Roasted: Terrible Trades Featuring Josh Allen & The Bag
Hello, and welcome to my first-ever column for TrophySmack! For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Nate. I’m a Pisces, married to my best friend Jen, have an incredible four-year-old son named Jackson, I play a lot of fantasy football, and I don’t like receiving terrible trades. I don’t know if it’s a Pisces thing, being a parent, or just life in general that has made me this way. What I do know is, I’m excited to get to roast my fellow fantasy enthusiasts and hopefully make you think twice before offering me a lousy trade like Dontrell Hilliard for a second-round rookie pick.
“Trading makes fantasy fun!”
Josh Fewster of Front Yard Fantasy
But only if you don’t embarrass yourself and your entire bloodline by making bad ones.
Trigger warning: The trade you are about to see may cause involuntary anger, outrage, crying, screaming, loss of appetite, vomiting, and deep questioning of humanity on a visceral level. Read on at your own peril.
Sometimes in life, you see something making you question humanity as a whole. It might make you cry; it might make you vomit. Hell, it might make you do both. In fact, you might want to close your eyes for the reveal of this terrible trade.
The Terrible Trainwreck of Fantasy Trades
Okay, it’s probably safe to open your eyes if they were closed.
For everyone else, how did that feel? Gross? Do you need a shower now? Go ahead and do that really quick. I’ll wait, and then we can get to the roasting.
I’ve seen a lot of terrible fantasy trades in my life, some admittedly of my own doing. What I’ve never seen is someone willing to sell every early-round draft pick they have plus three fantasy-viable players for two (!) players in return.
I cannot roast the attempt to get Josh Allen on your team. He is the QB1 in fantasy and Daddy in our hearts. You’d be crazy not to try to pry him from his current manager's hands, though in most cases, they’ll probably have to be cold and dead for it to work. What doesn’t need to be cold and dead for it to work - but will be after this trade - is your chances of competing in your league for the foreseeable future.
Side Note: How in the fresh hell did you end up with that many first-round rookie picks?
What they gave up to stack those picks alone makes this trade terrible. But now I have to wonder, how many selections they have left? Are they pick hoarders? Did this clean out the closet? I certainly hope not.
When you’re giving away Adam Thielen, Mac Jones, and Jalen Hurts in addition to the hockey bag of rookie picks, I cannot imagine you have much of a team left. Denzel Mims, Mike Davis, and N’Keal Harry? Thinking about the trade is making my brain hurt.
Furthermore, Susan, you put Amon-Ra in there to even out value? In what world does he come close to being equivalent to any of the draft picks, let alone Adam Thielen? Sure, Thielen is getting up there in age, but the dude consistently scores touchdowns, and Kirk Cousins is back for 2022.
Amon-Ra had one six-game stretch where he was crushing it, which will happen when your team is without one of the best tight ends in the league and multiple wide receivers due to injury. Detroit also recently signed D.J. Chark, so the chances he goes off again in any fashion got even slimmer. Sure, attempting to trade an aging receiver out for a younger asset makes sense, but this isn’t the way.
Think About It
If you’re going to try to make a blockbuster trade to acquire a big name, I get that you need to make it flashy and worth the other manager's while. That’s part of trading in fantasy sports. What you shouldn’t do is trade away your entire future for a stud quarterback and a wide receiver who is unlikely to repeat a stellar last half of a season.
Would you give that haul away for Gabe Davis? Because they might as well have.
The Allen side of this trade is likely staring down the barrel of last-place punishments for the next few years. Jerry might even be able to beat this team. Hopefully, the rest of the league isn’t too mad about them handing their trade partner a ticket to the championship for the next few seasons.
Do you have a bad trade you want me to roast? Tag @TrophySmack & I on Twitter - @NatePolvogt - or email natepolvogt@gmail.com!
