Related: Fantasy Football 2013: Week 10 Mailbag
After eight weeks of hitting themselves over the head repeatedly, Tom Brady‘s fantasy owners can finally stop their self-loathing and let out a deep sigh of relief.
Just when it was starting to seem like Brady’s days as a fantasy stud were gone for good, the quarterback finally blew up for his best performance of the season against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday. Roughly one week ago, most of Brady’s owners were resigning themselves to the fact that he was going to be one of the biggest busts of the season. Everyone had made a big deal over Rob Gronkowski and Danny Amendola finally being healthy and Brady having a full arsenal of weapons for the first time this season, only for their hopes to be crushed as the three of them all posted brutal duds in Week 8.
I guess sometimes things just need to get a little worse before they can get better. Whether it was divine intervention or the gang just needed a week to get on the same page, everything finally clicked for the New England Patriots‘ offense against the Steelers. Brady completed 23 of 33 passes for 432 yards and four touchdowns, good for 33.18 fantasy points in standard leagues. He finished with a 151.8 QB rating, just the second time he’s had a rating over 100 this season. He was hooking up with everyone as Gronk, Amendola and Aaron Dobson all had huge games.
The Patriots now head into their bye-week with a solid 7-2 record and feeling pretty good about themselves. They’re about to get Shane Vereen back as well, and he’s an excellent pass-catcher out of the backfield, so things could be looking up for Brady. It will be very interesting to see how he performs against the Carolina Panthers in Week 11. His owners are by no means out of the dark yet, but this past week’s performance was incredibly encouraging.
Brady could be headed from bust back to boom.
Dan Freeman is a Fantasy football writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanFreeman88.
