Fantasy Football: Negotiate the Trade Deadline

Due to the recent passing of the NFL trade deadline, and the fact that the deadline for most fantasy leagues is quickly approaching, I thought I'd share some thoughts on how to negotiate and analyze trades.

If you apply these skills, you'll make better deals for your fantasy team, and you might save a few bucks at the car dealership, too.

Information is power

When you walk onto a new-car lot, don't you want to know how much the dealer paid for the car? Salespeople will often try to trap customers into talking about monthly payments.

You'll hear the question "How much can you afford to pay a month?" Never answer this question. It's irrelevant to the price of the car. Why negotiate down from the maximum that you could possibly spend, when you can negotiate up from the minimum that they would take for the car?

Therefore, I cannot express the importance of talking fantasy football with the other players in your league enough. This is how you find out their "dealer invoice" on fantasy players.

Each individual owner has their own method for valuing players. It's important that you know what the other owners think of their players and yours, and the fastest way to find this out is by talking to them.

Talk to them on Monday mornings. We are emotional about our fantasy football teams, and no matter the result, do you know any emotional people who don't like to talk? Ask the question "So how do you like your team these days?"

Owners will tell you their problems. Then it's up to you to devise a trade that solves their problems for them. The best listener, not the best talker, almost always wins negotiations.

Have A Plan

It's important to develop a system for judging what impact any trade is going to make on your team. The question you are trying to answer is: “How many more points am I likely to score per week if I make this move?”

The first thing I consider is the impact on my starting lineup. What weapons am I going to choose to deploy if I have this new roster?

Look at some projections, but be careful to apply common sense. The computer models don't always take the latest news into account.

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