Patriots fans and many fantasy owners saw their hopes and dreams for 2008 quickly erased as Tom Brady went down for the season in the first quarter of Week 1. Now, over two months later, those same Pats fans and the collective fantasy world are looking at the sincere possibility of having to limp through another season without New England’s golden boy.

Since having his knee repaired after the injury, it is speculated that Brady has undergone more surgeries due to the knee becoming infected. The Boston Herald reported that, “the fear is the patellar tendon graft used to replace Brady’s anterior cruciate ligament is in danger of becoming compromised.” If this does indeed become reality, the process of repairing his knee would go back to square one and his ‘09 season would be in serious jeopardy.

This raises the question, “What the hell are people supposed to do for a QB next year?”. Realistically, Brady was the only guy standing out from a pack of overwhelming mediocrity. Peyton Manning hasn’t looked good all year really and the entire “second tier” of quarterbacks leave you with a complete gamble. On Yahoo! the top 12 quarterbacks after Week 7 are as follows:

1. Aaron Rodgers
2. Philip Rivers
3. Drew Brees
4. Jay Cutler
5. Tony Romo
6. Kurt Warner
7. Kyle Orton
8. Brett Favre
9. Donovan McNabb
10. Eli Manning
11. Jason Campbell
12. J.T. O’Sullivan

Personally, I’m not really comfortable taking any of those guys in the first round of a draft next year. The difference in points you’ll receive for being the first to jump at a QB and taking Brees or Romo won’t be worth passing up a RB in that spot because you’ll end up with a tandem like Thomas Jones and Sammy Morris as your starters.

Brady’s absence is being felt this year for sure (especially by those that drafted him) but he’d cause chaos in the fantasy world by missing 2009. Suddenly my draft strategy of the Quarterback Crap-Shoot (being the last guy to take a QB and picking a handful late so you can value-pick in the middle rounds) is the mentality employed by everyone at the table.

The quarterback position would take a distant back seat to everything else and drafting would be completely different than any other year. So unless you want to take the likes of DeAngelo Williams with your second pick in ‘09 hope Brady and his doctors figure this thing out before the problem spreads from Red-Sox Nation to all of the fantasy realm.