Trade Grade 9 (and Trade Deadline Preview)

 As much as I like this post every year, I'm not going to provide my usual detail this year and will be taking the easy way out in general. Shocking, I know. The Trade Deadline is essentially next week after TNF (3am ET), giving us most of 3 NFL weeks to decide who makes the playoffs outside of Nick, Ajay, and Alan.

But to start, and to make my life easier, I'll grade a real trade instead of providing a mock trade:

Trade 9
Esco receives RJ Harvey, Chimere Dike, and Darren Waller
Gutman receives Zach Charbonnet, Jordan Addison, and Ricky Pearsall

Despite the number of players involved here, I'm honestly not sure who the headliner is. I guess Harvey? Esco is certainly treating him like that. To be fair, I had something like this in the works for mock trades, as Esco trading Charbs/Addy/Pearsall for an Harvey was the most obvious move on the board for the whole league. I wasn't really sure what that package could get beyond Harvey, but this seems about right. Dike replaces some deep bench depth and Waller is most comfortable on the IR or in rehab, so it was basically a 1-for-3 trade. Harvey doesn't seem worth that on his own, but I think both teams made the most of what they could, and if both teams are at full strength, none of these guys probably starts (other than maybe Waller!).

Grades:
Esco: B-
Gutman: B

With a week to go, we damn sure better hit double digit trades. The league is pretty wide open, and some of the sleeping giants (Esco, Levine, Billy) are set to make moves to challenge or replace the early-season pretenders (Gutman, Weissbard, Zacherman). 

Mock Trade 1
Nick receives Marcus Mariota, Troy Franklin, and Tyler Warren
Zacherman receives Matt Stafford, Stefon Diggs, and Dallas Goedert

Mock Trade 2
Ajay receives Chris Olave
Bennett receives D'Andre Swift

Mock Trade 3
Alan receives Josh Jacobs, Emanuel Wilson, and A.J. Brown
Levine receives Breece Hall, Devin Singletary, and Justin Jefferson

Mock Trade 4
AGD receives Alvin Kamara and Quentin Johnston
Billy receives George Kittle

Mock Trade 5
Barnard receives Caleb Williams, Jacory Croskey-Merritt, and Rome Odunze
Weissbard receives Lamar Jackson and Xavier Worthy

Mock Trade 6
Kumpf receives Brian Thomas Jr. and Trey McBride
Marco receives Emeka Egbuka and Travis Kelce

Most of these aren't as fun as usual, but a couple of them (2 and 4) seem like win-wins to me. Let's start trading!

Trade Grades 5 and 7

 (Editor's Note: Esco was extremely delinquent in sending these and he combined them into one overall trade. I can respect the laziness, and the lack of AI this time, but if anyone else is interested in grading my trades I wouldn't say no.)

Trade 5
Kumpf Receives Brian Robinson Jr. and Ladd McConkey

Weissbard Receives Jared Goff and Rachaad White

Trade 6
AGD Receives Ladd McConkey, Calvin Ridley, Jauan Jennings, and DJ Moore
Kumpf Receives Antonio Gibson, Emeka Egbuka, Marvin Mims Jr., and Malik Washington

All-In-One Kumpf Transaction
Trades away
• DJ Moore, Chi WR
• Calvin Ridley, Ten WR
• Jauan Jennings, SF WR
• Jared Goff, Det QB
• Rachaad White, TB RB
• Ladd McConkey, LAC WR (from Weissbard)
For
• Brian Robinson Jr., SF RB
• Malik Washington, Mia WR
• Emeka Egbuka, TB WR
• Antonio Gibson, NE RB
• Marvin Mims Jr., Den WR 

Ok very delayed here but after losing four straight weeks on MNF, I lost my appetite to do any fantasy football analysis. But 2 game win streak and we are back baby!

Reviewing the full trade for Kumpf is a little strange to see with two weeks of hindsight, but I’ll try to take the position of what made the most sense at the time for each time.

Weissbard: Coming into Week 5, the logjam at Wide Receiver (BTJ, Ladd, Rome Odunze, Tet McMillian) makes a trade compelling, especially with Bijan and Caleb going on bye and limited depth. Ladd was definitely a sell low compared to his draft value when you trade him for QB15 and a short term RB rental. However, I think best case hes an WR2 for the rest of the year so I don’t see you giving up a lot of upside here. Goff is a borderline QB1 in a 14 team league who allows you to play the matchups with Caleb and with Bucky Irving questionable for Week 5, Rachaad becomes an immediate RB2 for as many weeks as Bucky is out (turns out its at least 3!).

