Tricks on the Trade: React and overreact

With every week comes overreaction.

Perception changes with every touchdown. It can turn on a dime, leaving last week's hero a chump or vice-versa.

Hello, Frank Gore. Hello, Steve Slaton.

Within the Fantasy Football-playing community exists a population of point chasers. They go after last week's numbers as if they represent this week's numbers, ignoring variables like timing, opportunity and, above all, chance.

Yes, chance. Sometimes things just happen, and instead of acting on them, you're better off ignoring them.

Trade No. 1: Three touchdowns, you're out?
Team A gets: Ricky Williams and Hines Ward
Team B gets: Ray Rice and Steve Smith

Three touchdowns. That's the stat most people will take away from Williams' performance against the Saints in Week 7. He ran for 80 yards, piled up 27 Fantasy points and scored three touchdowns. Celebrate good times, come on.

Sorry, I can't. I like to celebrate, I want to, but I don't know if what we witnessed counts as one of those good times. See, for all the touchdowns Williams scored and all the points he accumulated, nothing happened to change his role on offense. He carried the ball only nine times.

Nine times.

What do nine carries usually mean? Well, if Williams' 5.7 yards-per-carry average holds -- which is a separate debate entirely -- 51.3 yards. It doesn't mean 80 yards, and in an offense where Ronnie Brown gets the majority of the carries, including the tough ones, it doesn't mean three touchdowns.

Williams plays a supporting role. He comes in to give the Dolphins a change of pace or to make the Wildcat formation more than just a bluff, but he's still just a glorified backup, a modest contributor, the kind of player who'll disappoint you in Fantasy as often as he makes you proud. With a couple long runs on a day when everything went right, he got a chance to prance around like the leading lady. But he'll go back to a supporting role next week, watching from the sidelines while Brown gets all the glory.

Of course, people don't see that now. They just see three touchdowns, which opens the door for you to make an upgrade.

Rice splits carries too, but he plays the leading role in the Ravens offense. True, he has 73 carries to Williams' 70, making him just as likely as Williams to get nine carries in a game, but the difference is he might also have nine catches. He makes the Ravens offense go just like Brown, not Williams, makes the Dolphins offense go.

The exchange of wide receivers is important because it makes the trade viable for Team A. Ward has more points than Smith and more value at the moment, but he's no stud and could always disappear behind Santonio Holmes. If the Panthers hope to have a passing game, Smith has to get involved sooner or later, which means he has a better chance of outperforming Ward the rest of the way than most people would believe.

Winner: Team B for realizing just how rarely nine carries translates into three touchdowns.

Trade No. 2: Miles ahead of his former self
Team A gets: Tony Romo and Calvin Johnson
Team B gets: Drew Brees and Santana Moss

Just three short weeks ago, Romo looked like one of the biggest busts of the NFL season. He had four touchdowns compared to four interceptions and fewer Fantasy points than David Garrard.

Then, he blew up in back-to-back games, throwing three touchdowns in one and two in the other with an average of 331 yards.

Quarterbacks don't get much better than that in Fantasy, which is why you'd think Romo would generate more interest on the trade market. But people seem unwilling to forgive his struggles at the beginning of the season, when he had to prove he could succeed without Terrell Owens.

Ah, yes -- the elephant in the room. Owens, one of the most significant wide receivers in the history of the league, who revolutionized the position with his size and strength, put Romo on the map with his big-play ability. Some of Romo's critics thought he couldn't succeed without Owens. To a certain extent, the wide receiver makes the quarterback. Just ask Daunte Culpepper.

But if one wide receiver gets that much credit, why can't another? Enter Miles Austin, whose emergence as the go-to guy in Dallas has coincided with Romo's breakthrough. Over that same two-game stretch, Austin has 421 yards and four touchdowns, which translates to 64 percent and 80 percent of Romo's totals. He has become everything Owens was for Romo, offering similar size and playmaking ability, only without the age, attitude and injury concerns.

I understand the reluctance to part with Brees. He might be the best quarterback in Fantasy. But Romo, equipped with Austin, has re-entered the discussion.

The difference between the two isn't big enough to pass up such a significant upgrade at wide receiver. Moss looks like waiver fodder with Jason Campbell throwing him the ball, while Johnson, though injured, is the most physically gifted wide receiver in football and a virtual certainty to put up big numbers before season's end, no matter who throws him the football.

Just ask Daunte Culpepper.

Winner: Team A for capitalizing on a change in value before it becomes obvious.

Trade No. 3: I am no longer Jennings. I have now become ... someone else.
Team A gets: Greg Jennings
Team B gets: Beanie Wells and Santana Moss

You can understand why the owner of Team B made this deal.

