Drew Brees 2019 Fantasy Football Player Profile
Player: Drew Brees
Team: New Orleans Saints
Shawn Childs rank: QB10
The key to the rebound of Brees as a passer will come with the development of his secondary WRs. He has an elite pass-catching back, a stud WR1 and a TE with upside in the passing game. If he finds a fourth option at WR, his passing attempts will push back to above the league average. Either way, his starting point for me in 2019 is about 4,200 passing yards with 30 TDs.
It was interesting to see that Brees attempted the lowest number of passes in his career since 2004 (489). It was also the second straight year that his completions regressed (364). Brees set a career-high in completion rate (74.5%) helped by a high number of catches (108) and attempts (143) to the RB position. Brees finished with 3,992 passing yards and 32 TDs, which was well below his expected value and results from the previous six years (5,141 passing yards and 38 passing TDs per year) before 2017.
Brees passed for over 300 yards in six games and had seven games with three TDs or more. Over his last four games of the year, he only threw three passing TDs. The bottom line here is that Brees continues to have regression in his opportunity due to growth in the run game.
Last season, Brees passed both Peyton Manning and Brett Favre in career passing yards. Now he is hoping to hold off Tom Brady as the top passing QB in NFL history. Brees enters 2019 in a tight battle with Brady in career TDs (520 and 517) with Brett Favre (539) expecting to concede the number one spot at some point this year. The structure of the offense in New Orleans changed in a big way over the last couple of seasons with the emergence of Alvin Kamara and improvement in the run game.
Check out more of our 2019 player profiles.
Looking for a more accurate measure of where experts are drafting a certain player? Advanced ADP is based on the 10 most recent high-stakes fantasy football drafts. Things change fast. Find out the exact window of opportunity for the key players you are looking to target the most. Check out Advanced ADP at FullTime Fantasy.