Weissbard Trade Grade: A-
Updated Zacherman Trade Grade for Trading for Bucky without getting (Editor's note: or even ASKING FOR) Rachaad: D-

AGD: An 8 player WR swap on a Sunday (with your opponent that week!) is strange execution and bizarre strategy, and that about sums up the AGD season. Emeka Egbuka has become a top 5 WR and was by far the most valuable player on the AGD roster so he’s the most obvious chip to trade to give you desperately needed depth. I’ll also give AGD credit for finding Malik, Antonio and Mims on the waiver wire, not only have they been active but they have had a few nice pickups. It’s hard to imagine any of them as a every week starter so if you want to package your scraps and your star, now is the time before the shine stars to fade on either of them.

Getting a WR2 (Ladd) and 3 WR Flex Options (Moore, Ridley, Jennings) is certainly an improvement over being forced to start Christian Kirk and Malik Washington on a weekly basis. I would say losing your only 20+ scoring option (Emeka) would be a big negative but when you have the chance of 0s in your WR2 and Flex on a regular basis, you need some form of consistency. This is a bit like moving around the deck chairs on the Titanic and I still can’t believe you have now completed a second trade without getting value for Kittle, but I don’t hate it.
AGD Trade Grade: B

Kumpf: Looking at the combined trades, it feels like giving up a lot for Emeka and some question marks. To be fair though, in my last trade review, I complained how your WR flex nightmare would make it impossible to pick the right starters week by week and you very effectively solved it by landing a WR1 and a very clear starting lineup. So if you follow my advice, I can’t really give you a bad grade…

If you wanted handcuff fliers like BRob and Antonio in the hopes of injury, why didn’t you just keep Rachaad when you knew Bucky was questionable to play Week 5? Did you give up too much by flipping Ladd at his lowest value and trading all these components for Egbuka when RB2 remains your biggest question mark? It would be really really nice to have Rachaad back right now!
A lot of questions with the process, but I keep looking at your starting roster and its compelling. You are now extremely thin with no more trade chips on your bench so this trade will really come down to if your starting lineup can stay healthy
Kumpf Trade Grade: B-

Trade Grades 6 and 8

 Still waiting on Esco to provide the grade for my trades (now up to 3 on the season!), but here are the other two.

Trade 6
Nick receives Brian Thomas Jr.
Weissbard receives Woody Marks

As always, these grades are based on what we knew at the time, which was that BTJ was struggling to find the heights of his rookie season, while Woody seemed to be taking a firm hold of the Texans RB1 role. If he hadn't traded away one of his excess WRs earlier in the day, I would say this is great business for Dan. RBs are worth their weight in gold, and getting 10-15 touches per game is never available on the waiver wire. The only thing you can't do is trade a WR1 for the lesser of an RB by committee. This wasn't exactly that, as BTJ is more of a high end WR2 and Woody seemed to be the high end of a committee, but the Texans OL looks like trash. Given that Weiss was basically deciding between 1) which of these guys to start in a given week and 2) who would perform better over the rest of the season, I feel like he came on the short side here.

As for our defending champ, he made the stereotypical move of trading for a player who led him to the championship. We've all been there (Barnard hasn't), though his next move was surprising. Regardless, at the time Woody was his clear RB3, and BTJ immediately challenged for his WR1. Obvious move here.

Grades:
Nick: A-
Weissbard: C-

Trade 8
Marco receives Ray Davis and Brian Thomas Jr.
Nick receives Omarion Hampton and Hassan Haskins

These two trades were a master class by our defending champ. Turning the lesser half of the Texans running game into the best part of the Chargers running game is sorcery in a league that protects their RBs like they're gold. Nick is doing exactly what a 4-1 team should be doing, focusing on building the best team possible for the playoffs, because even if he goes .500 the rest of the regular season he's likely still in the playoffs.

Marco also did pretty well here. He dodged a Diggs bullet IMO and made lemonade after his roster lost his two most valuable assets in back to back weeks. It's still going to be a slog to get to the playoffs from 2-3 without your two best players, but there's at least a path, where there wasn't before.

Grades:
Nick: A-
Marco: B

Trade Grades 2-4

 I know I'm late on this, but on the plus side we've had more than 1 trade per week of the season, which is a great pace. 

Trade Grade 2
Kumpf receives TreyVeon Henderson, Garrett Wilson, and Travis Kelce
Zacherman receives Bucky Irving

(Editor's Note: I removed Esco's CoPilot analysis and just left the real thing. Keep the Big Pharma AI out of the blog please.)