Jennings hasn't given him what he wanted. He thought he drafted a No. 1 wide receiver. Instead, he got a player with 0-yard game to his credit, a 31-yard game to his credit, fewer total receiving yards than Steelers backup Mike Wallace, and not a single touchdown reception since Week 1.

Um ... refund, please?

Wells, on the other hand, might give him what he wants. The rookie made the most of his extra playing time Sunday night, carrying the ball 14 times for 67 yards and a touchdown to perhaps steal the feature role away from Tim Hightower, who had only four carries. The Cardinals didn't select Wells in the first round to play a supporting role, after all.

Yeah, it all looks fine on paper -- Jennings stinks, Wells starts, blah, blah, blah -- but I still think Jennings has the better opportunity for points going forward. He still has the highest profile of any receiver on one of the best passing offenses in football, with Aaron Rodgers 1,702 passing yards ranking sixth among all quarterbacks.

If the Packers hope to keep winning by passing the ball, Jennings has to get in on the mix eventually. Not every pass can go to Donald Driver. The more success he has, the more opposing defenses will have to target him, freeing up Jennings to make more plays. It has a cyclical quality.

But we can't talk about passing offenses without mentioning the Cardinals, who have had exactly one 100-yard rusher in their last 14 regular-season games. Maybe Wells will help reverse that trend, but how much will the Cardinals let him given the success of their passing game? Would you keep the ball out of the hands of Larry Fitzgerald, Anquan Boldin and Steve Breaston?

Wells might put up serviceable numbers on a week-to-week basis, but Jennings has a chance to single-handedly win games for you. He has no good reason for his struggles, which gives me reason to dismiss them as chance.

Winner: Team A for understanding probability has to catch up to reality.

Trade No. 4: To live and die by Joseph Addai
Team A gets: Joseph Addai and Hines Ward
Team B gets: Rashard Mendenhall and Miles Austin

Addai might have gone in the second round this season if the Colts didn't have Donald Brown to get in his way.

But they did, and he did, picking up 46 carries to Addai's 82 over the first six games. It was enough to steer Fantasy owners away from both backs at times.

Not now, though. Now, Brown is banged up, which might cost him more than just one game, which gives Addai the opportunity to step back into a full-time role.

And the people rejoiced.

All but me, the party pooper as always. You have to remember the Colts drafted Brown because Addai showed he couldn't handle a full-time role, averaging 3.5 yards per carry last year to prompt another split with Dominic Rhodes. He hasn't done any better this year, averaging 3.3 yards per carry, so even with a Jamal Anderson-sized load, he'd still have trouble reaching 100 yards. He has value in Fantasy just because the Colts have to give someone the ball at the goal line, but his upside only goes so far.

Don't buy the hype. Go with the still-undervalued Mendenhall instead, who already gets almost a full load out of the Steelers backfield and averages 5.4 yards per carry. Really, any of those borderline must-start running back for Addai sounds like a good deal to me. Steven Jackson? Sure. Kevin Smith? You know it.

Especially if you can also get an upgrade at wide receiver -- the most ridiculous part of this deal given Austin's emergence over the last two weeks. I know; how many times can one column sing the praises of one player? Apparently, as many times as it can make reference to forgotten actor Jeffrey Jones.

The answer: two. If you find both, you get a prize.

Winner: Team B for recognizing when talent matters more than opportunity.

Trade No. 5: I'm an old man. I'm confused!
Team A gets: Brett Favre, Santana Moss, Roy E. Williams
Team B gets: DeSean Jackson

Favre shouldn't be able to do this.

He's 40 years old. He missed training camp. He threw as many interceptions as touchdowns for the Jets last season and had surgery on his arm in the offseason.

Yet he has nine touchdowns over his last five games, averaging 283.2 yards. He ranks seventh among all quarterbacks during that period, ahead of Drew Brees, Philip Rivers and wonder boy Joe Flacco. He is, even with Adrian Peterson behind him, one of the safest bets for big numbers of any quarterback in football.

And if you need a quarterback, he's cheap.

Nobody expected anything from him after his season of futility and offseason of inactivity. He would play the role of game manager at best and turnover machine at worst. Anyone who drafted him did so for a laugh as much as anything else, and well after he/she had secured their starting quarterback.

In other words, his owner can't use him, so you need only offer him something he can use. Jackson seems like a perfect choice because you probably don't have to start him yourself and probably pull your hair out deciding whether or not you should. He's a boom-or-bust option every week, and even when he puts up points, he leaves you wondering if he can ever do it again. For all the damage he did with his two touchdowns last week, he handled the ball only three times.

Still, he's useful. Someone will gladly take him in exchange for excess.

As for Moss and Williams, they deflect the loss of Jackson somewhat, but I could live without them. I don't see how Williams has anything to offer now that Miles Austin has emerged.

Oops, that's three. Sorry, Jeffrey Jones.

Winner: Team A for taking advantage of an outdated perception.

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