes. If these two teams played 10 times, do I think that the Steelers would win more than five of those games? Absolutely. We've all heard that defense wins championships, and no team had a better defense than the Steelers this season.

That being said, the Cardinals have been playing some defense this postseason as well. They have shut down a pretty impressive trio of running games so far this month -- all three of them better than the rushing game that Willie Parker and the Steelers have. The pass defense has yielded the normal number of thouchdown passes (for them) with an average of two per playoff game; however, they have really ratcheted up the takeaways with eight interceptions. Ben Roethlisberger is hardly on a different level than Donovan McNabb and Matt Ryan. We won't talk about Jake Delhomme. And with Hines Ward gimping on a sprained knee, I have to think the Steelers passing game might be borderline inept in Tampa this Sunday.

In other words, if the Cardinals can score more than 20 points in this game, I like their chances of not only covering the spread, but winning the game outright. Heck, Larry Fitzgerald will score at least once so they just have to come up with two more touchdowns. Of course, the Steelers defense could score a defensive touchdown or set up short fields for the offense with takeaways and that could prove to be the difference. In short, I think this is going to be a more interesting game than most people give it a chance of being.

Do the Cardinals have a chance? Hey, I didn't think they'd win any of the three playoff games they've played so far... nothing would surprise me.

So I'm saying there's a chance.

SEE ALSO:
Super Bowl XLIII Preview
Super Bowl Prep