Tricks of the Trade: Timing is everything

You know who has the most yards from scrimmage so far? You didn't draft him in the first round. You didn't draft him as even your second running back. But if you drafted Ray Rice, you probably sit near the top of your league's standings.

And if you didn't draft Rice, let me be the first -- or the eighth, or the 80th, for all I know -- to say you want him.

But I should warn you his price might be high. He's coming off his best game of the season, wherein he had 10 carries for 77 yards, 10 catches for 117 yards and two touchdowns. If you play in a points-per-reception league, his owner probably knows his value, meaning you don't stand a chance.

But his statistical breakdown does leave room for doubt, and if you can find an owner willing to entertain that doubt, fretting over what might happen instead of enjoying what already has, you want to make something happen now.

It'll only get harder from here.

Trade No. 1: The escalating price on Rice
Team A gets: Ray Rice and Chris Cooley
Team B gets: Kurt Warner and Marques Colston

Rice is 100 percent for real. Joe Flacco gets most of the credit for the Ravens' offensive breakthrough, but Rice is the driving force, as important to his team as Maurice Jones-Drew is to the Jaguars or Brian Westbrook once was to the Eagles.

He gets most of his team's carries. He's a consistent receiving threat. His role on the offense grows with each passing week.

So why would anyone doubt him?

Notice I said he gets most of his team's carries. He loses some to Willis McGahee, who has five rushing touchdowns and seven total touchdowns. Granted, most of them came in the first three weeks, but Rice owners remember them, they remember throwing things when they happened, and they'll forever worry about them happening again.

Also, Rice has yet to get 20 carries in a game. When a player lacks opportunity, he usually lacks consistency, but what separates Rice from most other 15-carry backs is his ability to catch 5-10 passes per game. Getting 50 yards rushing and 50 yards receiving is the same as getting 100 yards rushing, which sounds obvious, but when people draft running backs, they expect to get rushing yards and panic when they don't.

Even with that doubt, a Rice owner would need a serious return to part with him, which is what makes this trade work. Both Warner and Colston ranked as top options at their positions entering the season, and they haven't done anything to lose that status. But other quarterbacks -- Flacco, for instance -- have emerged, making Warner not quite as important, and Colston has a tendency to disappear in the assortment of weapons found in New Orleans. You can't count on him to produce with the consistency of Rice.

As long as trading Warner doesn't put your team in the shaky hands of Matt Cassel or someone like him, this trade is a slam dunk. I'd make the trade even without Cooley, who's a pretty big prize in his own right as a No. 1 Fantasy tight end.

Winner: Team A for acquiring Rice while he's still affordable.

Trade No. 2: Too down with touchdowns
Team A gets: Brandon Marshall and Darren McFadden
Team B gets: Steven Jackson and Antonio Bryant

McFadden doesn't matter to me. Bryant doesn't matter to me. Both play for bad teams and have too much competition on top of it. Cut 'em loose, I say.

No, this trade boils down to Marshall for Jackson. And I want Jackson.

It looks close. Marshall has 55 points to Jackson's 57 in standard scoring, but Marshall also has four touchdowns to Jackson's, um, zero.

That might seem like bad news for Jackson, but I look it at differently. He has two more points than Marshall even though he has four fewer touchdowns. Say what you want about the Rams and their shortcomings, but Jackson himself has succeeded. He ranks fourth in the NFL in rushing yards for a team that ranks 25th in total yards. He is the Rams offense, which gives him potential beyond anything Marshall can muster.

He has to score touchdowns eventually. The Rams are bad, but not so bad they'll never, ever cross the goal line. And since they have a one-man backfield and no passing game worth mentioning, Jackson is the most likely candidate to do it.

He won't lead the league in touchdowns. He might not get more than five or six, but based on his week-to-week consistency, that's enough to make him worth your while in Fantasy. Yards score points too. They might not lead to eye-popping numbers that single-handedly win you games, but at the end of the year, they'll add up to more than what you'll get from the hit-or-miss types.

Winner: Team B for recognizing when touchdowns don't tell the whole story.

Trade No. 3: The lesser Steve Smith
Team A gets: Brian Westbrook and Steve Smith
Team B gets: Pierre Thomas and Lance Moore

You want to punt on Smith, don't you?

I can't blame you. He had a 131-yard game at Atlanta in Week 2 but has averaged 32 yards in his other four.

But what can you get for him? If you can't use him, what makes you think anyone else can? How can you expect anything more than waiver fodder for a player destined to ride somebody's bench?

Oh, I know! You can package him with Westbrook, another underachiever with his 46 rushing yards per game. Yeah, that'll pique somebody's interest. They both can't underperform forever, and with the odds of a resurgence doubled, somebody will roll the dice.

