Burning Questions

Jeff Miller

burning

Having a kid is pretty great. Except for when she has a friend over while you are trying to write.

The volume in my house as I type these words is approximately the same as if somebody fired up a 747 in your three piece wash room. Times infinity. Plus 12.

When I plopped down at my desk to polish off this week’s Burning Questions, I had no idea what to write about. Stumped, in large part due to the uproar in the next room, I couldn’t help but regret putting off the article until my daughter got home from school. Then it struck me. Why not write about things I shouldn’t have done? There is certainly plenty of material to fill the page.

In the interest of keeping me from spending the night crying in front of a Meg Ryan movie while eating a gallon of ice cream with an oversized spoon, I won’t just be making fun of myself for doing dumb stuff. There will also be talk about trading in general, including a list of players I’d buy, hold and sell.

Come for the shaming, stay for the advice. Or just more of the shaming. I already have your click, so I’m cool either way.

Have you done anything stupid recently that you instantly regretted?

A few weeks before camp broke, I was looking to move Carlos Hyde in a league (mistake number one). Ever the fan of Mark Ingram (mistake number two?), I offered, gulp, Hyde for Ingram and, gulp, Dwayne, gulp, Bowe. Gulp.

At the time, I did have Ingram slightly higher in my ranks (mistake three), but obviously the value proposition was more than a bit askew (mistake number four). The deal got accepted, Hyde showed immense improvement over his rookie year and Bowe isn’t good enough to play in Cleveland.

So while Ingram has been fine, this was still a not-great trade from both a value and on-field perspective.

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Have you done anything else recently that you instantly regretted?

Sometime Tuesday evening, in the midst of a vacation hangover following four days in Phoenix for a pair of concerts (Foo Fighters and Van Halen), I thought it would be cool to offer up Stevie Johnson, Kenny Stills and a likely very late second for Steve Smith and Frank Gore.

While I am confident having Smith as my WR4 (behind three studs) and Gore as a compliment to Ingram (told you I loved him) is going to be enough to make me a favorite for the title, I’m also pretty confident I paid more than I needed to for what is likely a duo of three month rentals. I probably should have offered a third instead of the second, or at least asked for a pick back.

I don’t think this was a huge mistake, but I should have done better.

Why should we take advice from you when you clearly don’t know what you’re doing?

This may come as a surprise to you, but I am not the Tom Brady of dynasty football (that would be Ryan McDowell, in that he is both handsome and incredibly good). I make a lot of mistakes, one of which has been making too many bad trade offers. I believe this stems from two things:

  1. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say I send out four to five times as many deals as the vast majority of my league mates. The more you do something, the more opportunity for mistakes to be made.
  2. Despite sometimes shipping off goofy lowballs I also regret, I do my best to make good offers up front, especially to owners I respect. We all know guys who constantly pound you with crap proposals. (It’s even worse when they are industry folk who should know better.) Sometimes I overcorrect in an effort to not be that guy. The Gore/Smith offer was one of those.

How can I avoid making bad trade offers?

Don’t propose a deal right after a game, injury announcement, in the midst of a bad start or following any other event that makes you emotional or unreasonable as an owner. Don’t read a hot take on Twitter and rush to your leagues to make a deal based off it. Always slow down and make sure what you are doing is the right thing.

It also wouldn’t hurt to make sure you are familiar with our latest ADP data before clicking submit. ADP isn’t the most important thing, but it will help you to understand market value. Without that basic knowledge, you will make many more bad deals than you should.

What five players who’ve had poor starts would you target in deals?

Jeremy Hill, T.Y. Hilton, Golden Tate, C.J. Spiller, Martellus Bennett

What five players who’ve started out hot or cold would you not trade for, but also not trade away?

Hot: Donte Moncrief, Tyrod Taylor, James Jones, Dion Lewis, Karlos Williams

Cold: Lamar Miller, C.J. Anderson, DeMarco Murray, LeSean McCoy, John Brown

What players who’ve started out hot or cold would you sell?

Hot: Devonta Freeman, Rishard Matthews, Joseph Randle

Cold: Peyton Manning, Vincent Jackson, Alfred Morris

Can you give us one good trade offer you made in the last week?

Julio Jones for Brian Quick and Mark Ingram.

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jeff miller