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Better Fantasy Draft Pick: Tom Brady or Jimmy Garoppolo?

Tom Brady? Or Jimmy G? Which late-round QB should fantasy owners draft this year?
Grant Cohn|
Better Fantasy Draft Pick: Tom Brady or Jimmy Garoppolo?
Better Fantasy Draft Pick: Tom Brady or Jimmy Garoppolo?

Tom Brady may be the greatest quarterback ever. But is he better than Jimmy Garoppolo right now? And should you draft Brady ahead of Garoppolo in fantasy football?

Sports Illustrated's Bell Enright and Ben Heisler invited me on their show to discuss this topic for their recent article.

I told them I believe Brady will have a better season than Garoppolo because Brady plays in a pass-first offense, while Garoppolo plays in a run-first offense. Plus, Brady will throw to great receivers -- Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, O.J. Howard and Rob Gronkowski -- while Garoppolo's No. 1 wide receiver could be a rookie: first-round draft pick Brandon Aiyuk.

But Ben Heisler makes a great point about the value of drafting Garoppolo:

"The fantasy value of Garoppolo going off the board at QB22 or QB23 -- there is so much fantasy value for him. For a guy who threw the ball the second-least amount of times in the NFL according to team passing, he was QB14 a season ago. He was was No. 4 in yards per pass attempt. And now that the defense likely will regress -- we saw this happen with the Chicago Bears a couple seasons ago -- they're going to have to take more chances down the field, especially with George Kittle now being fully healthy, likely being TE1 of fantasy football in 2020, there presents an opportunity for Garoppolo to have more opportunities on play action, take deeper shots down the field, Brandon Aiyuk has now been added to the mix and he has looked incredible so far in 49ers training camp. Then eventually once they get Deebo Samuel back, the offense is going to be clicking."

Heisler convinced me. If I played fantasy football, which I don't, I would wait until the late rounds to take Garoppolo rather than draft Brady early.

What would you do?

Published
Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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