It's a good idea in theory, and I applaud Team B for taking a creative approach to the Smith dilemma. Unfortunately, I wouldn't call it a solution.

For as many problems as Smith and Westbrook have, Thomas has his own, and they come in a 225-pound package called Mike Bell. The two split carries, did so 15-15 Sunday, which means you can't trust Thomas to perform on an every-week basis. Frankly, I think Westbrook will give you more consistent protection. He might not measure up in terms of rushing yards, but he returned to his old receiving numbers Sunday, catching nine passes for 91 yards. He doesn't have to get much more than 46 rushing yards per game if he gets just as many receiving yards.

And unlike Thomas, he doesn't have to worry about playing second fiddle to anyone. LeSean McCoy, his eventual replacement, has settled into a backup role, getting a total of 13 touches over the last two weeks.

As for Moore, he doesn't offer anything a struggling Smith doesn't. He might have had a touchdown catch Sunday, but in an offense overflowing with receiving options for Drew Brees, he'll disappear too often for you to trust him.

So with the upgrade at running back and the calculated risk on Smith, I don't see what the owner of Team A really lost here. He got the upside without sacrificing as much immediate value as you might think.

Winner: Team A for getting value in return for a headache.

Trade No. 4: Too down with touchdowns, Part 2
Team A gets: Donovan McNabb and Thomas Jones
Team B gets: Drew Brees and Willie Parker

In a humiliating loss to the Bills on Sunday, Jones did what no Jet has ever done before. He ran for 210 yards.

That's a big number, the kind that can make people forget about his 3.7 yards per carry entering the game. Of course, his six touchdowns don't hurt either.

Yup, if you measure the entirety of his season, he ranks sixth among all running backs, his 83 points placing him ahead of such notables as DeAngelo Williams, Michael Turner and Steve Slaton.

But I don't put much stock in it. I still see a guy who averaged 41 rushing yards in the four games leading up to his 210-yard explosion, who splits carries almost evenly with Leon Washington, who's 31 years old and has a career high of 13 touchdowns. You honestly think he'll continue this 16-touchdown pace?

He won't. He can't. And when the touchdowns begin regressing to the mean, he won't have the yards to fall back on, not when he returns to his 41-yard standard. He's no Steven Jackson, after all.

But right now, people don't see that. They see 210 yards. They see sixth-ranked running back. And if they have a need at the position, they'll pay a hefty price for Jones.

So pounce. Use this opportunity to upgrade from an unsteady McNabb to arguably the best Fantasy quarterback in Brees. If you can do like Team B did and get someone like Parker to deflect some of the loss at running back, even better.

Winner: Team B for using Jones' monster game to get one of the best players in Fantasy.

Trade No. 5: Nothing more than a Gore-fest
Team A gets: Frank Gore
Team B gets: Matt Schaub and Sidney Rice

Get ready for a heaping helping of the truth.

Schaub is the highest-scoring quarterback in Fantasy. Gore scored zero points over the last three weeks. Rice had 176 yards receiving Sunday.

It doesn't end there.

Schaub won't finish as the highest-scoring quarterback in Fantasy. Gore won't score zero points over the next three weeks. Rice won't have another 176-yard game all season.

Deep down, your potential trading partner knows all of those truths, but the first three are the ones fresh on his mind. If he needs a quarterback, he'll look longingly at Schaub's numbers. If he needs a wide receiver, he'll see only the upside for Rice. And all that longing and hoping might just convince him to part with Gore, who he's already learned to live without.

Now, I don't have a problem with Schaub. If I had only David Garrard, Matt Cassel or Matt Hasselbeck as a backup -- someone I couldn't trust on a week-to-week basis -- I wouldn't even consider trading him. He's a No. 1 Fantasy quarterback. But he's not Peyton Manning. He's not Drew Brees. He's not Tom Brady. If I drafted him as a backup -- and most of his owners did -- and someone wanted to give me a first-rounder for him, I'd listen.

I also don't have a problem with Rice. He could break out with Brett Favre as his quarterback. But he's a sleeper -- nothing more.

Gore is still a first-round back. He performed like a first-round back before his injury, and he'll perform like a first-round back until the next injury. The 49ers have playoff aspirations, and you can bet they won't pin their hopes and dreams on the undrafted arm of Shaun Hill.

Team A couldn't have timed this trade any more perfectly, with Schaub and Rice fresh on everyone's minds and Gore almost a distant memory. Often, you can make a trade work with just one well-timed element. This one has three.

Winner: Team A for understanding the importance of timing.

You can e-mail your Fantasy Football questions to DMFantasyFootball@cbs.com. Be sure to put Attn: Tricks of the Trade in the subject field. Please include your full name, hometown and state and we'll get to as many as we can.