DOMINATE OR BE DESTROYED!

It didn’t take long to begin the dismantling of my $1250 team. It was a good team that had a decent shot of placing/cashing again in 2013 in my estimation. Ultimately though, I know this team will never reach its max potential without a good rebuild to make up for some of the critical mistakes I made up to this point.

For that reason, I have decided to spend the year scaling back and replacing producing vets with faster appreciating assets, namely 2014 1sts.

I believe this team has the necessary resources for a successful, worthwhile and quick rebuild with elite players McCoy, Spiller, Dez and RGIII, another very good player in Mike Wallace, and a number of other good players in Miles Austin, Tony Romo, Vernon Davis, Jermichael Finley, Josh Gordon and Danario Alexander, among others.

The trick will be to accumulate as many 2014 1st rounders as possible (in order to maximize the number of ping pong balls for the all important top 2 picks in 2014) while keeping the elite core of the team in place.

As soon as trading opened on New Years Eve, I began to work the emails, and less than 24 hours later, I traded away Tony Romo, Miles Austin and Jermichael Finley for a 2014 1st and the 1.10 in 2013 (which happened to be my own draft pick). If I were to rate the trade, I would give the other team the “win” by a good margin, but I accomplished what I needed to give the rebuild some momentum.

Another 24 hours later, I traded the cornerstone of my team, Lesean McCoy for Aaron Hernandez and another 2014 1st. McCoy lost a bit (but only a bit) of his luster since this time last year, but he is still an elite player in this format, and trading elite players is usually not a recipe for success in the FFPC. An exception to the rule is where you land another elite player in return, and in my opinion, Aaron Hernandez is in fact an elite player in a format that heavily favors TEs.

From there, I traded my 2014 3rd rounder for Josh Freeman, my 2014 4th rounder for Chris Givens and my 2013 1.10 for another 2014 1st rounder.

I also traded Mike Wallace (whom I still like quite a bit) for this year’s 1.1 rookie pick. The trade gives me flexibility to draft a RB that can hopefully serve as my RB2/RB3 or trade for a young vet, additional 2013/2014 rookie picks or both. While no one (including me) is particularly high on this year’s draft, I anticipate that the top picks will still have good market value come draft time (as they always do).

Here’s what I have for now:

RGIII
Mike Vick
Josh Freeman

CJ Spiller
Jon Stewart
Rashard Mendenhall
Daryl Richardson
Bilal Powell

Dez Bryant
Danario Alexander
Josh Gordon
Greg Little
Chris Givens

Aaron Hernandez
Vernon Davis

2013 Picks: 1.01 and 1.02
2014 Picks: 4 1st rounders

It’s a good start to my plan. The only worry is that I’m not sure I’ll have the patience to wait this one out. With a $7,000 first place prize and a team that could still compete (quite nicely imo) in 2013 if I were to convert the 2013 draft picks into producing vets, the temptation to revert back to a win-now team will be tough to overcome. What I need now (while I still have the resolve to rebuild) is a trade that takes me to a point where turning back is no longer an option. CJ Spiller perhaps? Hmmmm.