Thursday, September 15, 2016

Week Two Fantasy Football Thoughts: R-E-L-A-X

R-E-L-A-X

You may know--and if you don't you're about to--that Aaron Rodgers told potentially antsy Packers fans to do just that after their week 3 loss to Detroit in 2014; a forgettable 7 point showing from the offense. If he hadn't delivered that memorable quote that week,  Green Bay's (and his) early season struggles would be completely forgotten, because in the next 13 games Packers went 11-2 and Rodgers won the NFL MVP award, and they would have gone for the Super Bowl if they could have recovered an onside kick.

And I'm sure there are people out there who missed out on all of that because of the start of the season. In week 1 Rodgers mustered 189 yards passing and 1 touchdown. In week 2 the Packers scored 3 points in the first half before lighting up the Jets for 28 points in the second half. And in week 3 Rodgers tallied 162 passing yards and one touchdown in the above referenced disaster against the Lions.

One good half in three games had some people anxious about the high price they paid for Rodgers (and other Packers players--Eddie Lacy and Rodgers were #8 and #9 overall in ESPN ADP and Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb were WR #7 and #11 in ADP respectively) that year. Those that held on were rewarded. Rodgers finished as the top overall scorer in 2014. Nelson finished as WR #2. Lacy finished as RB #6 and Cobb finished as WR #6. There's no way those that cut bait early and traded any of those players got equal value in return in said trade.

Last year the Seattle Seahawks stumbled out of the gate. Through their first eight games they were 4-4 and their offense averaged just under 21 points per game. The bye week came in week 9 and they finished the season on a 6-2 run, averaging 32 points per game. Russell Wilson finished 3rd overall in fantasy scoring, Doug Baldwin average just under 18 fantasy points per game and a ragtag group of running backs *combined* to average 15 fantasy point per game. Thomas Rawls averaged 22 points in the three games he got double digit touches before getting hurt. Point is, they figured something out halfway through the season and those players helped win a lot of leagues. Imagine if you had dropped Doug Baldwin or traded Russell Wilson during their bye week last year.

The point of all this is don't make fantasy football transactions by reacting. A much preferable option would be thinking.

In the above examples there are a variety of players named with a pretty diverse set of track records. Rodgers obviously had the lengthiest and most excellent track record, which made it relatively easy to stay the course and trust that the league's best player would figure it out. Eddie Lacy, however was only in his second year--although his rookie year was very good. If you remember this was the first time pictures of 'fat' Eddie Lacy made their way onto Twitter and it was a year after Doug Martin flamed out in year two after having a phenomenal rookie season. There was some potential cause for concern there. Jordy was in his sixth season, having two very good years and four pedestrian years. And Randall Cobb had yet to really break out after having a nice year in 2012. It is perfectly reasonable that an owner of any of those three would have been looking to move on after the Packers slow start in 2014. Same goes for the guys in Seattle.

So I urge you to considering staying the course and holding on to your starting roster for another couple of weeks. You liked the team and players two weeks ago when you drafted it and them and it has only been one week. This thinking of course applies to owners who are panicked with slow starts. If you had a really good week one, I'd urge you to just hang on and enjoy having a potentially good team, but you're obviously not at a risk to cut bait on your starters.

A few years ago I traded Tony Romo for Ahmad Bradshaw two weeks into the season, because Romo had two bad games. This was in a 2 QB league in which TD passes are worth 6 points...QBs were important, but I needed an RB and I had two other good QBs. Long story short, my other QB got hurt, Ahmad Bradshaw got hurt, Romo had a nice season and I missed the playoffs in this league for the only time ever.

That season Romo finished as QB12 and Bradshaw finished as RB 27. In the league I was playing in, Romo's value was significantly higher than Bradshaw's by the end of the year. I "lost" the trade because I moved Romo at a time when his value was relatively low and Bradshaw's was high.

If you drafted Devonta Freeman, Sammy Watkins, Demaryius Thomas, Thomas Rawls, Todd Gurley, Brandon Marshall, Adrian Peterson, Gronk, Dez Bryant, etc. there's no shot of you returning the value of the draft pick you used on them in a trade. And, for me, finding value is the most important thing to do in fantasy football. So, willingly forfeiting value, both in the literal player-to-player swap (you give the better player playing worse football) and in what you ended up getting for that draft slot (i.e you drafted Devonta Freeman # 7 overall, but now trade him for Demarco Murray...nobody in their right mind would take Demarco Murray at #7 overall).

So, there may be a point in the season when you have to make some moves to shake things up and save what little hope you have left, but after week one is not that time, unless you get someone to give you a surefire starter for a borderline bench player.

So, in conclusion, stick it out for another week or two and then start to evaluate the long term prognosis for your squad.

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