The Trading Post

One thing most people who are active in fantasy football have in common is that we are always seeking ways to improve, and always looking for that edge or strategy that will help us reign supreme over our friends year after year.

As we all know, there is no secret formula to fantasy football success. We do our best to absorb as much information as we can in our spare time, and trust our guts to make the right decisions. But, there’s more to it than that.

Now, this may be a foreign concept to some, but we have this little tool called trading for a reason. Have you ever finished a draft only to look back over your roster and think to yourself, “what the hell have I done?” While many simply bury their head in their hands and for all intents and purposes give up, the steps that should be taken are obvious and rather simple.

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Step one: review your roster and determine where you are strongest (i.e., where you can afford to make a sacrifice), and where you are weakest (i.e., where you most need to improve).

Step two: review your league mates’ rosters and determine whose strengths and weaknesses are the inverse of your own.

Step three: approach said league mate, and propose them a deal that would help them address their needs while helping you address yours’.

Sure, this takes a little elbow grease, but the end result is far better than unexcitedly starting your fantasy season, dissatisfied with your squad, and awaiting inevitable defeat. And, this does not only apply at the beginning a dynasty following the start-up draft. This applies at every bend along the way. Unfortunately, some owners are more reticent than others when it comes to trading. While those owners do damage to the league by diminishing one of the most fun elements of dynasty fantasy football, they are truly doing the most damage to themselves, which I will explain.

One of my fantasy leagues is a re-draft-turned-dynasty league comprised of a dozen college buddies. The league has been around for nearly a decade, but is entering year four as a dynasty. Unfortunately, some owners in the league have been less willing than others to shed outdated re-draft tactics for those tactics required for perennial success in dynasty.

If there’s one thing you learn after years of playing dynasty, it’s that nobody can perfectly predict what is coming around the bend. In other words, no one (and I mean no one) can predict anything two, three+ years into the future with any level of actual certainty. Sure, some are better talent evaluators than others, but there is a reason your friend Rich sells mortgages, and isn’t the General Manager of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Okay, a lot of that has to do with a great deal more than his ability to evaluate talent, but the point is—even NFL GMs struggle to predict a player’s career trajectory, so of course it is difficult for those of us not knowing these players personally to predict how their careers will unfold.

We all know how important drafting is in dynasty, but I would argue that trading is equally if not more important. Our inability to correctly predict the future means we cannot possibly “hit” on all of our draft picks. And, if we don’t land a stud in every draft, we have to keep improving our team in some other way. Sure, you’ll find a diamond in the rough every once in a while off the waiver wire, but relying on that is like relying on Pitbull to come out with quality music (unlikely).

A lot of people who play re-draft have this outdated philosophy that basically entails them drafting, and then aside from setting their lineups and making a few waiver claims throughout the year, sitting on their hands the remainder of the season. I couldn’t tell you why, and frankly I don’t have the time to theorize what leads them to employ such a delusional strategy. However, I can and will explain to you why this is bone-headed—especially in the world of dynasty. It is said, “idle hands are the devil’s workshop” (meaning one who does nothing will likely come to evil). Well, I say, the same is true of an idle roster. Do nothing with your roster, and you will come to regret it.

Football players are not “blue chip” stocks. You can’t just draft a few players and sit back for the next 20 years watching your trophy room grow. You have to be active. I mean, that’s the point of getting into dynasty in the first place, right? This game is the closest most will ever come to being an actual NFL GM, and GMs make moves, don’t they!?

I will present you with a brief case study that helps illustrate my point—my point being that long-term dynasty success all but requires trading.

So, I took a look at three of the franchises from my aforementioned re-draft-turned-dynasty league to show you how each of those franchises has evolved over the past three years. Rather than explaining the gory details of every single trade each of these three teams has made, I will highlight a couple of the transactions, and otherwise allow the “then” and “now” rosters do most of the storytelling.

First, I present you with each of the three teams’ rosters at the conclusion of our start-up draft, which as I stated earlier, was held in 2012 a few weeks before the start of the 2013 NFL season. If nothing else, reviewing these rosters should help illustrate just how much can change in the NFL in only a few years, and further demonstrate how foolish it is to think anyone can predict the future with certainty.

Now, anyone who has played dynasty for some time knows it takes time to build a true powerhouse. And, I think it’s safe to say that none of the teams above were powerhouses when the dynasty began. Fast-forward to today, and I present you each of those teams’ rosters as we near the 2016 NFL season:

Without a little background, it might not be glaringly obvious just how much of an overhaul Team A and Team B have each experienced. But, believe me, these teams have come a long way. Contrastingly, Team C’s present-day roster is an embarrassing example of lackluster drafting meeting a lack of participation. Now, obviously how you handle rookie drafts and the waiver wire are both crucial to the successful development of a perennial contender, but it takes trading to go from pretender to contender, and from contender, to powerhouse.

In 2013, Team B won the championship, and Team A was runner-up. But, to get there, Team A executed five trades during the inaugural season while Team B executed three.

The following season, Team A executed one trade while Team B executed two. That year, 2014, Team A fell (partly due to injuries) finished tenth, while Team B finished second. Leading up to the 2015 season, Team A and B both jostled for draft position, and collectively made a handful of trades during the off-season. In 2015, Team B once again reigned supreme, and Team A had fought its way back from a disappointing 2014 to finish fifth in the overall standings. Reaching the championship in each of the first three years of a dynasty is no easy task, and I’d argue an impossible task without making any trades. During the 2015 season, Team A and Team B both executed a pair of trades. As of the writing of this article, both Team A and Team B really ramped up their efforts on the trade-front, and both Team A and Team B have executed six off-season trades as we head into the 2016 NFL season.

Looking at the “then” and “now” rosters, you wouldn’t know that Team A actually sent two of its running backs packing, only to circle back later and land them in a subsequent trade. Again, my point is not to describe the details of every single trade, but more to highlight what a difference the use of the quite simple tool, trading, can make. However, without going over a couple of the specific trades Team A and Team B were able to execute, it would be difficult to fully grasp why trading is so effective.

Though it’s easier said than done, we all know that it’s best to “buy low” and “sell high.”  While both Team A and Team B made a couple of trade-blunders over the first few years of the dynasty, their risks were rewarded in the form of handsome rosters. Just before the 2015 season, Team A decided to send Calvin Johnson packing, and in return for his efforts wound up acquiring the 1.01 pick in the 2015 Rookie Draft, which he turned into Amari Cooper. Fast-forward just one season, and Megatron is preparing to participate in Dancing with the Stars while Cooper’s preparing to take the league by storm. During the league’s first season, Team B managed to acquire Rob Gronkowski by parting ways with—among others—DeAndre Hopkins (who he later re-acquired in another deal before shipping off to Team A for Keenan Allen, Michael Floyd, and a 2017 first and second.

I’m not going to outline every trade, but these are just a couple of a long list of transactions that have helped each of these owners build what now appear to be perennial contenders, while Team C’s roster remains face down in the gutter drinking sewer water.

The truth is, you must wheel and you must deal if you want a roster with lasting appeal. So, when you are looking over your roster next, and you see room for improvement, do something about it. Propose trades, and reach out to your league mates after sending those proposals to follow up on them. A league is ALWAYS made better by participation, and a roster is almost always made better by trading. As always, good luck to you all as you enter the 2016 season, and go make a trade!

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