So with this being the last buy column for the season, I felt the best way to approach the final go would be to state some generalities. Though I’ll still list some buys and sells below, I wanted to state the simple and obvious: make a trade that helps you over the last 6 weeks, not what helped the other owner for the last 10. By that I mean, sometimes selling high means selling low. You’re looking at the best a guy can offer you over the last 6 fantasy football games of the season. You should be looking at playoff matchups and not the next week at hand, unless of course you’re still scrambling for a playoff spot at this time like I am seemingly everywhere. Name value doesn’t hold as much weight as what a guy can do for you over this six week adventure. So go ahead and flip your star in name for the guy who’s been quietly outproducing him most of the season. It’s also the time of year to take risks if you need to. Look, you know by the records and points scored for the season whether or not your team is a contender or a pretender right now. One man’s 6-4 record should really be 4-6 and vice versa. We’re aware of it so we have to act before the last chance to make a move passes us by. Like I said, the time is nigh…buy, buy, buy. And with that, let’s look at some possible buys and sells for our final swing-thru for 2012 fantasy football:
Buy
Mark Ingram – The length of a season can do strange things to an otherwise unwaivering man. I said at the beginning of the year I wanted no part of Mark and for about 9 weeks I was right. Well, now I see a running back whose received 25 touches over the last two weeks with 16 of them coming last week vs the Falcons and doing good work with them. He has looked nothing like the RB that we’ve seen for a season and a half and more like what the Saints thought they drafted. He’s been aggressive when given the ball and running with a purpose. Can’t ask for much more than that. As much as I’d love to tell you to pick up Chris Ivory instead, he’s clearly not getting the touches Ingram is getting. After his 56 yard run last week, Ivory only got 6 more touches the rest of the way. Ingram as a flex is looking like a good call for ROS if you’re in need.
Andre Roberts – Quietly has been a top 25 WR this season. So quiet, you might be able to wrangle him away for a big name. He’s been boring but consistent, something that every manager needs yet rarely yearns for. Even though the rankings say different, I’d willingly trade Torrey Smith straight up for him right now and be satisfied with getting 14 points over two weeks from him in 7 and 7 chunks than getting 19 from Torrey where it’s 16 one week and 3 the next. You can read this as a Torrey Smith sell as well. Same statement can be said for Lance Moore but at a lower price. Yes, the Lance Moore who’s currently hovering around the same value as Andre Johnson.
Cecil Shorts/Laurent Robinson – Here are some fun stats to peruse. Robinson leads the NFL in targets with 24 over the last two weeks after returning from injury. He has 3 games total on the year with 9 or more targets and his lowest output in a game in which he wasn’t hurt in a PPR league is 6.4. In fact, if you take his 4 healthy games on the year and extrapolate them over 16, you get 92 receptions on 156 targets and 932 yards. Meanwhile, Cecil is the 27th best WR in PPR leagues according to yahoo. What do they have in common? Their ownership – 33% for Cecil and 10% for Laurent – is absurdly low. Look, they don’t play for the Packers or the Saints so yeah, you’re not looking to score a lot of touchdowns but what you can look for is these two top WRs for their team playing from behind because of how bad their team is. There’ll be sneaky consistency here for the rest of the year and most owners probably think it’s a blip on the radar. Heck, you could probably just go pick them up with those ownership levels. Nice, consistent WR3s. Nothing wrong with that.
Andre Brown – He’s the 12th best RB over the last 4 weeks in terms of fantasy and outpaced Ahmad Bradshaw in terms of touches last week. Hard to say if he keeps that position but there’s a shot and he’s slowly become the goal line back for the Giants. It’s clear David Wilson is an afterthought this season for that backfield. He should still go cheap and is on bye this week. Desparate owners might be ready to bail for nothing more than a play for the week at hand. Take advantage.
Jacquizz Rodgers – This is 100% a hunch call. I won’t flash any numbers at you that are gonna wow you so it’s not even worth it. What I can say isMichael Turnerstarted to tail off at the end of last season and the main benefactor if that happens again this season would be Rodgers. Again, this is gut instinct here which has only led me wrong once and it was choosing that Indian restaurant. Never thought I’d need a donut ring cushion just to sit down after dinner. But I digress, see if you can get him as a sweetener in one of your final trades. Could pay huge dividends down the road.
Sell
Andrew Luck – If you saw the last game vs the Jaguars, you’d have a good understanding of where this sell is coming from and I already covered my stance quite extensively after the game.. Luck without a lot of…eh, luck could’ve finished with 1 TD and two INT. It was not as impressive as the box score says he was. But the great thing is – ok, it’s not great for the quarterbacks involved – this is the perfect time to sell him to someone with a broken QB. With Big Ben, Smith, Cutler & Vick going down last weekend, you could have some desparate owners willing to spend a decent penny to gain Andrew.
Mike Wallace/Antonio Brown – I’d make a worry sell on Mike at this point as we don’t know what we’re going to get from Big Ben for the rest of the year but we surely know what we’ll get from Charlie Batch and Byron Leftwich and that would be a lot of hand offs and plenty of 3rd and 9 throws to nowhere. Truthfully you could probably drop Antonio at this point but maybe someone out there still believes in the name. He’s been disappointing even when he and Big Ben weren’t hurt and truthfully so has Wallace. In the end, names sell before real production is analyzed. See if you can sneak out of this Steel trap. You can throw Heath Miller into this as well.
Antonio Gates – Yep, he’s a repeat sell. But why would I tell you to do so? Because he has name value and here’s his last 4 games: 15 receptions for 195 yards and 4 TDs. Meanwhile, 39% owned Brandon Myers has 23 receptions for 209 yards and 2 touchdowns. Obviously not telling you to get rid of Antonio, just letting you know he could be a great trade chip to upgrade another position while not losing out on much if you had to go to the FA for a PPR league.
Alright, all, I’m trying to dream up the best content now that the trade season is over. Maybe I’ll poke at the after waiver FAs to dig in on or perhaps do a week ahead look but I think we can call a close to buy/sell since you guys can’t, ya know, buy and sell players after this week in a standard league. And with that, on with the comments!
