Fantasy Week 3: Plan for Byes with Wise Trades
The FFIWOT strategy is not a rigid one. In some years this would be a week to pick up steals and deals while in other years, like this one, this is a trading week. There just isn’t much out there in the Free Agent market right now that wasn’t identified after week one.
Week 2 just didn’t put the shine on any diamonds half buried in the field and there were no major injuries of note. The exceptions may be L. Tomlinson (RB SD) with a toe ding and J Fargas (RB Oak) with a groin injury. In the former you can expect some sporadic short term opportunities from D Sproles (RB SD) and a new starting position for D McFadden (RB Oak).
The trading strategy is focused on two areas this week. One is bye week maneuvers and the other is looking for deals and steals. The latter is the harder of the 2 because you will need a big dose of patience and room on your bench to wait on the bargain bin picks to blossom. While patience is a virtue we can all acquire, with the bye week stretch coming up, make sure you have a strategy for bye week rotation.
We will feature the deals and steal trade opportunities in a later post analyzing the week 2 games. For now, lets look at our Chinese writing for some eastern advice on our western game. The favorite Chinese character of politicians is the one for crisis which they tell us is a combination of of the symbol for danger and the symbol for opportunity. Its probably some BS (an abbreviation of English term for a male cow with the slang term for excrement) but the bye week danger/opportunity is not so lets plan.
Bye week analysis Step One:
I love the leagues that give you the small touches that make life easier like having the bye week of each player listed right there on your roster page. Fickle is as fickle does. I love the leagues that don’t have the small touches like the bye week listed on the roster page because if you are willing to put in a little work, you will have a strategic edge over the majority of the league who will not.
Either way, print out your roster and make sure the bye week is listed next to each player. Below is a list of bye weeks for your convenience
2008 NFL Bye Week Schedule (Revised for Hurricane reshuffling)
Week 2 Houston, Baltimore
Week 4 Detroit, Indianapolis, Miami, New England, New York Giants, Seattle
Week 5 Cleveland, New York Jets, Oakland, St. Louis
Week 6 Buffalo, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Tennessee
Week 7 Arizona, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Philadelphia
Week 8 Chicago, Cincinnati, Denver, Green Bay, Houston, Minnesota
Week 9 Carolina, New Orleans, San Diego, San Francisco
Week 10 Baltimore, Dallas, Tampa Bay, Washington, Cincinnati
[Original bye dates struck through]
Bye week analysis Step Two:
Go week by week and see who has a bye and who from your bench, you will use to fill in for them. Next, go see what team your fill in will be playing that week. For instance, in week 7 you want to plug in C Perry (RB Cin) for your starters you would want to rethink that plan when you saw he will be up against the Steeler D. Make a list of your weak spots and the positions you have an abundance of players at.
Bye week analysis Step Three:
Look for trades for comparable players for the problem areas on your bench. IE C Perry above would be such a problem. Ideally you would want to trade them coming off a good week so their stock is high. Remember what their value to you is right now. C Perry is your starter in week 7 against the tough Pittsburgh defense and probably good for 45 yards rushing and no TDs.
Look at the match ups for week seven and find an RB who can do better than that (adjust for the match up). The worst teams against the run right now are the Bengals, Chiefs and Lions.
Bye week analysis step Four:
Repeat a similar analysis for ONLY week 4 for each of the other teams in your league. Find the teams that are going to have to plug in a real dud or better yet, will not have a starter somewhere due to byes in week 4. Now if you find such a team with a need in an area where you have an abundance, then a trade can certainly be offered. Be sure to point out their upcoming weakness as they will probably have not worked that out yet.
If you can identify a problem and offer a solution that is mutually beneficial you can make it easy for them to say yes to a trade that they may otherwise be a little skeptical of.
For for our steals and deals trade analysis later on FFIWOT
-Chris
Tags: bye week, Bye week analysis, bye week maneuvers, Bye Week Schedule, deals and steals, Fargas, Free Agent market, McFadden, Sproles, Tomlinson, Trading Strategy, trading week
