FanHouse Tom Brady

When one prepares to draft a fantasy football team, myriad criterion should be considered in evaluating who to target, and, likewise, who to avoid. One word bouncing around just as frequently as anything else during said evaluation? Injury. Maybe a guy was injured for several games last season, maybe he suffered a season-ending injury or maybe he's just an injury-prone guy. This affects the value of players on draft day.

Let's check out the value of 10 guys with injury concerns, and judge whether or not they are up to the task for 2009.

---

---

With Fantasy Football season ready to kick in high gear, FanHouse is here to preview each and every team -- one per day until we've done them all.

Meet The ...
Troops of Tom Brady. Yes, there are plenty of guys on this team who matter -- not sure if you've heard of Randy Moss, for example -- but this season it is all about the health of Tom Brady. He's going to be nearly a year removed from tearing his ACL in 2008 when the season begins. Now that Matt Cassel is gone, the weight of the team of on Brady's shoulders.

Really, the picture here is perfect. There are guys in the background wearing the same uniform, but they are a bit blurry. Brady is front and center, and the focus of the photo.

---

---

Retired NFL quarterback Trent Green is the first-ever guest columnist of MMQB, filling in while Peter King is on vacation. Green provided an interesting read on subjects relating to the league's personal conduct policy, concussions and the expanded season. And of course it wouldn't be a MMQB without a healthy dose of Favre thrown in for good measure.

What jumps out of Green's article is his prediction that 10 quarterbacks will have over 4,000 yards passing this season. He says six are a lock to do it (Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Kurt Warner, Phillip Rivers and Aaron Rodgers), and seven have the potential to do it (Jay Cutler, Matt Cassel, Carson Palmer, Matt Schaub, Donovan McNabb, Tony Romo, Matt Hasselbeck).

Let's put this prediction in context:

Bernie Kosar spent his first eight NFL season with the Cleveland Browns. A native of Youngstown, Ohio, he was a fan favorite, although Bill Belichick, hired in 1991, was less enamored with the immobile quarterback and eventually benched him for Vinny Testaverde in 1993, before releasing him in Week 8.

Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady are, on a very rare occasion or two, scrutinized by the paparazzi. The proverbial heat is probably going to get cranked even more based on the newest rumor: Gisele is pregnant.

So sayeth People (who claim that speculation has grown since Bundchen recently appeared in photos with a "perceptible bump" underneath her shirt).

"Gisele will be an excellent mother," a source tells PEOPLE. "She's always wanted kids." Reps for Bündchen reached by PEOPLE for confirmation refused to comment.

Bill Belichick is a lot of things, both real and imagined, but he rarely uses the media to take shots at opponents. Yes, he went off on Freddie Mitchell, but I'm not even sure that counts. Mitchell was flapping his gums about the Patriots prior to Super Bowl XXXIX and it prompted this response from Belichick: "All he does is talk. He's terrible, and you can print that. I was happy when he was in the game."

I mention that encounter because despite Belichick's sometimes tumultuous relationship with the New York Jets -- he resigned a half-hour after accepting the gig in 1999, and didn't appear to be particularly fond of former assistant Eric Mangini once he took the job in 2006 (This probably didn't help; on the upside, Bill and Herm never had any problems, and there's video evidence as proof. [Waves at camera, mouths "hello," laughs hysterically.]) -- he has yet to go "FredEx" on anybody associated with the team.

If you need a quick chuckle on this Hump-Day morning, just picture a future Hall of Fame quarterback needing to be rescued from a kayaking mishap -- while watching his supermodel wife safely scooting down the stream.

Yes, Tom Brady -- the all-everything quarterback of the New England Patriots -- rented a pair of kayaks Sunday with wife Gisele Bundchen so they could ride down the Charles River side-by-side. Whether he was a bit more adventurous or less capable with the kayak, we don't know. What we do know is that Brady cap-sized his ride and needed to be saved by another man.

FanHouse's crack squad of savvy fantasy football personnel put our five heads together and amassed consensus rankings for non-keeper, standard scoring leagues. We'll update as the season gets closer, but this is our "incredibly early yet still fun" version.

Was last season the year of the quarterback or what? You still had the old reliables like Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, Kurt Warner and Donovan McNabb doing their thing, but a whole new crop of passers have elevated themselves. Aaron Rodgers, Philip Rivers and Jay Cutler led the way for the youth movement. You could have even waited toward the end of your draft and landed stud QBs in Matt Ryan and Tyler Thigpen (who would have been waiver-wire fodder). Team all that with Tom Brady's Week 1 injury, and we had a really interesting season. Let's see how they fall out presently for 2009.

---

---

This is sure to rile up the natives but, well, Rodney Harrison built a career around that -- along with late hits, blows to the head, and 15 years of some pretty solid football.

Earlier today he announced his retirement from tackling fat guys for a living, as well as his plans for the future: studio analyst for NBC's Football Night in America, along with recently retired Colts coach Tony Dungy.

There is only one professional athlete who should be called The King these days and he's not playing in Cleveland.

Tom Brady returned to practice this week for the Patriots. Brady is the same man with three Super Bowl titles, two Super Bowl MVP awards and four Pro Bowl berths. Say what you want about Peyton Manning being the best quarterback in the league -- all Brady does is win games.

He is one of four men to win three or more Super Bowls and earn multiple Super Bowl MVP awards. Brady has a better career winning percentage than Roger Staubach and Joe Montana in the Super Bowl era. Before his season-ending knee injury in last year's opener against Kansas City, he had started 128 consecutive games, the second-longest streak among active quarterbacks and third-longest all-time.