I'm afraid to trade James Conner (1 Viewer)

[fightingillini]

 The best course of action would be to ride this thing out. Most of us got him on waivers or late rounds, so he's exceeded his investment many times over already. The best case scenario here would be Le'Veon gets traded, which gives Conner the starting job for the remainder of the year. His value would skyrocket, so if anybody has pending trade offers out there, I would be very quick to cancel them in the event a trade gets made.

I am a Conner owner without Bell, so this is exactly what I am doing....riding it out.  Bell likely won't be in shape when he reports, so you probably get a couple of more RB1  weeks from Conner.  Best case is Bell gets traded or PIT shelves him for the year, in which Conner is an RB1 for the remainder of the year.  Worse case scenario is that Bell returns and eventually gets the full load.  In that situation you can decide to trade him to the Bell owner if you wish.

Too much upside to trade him for someone like Derrick Henry.

 

[TheWinz]

Conner is either going to remain a RB1, or be bench fodder.  There is no middle ground.  That is why his trade value is so skewed.  If you do trade him away, or trade for him, there will be a clear winner and loser.  For those that mention Conner's talent, it doesn't matter, because the only one he will lose touches to is Bell, and if he does, he will lose pretty much all of them in due time.  You can think of him as a "healthy" Fournette at the moment.

 

[Wrigley]

Conner is untradeable, I’ll hold until the wheels fall off

 

[zoonation]

As an owner I'm planning that he won't be startable in week 9.

 

[Phenomena]

Conner is either going to remain a RB1, or be bench fodder.  There is no middle ground.  That is why his trade value is so skewed.  If you do trade him away, or trade for him, there will be a clear winner and loser.  For those that mention Conner's talent, it doesn't matter, because the only one he will lose touches to is Bell, and if he does, he will lose pretty much all of them in due time.  You can think of him as a "healthy" Fournette at the moment.

This is not true. There is a very real possibility (and I think most likely scenario) that the Steelers look to keep them both fresh for the playoffs and they end up in a timeshare.  Pittsburgh thrives off of the up-tempo game - they crave offensive players that can do it all so they don't have to substitute (thereby not allowing the defense to substitute).  So it's perhaps unlikely they will swap out during drives. But it's very possible they do something like Drive 1 - Conner, Drive 2 -  Bell, Drive 3 - Conner, etc.

I've never known a coach that benches solid talents.  Conner may not be a future superstar but he's definitely shown enough talent to get him on the field.  

I was initially on the bandwagon that Bell would be traded - since teams rarely come out and say a guy is available and he's NOT traded.  But this is a unique situation where the traded player can't sign a long-term contract.  If a trade was going to happen, I think it would have happened already.  Teams are recognizing that there's too much risk giving so much up (2nd rounder plus ?) and not being able to sign him long-term.

Not to mention the fact that if a team wants to sign him, they can probably offer the same contract in 6 months and not have to give up any other assets.  For a team like the Jets that aren't going to win this year anyway, that seems like a way better plan.