The Browns got something right: Trent Richardson
is the poster child of this millennium for selling high.
You might be asking yourself “Why would anyone start their column
on Powerhouse Playoff Teams with a picture of one of the top 10
biggest busts in NFL history?” The answer: because he was solid
gold in the right hands and at the right time.
This might be the first and last time I praise the Browns leadership
especially considering this was an example of a poor acquisition
rather than opportunistic GM’ing, but nonetheless here we are.
Recapping, the Browns traded former Trent
Richardson (No.3 overall) to the Colts for a first-round draft
pick. Am I saying spend a 3rd overall pick on a bust so you can
later dump him for a lesser first-round pick in a future draft?
Absolutely not. But when someone is on the hook, make lemonade out
of disgusting, rotten lemons. Clearly the Colts were the pursuers
in the deal for Richardson and whatever they offered up-front was
most likely not a 1st round pick. The beauty of this transaction
was Cleveland continued to parlay a great sell-high play into a
genius trade on draft night.
“Cleveland turned two first-round picks (No. 4,
No. 26) into three first-round picks (No. 9, No. 22, and Buffalo's
2015 pick) and still managed to get Johnny
Manziel. They pulled this off because they were willing to
trade down from No. 4 to No. 9. And they were willing to trade
down because they had the luxury of an extra first-round pick
from Indianapolis.” Anyone could’ve taken the first round pick
and stopped right there, but Cleveland kept trying to improve
their situation.
How many teams did they talk to? What other offers did they
have? What other proposals did they have out there? What other
players were available to replace Richardson in free agency?
These are all questions you should be asking yourself when looking
to better your team during the season and playoff time. I’m
going to focus on the basics in this column to get you ready
to master the art of trading by simply starting conversations
and working the waiver wire like it was a rented mule.
Keep conversations active
This seems so obvious it hurts me to write this, but it’s 100%
the most important aspect to trading. Do you think Vito Corleone
made offers others couldn’t refuse by NOT having people in his
sketchy office while stroking his cat?
Godfather references aside, here are the simple steps to follow…
Step 1: Have everyone’s cell phone
number/email in the league. Step 2: Understand who enjoys
trading and talk to them more about trades Step 3: Understand who doesn’t
enjoy trading and talk to them less about trades
It’s really that simple. Conversations can always be had about
fantasy football and those conversations can benefit you and others.
Once you master these steps, the advanced next step would be start
three-way conversations. It’s the best way to get people excited
and can turn bad deals into great deals quickly. I pulled off
a three-way trade last year and ended up with the highest upside
fantasy team going into the playoffs and the No.1 overall seed
at 11-2. My team was as follows in a 14 team, PPR league:
Who’s not shown here is Andrew
Luck as I dropped him out of sheer frustration after being
snake bit in the first round by the 8th seed. Anyone that had
Andrew Luck last year can share my frustration and pain after
investing a first rounder on the hopes that the Colts offense
would live up to the hype. Like my friend (loose term) Jonah Hill
said in Wolf of Wall Street “It’s like getting in on sunlight
before there was sunlight!” That’s what I thought at least. My
starters were just about as legendary as any 14 team league roster
that I’ve ever seen thanks to a series of trades I executed all
within a week or two:
Highlighted in red are the players I received. Non-highlights
are the players I gave up. In the first trade (on the left) I
approached a manager with multiple injured running backs (Matt
Forte, Justin
Forsett, and one other that escapes me) and a downed receiver
(Steve
Smith). I came to the trading table with Frank
Gore, a solid RB2, and Kendall
Wright as an upside throw-in. He had Philip
Rivers and Alex
Smith at quarterback so Cam
Newton was a luxury backup at the time. Keep in mind, this
was well before Cam proceeded to go off and carry teams to the
fantasy championship. Doug
Baldwin was just a throw in considering his “hoe-hum” start
up until his bye Week 9. As we all know, Baldwin followed Cam’s
lead and proceeded to carry teams (12 TDs in 8 weeks) to fantasy
glory as well. Knowing what we knew at that time it was a mutually
beneficial deal that helped us both.
If I had a crystal ball I wouldn’t have pursued the middle part
of the deal. I would have ridden Newton and Baldwin to yet another
fantasy championship. Hindsight is always 20/20, particularly
when looking back at trades! However, I was in talks with another
manager to move Newton instantly for Dez
Bryant. Seeing how he was a potential keeper at his drafted
$6 value and a solid QB2, I only had to pair a waiver wire stud
in Travis
Benjamin to land the deal. The other players were throw-ins
and an insurance policy for my friend (heavy sarcasm) Andrew Luck.
Finally, I took another waiver wire stud (Dion
Lewis) who was on IR at the time, and made a keeper trade
with a team that was all but out of playoff contention for Randall
Cobb.
The moral of the story here is: You can always try to improve
your team, be careful when considering injured players. While
I expertly executed these trades, relying on Luck, Bryant, and
Cobb to regain health was too high risk/high reward. Sometimes
it’s the trades that we don’t make that define our seasons but
you won’t have the opportunity unless you keep the trade conversation
going.
Play the waiver wire frequently
Four of the players in the above trade referenced were… you guessed
it, waiver wire pickups.
You will always have 2-3 spots on our bench that you’re holding
for a trade or for a player to reach their true value. Use these
spots to pick up key players who show promise whether it be a
receiver who is seeing a surge of targets but not turning them
into points (yet) or a running back who is receiving more opportunity
and showing well in pass protection with a weak/injury-prone starter
in front of him.
One of my strategies is to look at targets by week…
After removing players who were widely drafted and looking at
a small sample size I’ve color coded the targets by either Yellow
(4 targets) or Green (5-plus targets). Four target weeks is usually
a good indicator of a potential bump. Feel free to stick to 5-plus,
but it’s a quirky rule that I go to when there are slim pickings
on the waiver wire. This same rule applies to all flexes (WR/TE/RB)
especially in PPR.
For running backs specifically the indicators I use is “touches”.
It’s the best way to measure the utilization of a running back.
I tend to get interested around the 10-touch mark (yellow) and
excited over 12 (green). It shows moderate trust in the running
backs ability in all three phases (run, pass, pass block).
Wrapping it up
Last year I nabbed Dion
Lewis, Travis
Benjamin, Gary
Barnidge, Zach
Ertz, Theo
Riddick, and Ben
Watson of the waiver wire and all were integral to future
trades and wins. Once you land talent it’s up to you to whether
you hold, buy, or sell based on the conversations you’ve been
having and your player evaluation. It will be my sworn duty this
fantasy season to try and steer you in the right direction as
the season progresses so that you end up with a powerhouse team
come the fantasy playoffs.
