NFL Free Agency: Fantasy impact of Tom Brady to the Buccaneers

For many sports fans, the NFL is the only thing keeping us sane during quarantine season. With every other sports league closed down, the NFL has delivered what has been an extremely entertaining free agency period to this point.

We've already been treated to two blockbuster trades, as Fantasy studs DeAndre Hopkins, Stefon Diggs, and David Johnson will all play on new teams for the first time in their career in 2020. The Texans traded Hopkins to the Cardinals for Johnson and draft picks, in one of the more stunning trades in recent NFL memory, and one that will have a massive Fantasy impact.

The Vikings parted ways with the disgruntled Diggs in exchange for multiple draft picks. Diggs will join John Brown and Cole Beasley to give Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills the best receiving corps they've had in some time. Allen's Fantasy value just shot up, while Kirk Cousins will likely be an afterthought in most Fantasy drafts now.

Perhaps the biggest news of all, though, came on Tuesday night. For the first time in 20 years, Tom Brady will not be a member of the New England Patriots. The Buccaneers' Super Bowl odds have turned upside down after landing Brady, but SportsLine's model is not quite as optimistic.

Brady's Fantasy Outlook

Brady joins a Tampa Bay offense that is loaded with weapons and has churned out some ridiculous numbers through the air over the past couple years. In terms of maintaining his own Fantasy relevancy, Brady couldn't have chosen a better destination.

Here's how the Bucs and Patriots compare over the past two seasons:

2019:
Tampa Bay -- 7th in pass-to-rush ratio, 1st in pass attempts, 1st in air yards
New England -- 19th in pass-to-rush ratio, 4th in pass attempts, 9th in air yards

2018:
Tampa Bay -- 6th in pass-to-rush ratio, 1st in pass attempts, 1st in air yards
New England -- 26th in pass-to-rush ratio, 10th in pass attempts, 9th in air yards

Now, Brady is a different type of passer than Jameis Winston or Ryan Fitzpatrick. His skill set in his age-43 season doesn't seem like a natural fit in Bruce Arians' vertical downfield approach, and it is likely that Tampa Bay will conform their offense to best fit their $30M investment. I wouldn't expect the Bucs to lead the NFL in air yards in 2020.

Still, there's no way to classify this as anything other than a massive boost for Brady's Fantasy value. He's finished as the QB12 and QB13 in the past two seasons, but that has come with a diminished supporting cast. We saw Brady finish as the QB4 in his age-40 season, and a return to the top-10 is well within reach with his talented new group of pass-catchers.

The Weapons

The Bucs went with the Ron Burgundy approach when trying to win Tom Brady over, and apparently, it worked. To quote Mr. Burgundy, "The only way to bag a classy lady is to give her two tickets to the gun show... *kisses biceps* and see if she likes the goods."

In this case, the goods were Chris Godwin and Mike Evans, PFF's second- and seventh-highest graded receivers in 2019. And Tom Brady did like them, at least more than he liked the idea of throwing to the 36th- and 66th-ranked receivers (Julian Edelman and Jakobi Meyers) again, at least.

And while I'm sure Godwin and Evans will appreciate the leadership and more accurate passes that Brady brings, their Fantasy owners may not be quite as happy about the switch. Here's a breakdown of how Brady compares to Winston over the past few years:

The Deep Ball

Winston ranked fourth in deep ball rate last year, throwing it 20-plus yards in the air on 15.8 percent of his attempts. Here's the deep ball breakdown for his top two receivers:

Evans -- 407 deep yards (8th in the NFL) and 21.9 percent deep ball rate (percent of targets that were deep targets)
Godwin -- 298 deep yards (22nd) and just a 14.9 percent deep ball rate

Evans benefits more from the Arians-Winston combination than Godwin, who profiles more as an Edelman-type. The transition to Brady's playstyle could be a bit of an issue for Evans, as evidenced by the numbers below:

2019:
Brady -- 10.1 percent deep ball rate (21st), 41.9 percent deep adjusted completion rate (11th)
Winston -- 15.8 percent deep ball rate (4th), 44.4 percent deep adjusted completion rate (8th)

It's possible that Brady's 10 percent deep ball rate was due more to his weapons than his inability to attack downfield. He posted strong deep ball numbers as recently as 2017, when he had downfield weapons like Brandin Cooks, Rob Gronkowski, and Chris Hogan. Here are his deep ball numbers from the most recent seasons, starting in 2018 and ending in 2016:

DEEP% -- 11.4% (16th), 13.8% (6th), 11.3% (16th)
ADJ% -- 43% (9th), 46.3% (4th), 51% (7th)

Fewer WR Targets

There's a possibility that not only will the overall target total in Tampa fall with Brady at the helm, but that the percentage of said targets that go to wide receivers could also fall. In 2019, 62.6 percent of Jameis Winston's pass attempts were directed at wide receivers. Over the past five seasons, Brady's receivers have accounted for a 55 percent target market share. Godwin and Evans were responsible for a combined 45 percent of Tampa Bay's targets in the games they played in last season. The highest combined target share for two of Brady's receivers over the past five years was 39.7 percent in 2016.

It remains to be seen if these numbers were a product of New England having excellent weapons at the tight end and running back position, or if Brady's playstyle elevated guys like James White and Rex Burkhead into the pass-catching machines that they became. If you believe the latter to be true, you should aggressively target O.J. Howard and Ronald Jones, assuming Tampa Bay doesn't add a more competent pass-catching back.

Takeaways

With far better weapons and a more pass-heavy offensive scheme at his disposal, Tom Brady goes from late-round Fantasy QB fodder to a clear top-12 option with upside for more. His complete lack of rushing stats will likely keep Brady out of the top-five Fantasy QB consideration though, so I wouldn't overreact and reach for him in drafts.

And while Brady is a better real-life quarterback than Jameis Winston, there's no way to classify this move as anything but a downgrade in value for Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. Of the two, Godwin's style of routes matches up better with Brady's tendencies, and he could maintain top-five WR value in PPR formats. The dropoff for Evans could be more severe. Evans' value was kept afloat by massive spike weeks in which Winston locked onto him and aggressively and repeatedly attacked downfield. Brady spreads the ball around more, which could result in fewer ceiling games for Evans. That, plus the overall downtick in passing volume in Tampa Bay could move Evans out of top-10 or even top-15 Fantasy WR consideration.