How careful are you guys about trading depth for a sure starter? (1 Viewer)

I'm trying to keep this more conceptual and out of Assistant Coach territory....

You have 3 solid practically interchangeable RB's and fight each week on which 2 to start. You have a chance to trade one of these guys and lockup your WR's, but the result is to leave your RB's completely razor thin. Any injury to a starting back and you're fighting to find a plug-in and will likely kill you heading to the playoffs.

Obviously, the playoffs are generally in 3 weeks so the injury window is getting smaller...but what is typically is your general strategy right now? How aggressive/conservative do you guys tend to get? Do you all typically protect yourself by keeping depth or do you trade it away to upgrade starters?

This probably should still be in the other forum since you are seeking advice for you specific situation, but you did a nice job trying to generalize it.

Without knowing your situation, my short advice is that I would strongly consider trading one of your RBs. As long as you are a lock for the playoffs, I think you need to look at the playoff week matchups for your 3 RBs and trade away the one you would bench the most during those weeks. Normally I shy away from trading away RB depth, but at the end of the season if and only if you can get your starting lineup a BIG shot in the arm, it is worth the risk IMO.

Depends. I like to keep at least one decent starter on the bench (B LLoyd, Breaston), or a guy you are 'ok' with starting during the playoff weeks based on matchups (A. Gonzalez).

Other than that, you pretty much have to go for it. There are still 6 weeks of football and alot of things can happen, but you can't leave points on your bench and if your trade deadline is here, time to do it.

Ideally you like to have a great starting lineup AND some really good alternatives in case of bad match-ups or injury. Still, at this point in the season I think it's better to have the starting WR that completes your starting lineup.

Plus, this year I actually think it's harder to find good WRs than RBs b/c there's such a drop-off after the top 25-30 WRs in a standard start 3 non-PPR. I've had no trouble finding suitable RB plug-ins and depth, but it's been nearly impossible to pry the good WRs off a team.

I have played FF for almost 20 years.

Everytime I have won a league it is because of a powerful starting lineup, not because I had balanced depth. At this time of year I always look to make trade tp upgrade my starters.

I have gone into many playoffs and won without having a backup QB or RB. If you want to win you have to take chances.

Da Guru said:

I have played FF for almost 20 years. Everytime I have won a league it is because of a powerful starting lineup, not because I had balanced depth. At this time of year I always look to make trade tp upgrade my starters.I have gone into many playoffs and won without having a backup QB or RB. If you want to win you have to take chances.

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I support this philosophy as well. More times than not, you'll succeed by gambling with no depth but only having stud starters. Its no guarantee but I think historical trends will favor this vs. having a huge plethora of 2nd and 3rd tier talent on your roster. I see many more championships over the years won by guys with no depth at all but great starters, vs. guys who have very deep and strong bench players. Sometimes they get burned, that is always a possibility but like I said, I think trying to get top tier starters at every position outweighs 2nd/3rd tier starters and bench.

Captain Spaulding said:

Da Guru said:

I have played FF for almost 20 years. Everytime I have won a league it is because of a powerful starting lineup, not because I had balanced depth. At this time of year I always look to make trade tp upgrade my starters.I have gone into many playoffs and won without having a backup QB or RB. If you want to win you have to take chances.

Click to expand...

I support this philosophy as well. More times than not, you'll succeed by gambling with no depth but only having stud starters. Its no guarantee but I think historical trends will favor this vs. having a huge plethora of 2nd and 3rd tier talent on your roster. I see many more championships over the years won by guys with no depth at all but great starters, vs. guys who have very deep and strong bench players. Sometimes they get burned, that is always a possibility but like I said, I think trying to get top tier starters at every position outweighs 2nd/3rd tier starters and bench.

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Plus is takes out the decision making process..you go with your best starters and don`t beat yourself up over starting one guy over another guy that went off.

Da Guru said:

I have played FF for almost 20 years. Everytime I have won a league it is because of a powerful starting lineup, not because I had balanced depth. At this time of year I always look to make trade tp upgrade my starters.I have gone into many playoffs and won without having a backup QB or RB. If you want to win you have to take chances.

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I've tried to make some trades in one league, but I think they either don't like to trade or are leaving me with huge depth at RB.We start 2RB and a flex, so I can start 3 and I have C. Johnson, Forte, Tomlinson,Reg Bush, C. Benson and J. Stewart.I really wanted some Top WR's in place of Owens, but no one wanted to make a move.

Da Guru said:

Captain Spaulding said:

Da Guru said:

I have played FF for almost 20 years. Everytime I have won a league it is because of a powerful starting lineup, not because I had balanced depth. At this time of year I always look to make trade tp upgrade my starters.I have gone into many playoffs and won without having a backup QB or RB. If you want to win you have to take chances.

Click to expand...

I support this philosophy as well. More times than not, you'll succeed by gambling with no depth but only having stud starters. Its no guarantee but I think historical trends will favor this vs. having a huge plethora of 2nd and 3rd tier talent on your roster. I see many more championships over the years won by guys with no depth at all but great starters, vs. guys who have very deep and strong bench players. Sometimes they get burned, that is always a possibility but like I said, I think trying to get top tier starters at every position outweighs 2nd/3rd tier starters and bench.

Click to expand...

Plus is takes out the decision making process..you go with your best starters and don`t beat yourself up over starting one guy over another guy that went off.

Click to expand...

Another fine point made to support the "stud starter" philosophy..sorry if I'm overusing the "good posting" icon!

