A Surprising Trade Offer: Insta Call
Byron Lambert, Rosterwatch.com

So my brother is in his first year of law school and got roped in to a 16 team, freshman class, full grown man’s fantasy football league. He is a complete amateur, not all that interested in sports, and ridiculously busy with school. That said, he is competitive and does not want to look like a donkey to his classmates. What does he do? Call in his championship brother and Rosterwatch managing partner, The Captain, to steer his ship to respectability.

Of course when I log in to see his team I realize it is a steaming pile of $#!+ that could have only been assembled via auto draft. Not only did he own Peyton Manning and every other Colt under the sun but his top RB was the injured Arian Foster. To make things hurt even worse my brother went on to explain that his roommate talked him out of drafting Tom Brady in favor of Foster. Combine that with the fact that his back up QB was Matt Cassel and his highest ranked WR was Ochocinco and the situation was dire to say the least.

This is an active 16 team league and when I say the league waiver wire is dry I am not kidding. I have employed many of the suggested players from the Rosterwatch.com Watchlist as well as the weekly “Garbage Grab” article. In week 3, these additions propelled this “team in progress” to its highest scoring output of 64 pts. and its 1st non losing week (a tie….freakin non decimal leagues…)!!! Last Sunday I was also rebuffed on an Arian Foster/Dallas Clark/Ochocinco offer for Josh Freeman(this owner’s back up QB)/Michael Bush/Mike Williams offer.

Pete’s Pitbulls are going in to week 4 at 0-2-1 with 2nd lowest points in the league. A win would be big this week and our starting line up is looking pretty motley: Cassel, Antonio Brown, Titus Young, Arian Foster (who I do not like), LT, Fred Davis, and Eric Decker!!!!

I get home tonight and start checking the league waiver wire activity when I see I have been proposed a trade. I am stunned to see the #1 ranked team in the league (undefeated with a monster points lead) has offered me Ryan Mathews and Ryan Fitzpatrick for Arian Foster. This is what I call an INSTA CALL. I could not click the accept button fast enough. I think Mathews and Fitzpatrick are very legitimate in high powered offenses and I think Foster is locked in to a significant time share. Huge upgrades for the Pitbulls! I guess the other owner felt he was doing well enough to take a risk and try to hit a home run on Foster. Personally, after reviewing his team I think that may be a mistake. He has a very good team but Mathews has been a big part of that as his #2 RB behind McCoy. Cedric Benson is really the only RB he has after that in a format where you would like to start 3 RBs. If Foster is a miss his RBs all of a sudden become a big question mark.

We will see. In the meantime I am continuing to try to make moves. I have a couple of other offers in the hopper targeting a few guys outlined in this week’s Rosterwatch.com “Buy Low” article (http://rosterwatch.com/?p=574). I have offered the LT/Dallas Clark and LT/Ochocinco combos for both Steven Jackson and Frank Gore. Both of those team owners are also in binds fielding pretty sorry teams themselves. I am hoping they are ready to shake it up. Naturally, I also pitched out one long shot offer of LT+Clark+Ocho for Chris Johnson. That owner’s team is pretty good though so I am not expecting much traction there. We will continue to monitor this situation as the season progresses. First things first, getting a win in week 4!