Making The Case Against Making Trade Offers Post-Week 1

            Now that the first week’s waiver claims have been processed, you’re probably thinking about heading to the trade market & putting out some offers…

But that might not be such a good idea…

Here’s my case against making trade offers post-Week 1:

 

-        No leverage

            One of the most important factors in being able to craft a successful trade is being able to exploit leverage. When your opponent has a clear positional weakness, they are more likely to overpay for your assets at that position. The problem is, there’s almost no leverage to exploit post-Week 1. Unless your opponent drafted MT, OBJ, and Deebo, or both James Conner & Le’Veon Bell, there probably isn’t a whole lot of positional leverage to exploit.

 

-        No panic

            This goes hand in hand with “no leverage.” Even if a player’s team underperformed or got injured in Week 1, they still probably aren’t panicking about it yet. Hayden Hurst had a bad Week 1, but nobody who rosters him is going out & overpaying for another TE based off one bad week.

Have patience, let the bad weeks stack up, attrition set in, and then capitalize when the panic meter has risen.

 

-        Potentially Sabotaging Future Negotiations

            This is probably the most important factor in why you should try to avoid sending out trade offers post-Week 1. Because the panic meter & leverage levels are still relatively low, you could be sending out an offer post-Week 1 that gets rejected, that would have otherwise been accepted had you waited 2 more weeks to send it. Now, instead of sending that offer Week 3, and starting there, you go into Week 3 making an offer that the other person already rejected. This makes them less likely to accept that offer the second time because they have it in their subconscious that they already rejected that same offer once before.

 

            This doesn’t mean you should NEVER send out trade offers post-Week 1, because there are certain instances where a team gets hit hard Week 1 and does have a clear & glaring weakness that you can leverage & exploit. But if you don't have a CLEAR avenue to exploiting a weakness that jumps off the page, understand that most teams will reject offers post-Week 1 & choose to exercise patience. You’ll be better off for it in the long-run.