Good to know that CoPilot won't be winning any fantasy drafts anytime soon. Based strictly on draft capital, Zball gave up a lot for Bucky. At first, I hated this for Z but looking at rosters again, I like this trade more and more for him. Roster clarity is critical and having 2-3 good flex plays means you are just going to pick the wrong one 50% of the time. Zacherman's starting lineup is likely one of the best in the league and he just needs to figure out a plan for week 12 when Jayden, Deebo and Keenan are all on bye. The one major ding here is not getting Rachaad White as a throw-in from Kumpf. When you only have 2 RBs on your roster you have to prioritize their handcuffs. 

Kumpf is buying low on Henderson, getting a fresh start at TE with Kelce and getting the Jets QB/WR connection (hooray?), but I'm worried the rest of his team is not strong enough to carry him until a likely Henderson emergence mid-season. Justin Fields being injured might actually improve Garrett Wilson's near term value but likely limits Kumpf's overall upside. Also with Henderson, Jauan Jennings, Calvin Ridley, Courtland Sutton and Rachaad White all trying to squeeze into an RB2 and Flex starting spot, you are going to be guessing wrong almost every week. Hell, even Mark Andrews might outscore Kelce 30-40% of the time. Maybe you can flip 5 of these misfit toys to AGD for Allen? But grading the trade as is - I don't like it 

Grades:
Kumpf: C+ primarily due to roster make-up post-trade, not necessarily trade return value
Zacherman: B+ (docked for not getting the handcuff and making the trade the week I play Kumpf)

Trade Grade 3
BMO receives James Conner, Jordan Mason, and Chris Olave
Esco receives Kenneth Gainwell, Ja'Marr Chase, and Ricky Pearsall

I honestly don't remember this one going through. I was in my own post-trade haze and I guess the names here seem bigger than the impact? The obvious wild card here is Chase. He's succeeded without Burrow in the past, and even if he's not a top 2 WR, he's still definitely top 10. Esco gave up all his depth to get Chase, which is the kind of move you need to make when your roster has one good player on it. CD and Chase is a hell of a combo, and while the RB situation is a disaster, I actually like the Gainwell throw-in. I think he becomes a legit flex option by the end of the season.

Speaking of disaster RB situations! Bennett made the rare move of trading for starters while already owning handcuffs. I believe during the draft Bennett was pleased with himself for sniping Esco's handcuffs, and now he had to trade Chase to get them from Esco. Well played. Kaleb Johnson for $14 is looking like a contender for worst pick of the year, and luckily for BMO they realized it soon enough to salvage the season. This roster is paper thin right now but if they can tread water until Aaron Jones and Aiyuk get healthy and turn the clock back a couple of years, they may still have hope.

Grades:
BMO: C
Esco: B+

Trade Grade 4
AGD receives David Montgomery, Tyrone Tracy Jr., Tyreek Hill, Emeka Egbuka, and David Njoku
Levine receives Josh Allen, Josh Jacobs, AJ Brown, and Cedric Tillman

Wow. I don't think we've ever had a 9-player trade before, and based on this I doubt we will again. Levine got the no-doubt top 3 players in the deal, and it's not out of the question that he gets the top 4 if the Browns passing game becomes effective, the Fins keep sucking, and Godwin eats into Egbuka's production. 

I want to see a Behind the Music on the negotiations here, because I just don't understand the following:
1) How did AGD not get rid of Hurts instead of Josh?
2) How was George Kittle (a legit asset that does not hurt AGD to lose) not included?
3) How was Josh Jacobs turned into two backup RBs?

AJB and Tillman for Tyreek and Egbuka is rational, and if AGD needed to throw in Kittle to get the deal done, I would say that's a fair trade. That still leaves AGD with Josh/Jalen to flip for a low-level RB starter like Chubb. Obviously easier said than done with the number of Je...annoying negotiators in this league, but my god. You guys asked me if I was interested in making a trade, and I outright declined because I respected you enough to assume you wouldn't voluntarily sign up for rape. How wrong I was.

As mentioned in the chat, the real question is whether Levine shows up to get his chef's hat in person.

Grades:
Levine: A
AGD: F

Trade Grade 1

 Almost forgot about this one as it happened so quickly after the draft.

Trade 1
Ajay receives Puka Nacua
Marco receives Jaylen Warren, Michael Pittman Jr., and Trey McBride

In terms of straight value, this is a pretty damn even trade. Ajay gets his WR1, Marco gets a legit TE and balances his roster a bit, and everyone is happy. I do want to call out the fact that Ajay not only had a good draft, but then parlayed his biggest mistake (taking two top TEs) and somehow turned that into a strength. Combine that with Terry signing a contract and Javonte apparently being a TD machine, and I think we have a clear favorite early. 

Also, considering this trade took place less than 48 hours after the draft and Ajay "profited" $11 here, I have to give him the edge.

Grades:
Ajay: A
Marco: B