What are millions of fantasy football players going to do about Tom Brady?
COMMENTARY
What is the sound of laughter stopping? Now that summer’s almost over, it’s what you’re hearing from pro football fans outside New England when the topic of Deflategate comes up.
In these parts, fans have always felt Tom Brady vs. Roger Goodell is a vital issue of social injustice, the Dreyfus affair and Dred Scott decision rolled into one overinflated ball of outrage. West of the Connecticut River, however, the unanimous reaction of fans of the other 31 NFL teams has been a prolonged horselaugh at both sides of the conflict.
Who can blame them? Deflategate has been silly since it began, and its highest comedy has been the deadly seriousness with which Brady, the Patriots and the NFL have treated their dispute. If there’s one thing fans enjoy more than seeing the glamor boy quarterback of the league’s most disliked franchise (successful teams are always much disliked) look foolish, it’s watching universally despised commissioner Roger Goodell make a perfect ass of himself. From the Wells Report on, Deflategate has been an unending source of joy in the grim world of pro football as it is lived in places like Jacksonville, Atlanta and Oakland. I sure hope those fans availed themselves of streaming Boston sports talk radio since May. The sputtering rage and half-coherent legal and scientific arguments of callers could’ve put a stone into hysterics.
But as your mom used to say, it’s all fun and games until there’s money on the table. The humor has leaked from Brady’s situation since about mid-August. Fantasy football draft season is upon us and Brady’s no longer a punchline, he’s a problem.
In a more normal, better world that’d never heard of the ideal gas law, Brady would be a high draft pick in every one of America’s 132,743,665,987 fantasy leagues, one of the top five or so quarterbacks off the board. And playing it straight may still well be the best fantasy strategy where Brady is concerned. After all, Judge Richard Berman has sounded more sympathetic to Brady’s case than to the NFL’s.
Alas, it may also well not be. Berman has that pesky habit of reminding everyone his questions don’t necessarily indicate how he will rule. A player selecting Brady is spending a high pick (and a lot of cap space if he or she is in a league with spending rules) to get a quarterback who might miss the first four games of the season, putting the player’s team in a deep hole from the jump. Perhaps the prudent play is to pass on Brady, either by taking Andrew Luck or Aaron Rodgers early, or wait on quarterback and take a flier on a Teddy Bridgewater or Sam Bradford later.
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Tom Brady Career Timeline
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One assumes fantasy players from Seattle to Key West have reacted to this legal dilemma the way all good lawyers do when they’re in a jam – by asking for a continuance, postponing their leagues’ drafts until Berman issues his ruling, which is supposed to be by September 4, six days before NFL Opening Night at Gillette Stadium. But it’s a sad fact of the law that continuances never make a problem go away.
Both Brady and the Players’ Association and the NFL have made it clear that if Berman rules against them, they will immediately appeal. This would bump the case up to the United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, an august body of distinguished jurists who would then become the most important figures in fantasy football. Commercials for Draft Kings would show images of guys in black robes instead of that dude in the Brady throwback jersey.
Many Pats fans and some commentators assume an appeal would automatically allow Brady to play through the entire 2016 season because the Second Circuit would take years to hear the case. This is erroneous. If Berman rules against Brady, the appeals court could well deny him injunctive relief, and the suspension would take effect. This would at least give closure for fantasy players, even if they made a losing bet on the Pats’ QB.
More ominously for those plungers, the law’s delay doesn’t always kick in. Courts, even courts of appeals, can move quickly if they want to. One could only sympathize if the Second Circuit felt the dignity of the federal bench required brooming the Deflategate farce as soon as it hits their desks. This raises the awkward possibility that Brady’s suspension would kick in later in the season, right around fantasy playoff time, when there’s not a decent replacement quarterback to be had. It’ll make for a stressful season for those with the nerve to draft Brady. Wake up each Monday, scan the injury reports, see which players were dropped by competitors in their leagues, and last but not least, go online and check this week’s docket for the Second Circuit.
Now or later, fantasy players could do what they often do before the draft, consult touts, who in this case are the lawyers employed as “expert commentators’’ by media outlets. I’m sure many players have already done this, searching out the opinions of Roger Cossack, Lester Munson, et. al. to provide some draft guidance. They have of course discovered that these experts disagree on both how Berman and the Court of Appeals will rule. Lawyers get paid to disagree. They’re good at it.
There are blogs and websites where the federal courts receive as much scrutiny as does the NFL in the sports world. Don’t go there fantasy players. All you’ll get is the same disagreement expressed in more confusing language.
If there’s an upside to the Deflategate fantasy dilemma, it’s that it offers fantasy players a taste of the crises that turn so many real life NFL coaches and front office types old and unemployed before their time. Fantasy football is basically low stakes gambling. Real pro football is a no-limit game. It’s good to remember that at the start of every season.
Since my guess on what will happen to Brady in the courts as is good/bad as anyone else’s, I have no advice for readers who are fantasy players. The punting the issue solution, however, looks like the least-worst option. In fact, I’d punt the problem clear out of football and wait a month or two for an NBA fantasy draft. Last I heard, that league had no beef with Steph Curry.
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