Gotta disagree with the popular consensus here, atleast as it applies to RBs. 1 extra startable rb beyond your starting requirements is far more valuable, IMO, than trading that player for anyone that is a non RB. Obviously certain scenarios play out where you go the other way. If you're offering me Peyton for Jamal Lewis, and I'm hurting at QB, I'm gonna take it. I've stuck with this stratergy and it usually helps me in the long run. Every year I see teams that drafted well or got lucky on some pics end up with good depth at rb and begin trading away. Granted some people just trade for the sake of trading, but many will upgrade at other positions via depleting their depth. Then bam, week 10, they're starting Tony Richardson because one of their guy is dinged up for 2 weeks. People don't seem to realize how ofter RBs get dinged up and miss 2 games here, 3 games there. This flies under the radar because people only focus on season ending injuries. Guy in my league this year traded away rhodes, duece, and JStewart just recently. Got back fairly weak upgrades in return too. People laughed at him. Well duece is gonna get suspended, and Rhodes is back to the bench, and JStewart is gonna get limited touches etcetcetc. All valid points, until you need a guy for 2 weeks. Better to plug in a duece or a JStewart than a fullback that averages .66 touches a game. Now he's got depth at wr and qb and even TE, because he pissed away his rb depth. And guess what, no one will trade him back any of those 2 rbs for some of the wrs he's got sitting on his bench. And this example doesn't even take into account proper starting rbs that get 15-20 touches a game. We're talking about fill in rbs, but they sure could have filled in for those 2 weeks here and there when one of your studs was sitting the bench...

Moral of the story, always hold onto your RB depth, ALWAYS! And if you have depth at other spots, trade for rbs, even if they won't be starting on your squad. THe later into the season, the better those chips will be for trading, or even more importantly, will be good fillins for your guys if they go down for a couple of weeks...

I agree in general about holding on to RB depth, but the OP was talking at this point in the season. Like I said in my first post I'm always aiming to have at least one starter-quality backup at every position, but that's just not always possible. If you have a huge hole in you lineup at WR and have the depth to trade a RB the risk is worth the reward with just 5 weeks to go in most leagues. Obviously a lot depends on the specific players involved.

With just a few weeks left, you have to address the problems that are right in front of you before worrying about whether your RBs may go down to injury.

I always jettison my depth for better starters. If it comes back to bite me in the rear then so be it. I'd rather go down swinging with the best possible starters rather than incredible bench warmers.

Heck, I trade away my backups for better starters once the season starts.

I traded FOR depth earlier in the year, and I'm glad I did.

Losing S Jax/Portis for any amount of time has been tough, but because I didn't trade away my depth, I've still got C Johnson and B Brown waiting in the wings.

Granted, I did pretty well at the draft. This has allowed me to trade away 2nd tier starters, for other front line starts.

I feel depth is very important to a fantasy team........I'm always looked for upgrades to my bench players.

FFdork said:

I agree in general about holding on to RB depth, but the OP was talking at this point in the season. Like I said in my first post I'm always aiming to have at least one starter-quality backup at every position, but that's just not always possible. If you have a huge hole in you lineup at WR and have the depth to trade a RB the risk is worth the reward with just 5 weeks to go in most leagues. Obviously a lot depends on the specific players involved.

With just a few weeks left, you have to address the problems that are right in front of you before worrying about whether your RBs may go down to injury.

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point taken. Guess I should read things a bit more thoroughly. I'll say this for late in teh season, I'd trade my last rb beyond my starters only for a huge upgrade. For a slight upgrade at any other position, I would not. Rather sit on that rb. Because rbs get hurt in the later weeks of the season too you know, probably at a higher clip than earlier weeks. I think putting a slightly better starting team out there over what you already have is not worth giving up a starting rb, even if he sits on your bench through the end of the year...

I'll trade away WR depth in a heartbeat. Wr's are much easier to replace. Any given week there are at least 5-6 on the WW who will have a chance to contribute. Many NFL teams have WR3/4's who could put up decent #s if the starter gets hurt. These guys are on the WW just before rosters lock, and are extremely cheap handcuffs to your FF starting WR's. ERGO: Trade away Wr depth if you can use it to upgrade.

RB's are a litle different. They are hurt too often, miss too many games. Worse, (at least in start 2 leagues) the WW rarely has any RB's worth a darn on it. So it's prudent to keep at least one extra viable starter. By viable, I mean you could rely on someone like Dunn, or Kevin Faulk. If your third RB is a Ryan Grant, you could target a Dunn/Faulk type for a WR upgrade. But under no circumstances should you put yourself in a spot where you're starting some scrub who's averaged less then 5 touches per game.

I'd rather go into the playoffs with Warner or Brees at QB and a backup not even in the top 20...say Kerry Collins is the backup /

Jacobs and Barber as my 2 starting RBs...and say only Leon Washington as my backup RB to them / Boldin and Fitz as my 2 starting WRs (and only Vincent Jackson and Marty Booker as pathetic backups) and Gates at TE and lets say not even have a backup TE at all.

I'd let you field a team of 4-5 deep at every position QB, RB, WR, and TE for all I care (say no one ranked better than 10 no lower than 20 at each position) and I'd bet greater than 50% of the time in any given year, I'd rack up more starter points (1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR 1 TE) between week 10 through week 16 than you would. ...good luck predicting the "hot" starter and matchups each week as well...have alot of fun with that!