Trading Tebow was Bold, You Ready to Trade? Here’s How

 

The Broncos Trading Tebow to the Jets was a bold move. Now its time for you to consider some bold moves of your own. Some of you “Suspect” team owners are already thinking trades. No problem, the commish has you covered. This is your guide to the rules of the road to trading in the league. Take a look at the two trading screens below. The guide continues after the pics.

Trading Block Screen

Propose Trade Screen

The deadline to trade players is November 21st. If you are thinking about making a trade but aren’t sure how to approach this ‘delicate’ subject with your fellow team owners, you might find the “Trading Block” screen an easy, passive-aggressive strategy. On this screen you get to fill out your trading needs, interests, and preferences for all league members to see.

The Trading Block Screen
You can get to the Trading Block by clicking on the “My Team” tab and clicking on “Trading Block,” as indicated by the red arrow at the top. As shown above with the second red arrow, you can edit your trading block and have a look at everyone else’s too.

By filling your trading block out, you let league members know who you are willing to trade and what positions/players you are interested in getting.

When its time to actually make a proposal to another team owner, you can either do it from the Player free agent screen or from the trading block. If you happen to be looking at players on the free agent screen and you select the option to view “All” players or players on “Rosters,” then you will be able to propose a trade right from that list by clicking on the propose trade icon to the right of the player’s name. Otherwise, use the trading block.

The Trading Block screen has a “Propose Trade” link as well as an email link so that you can communicate directly to the team owner (see the green arrow).

The Propose Trade Screen
If you do click on the “propose trade” link it will take you to the “Propose Trade” screen, which is also shown above. The sample propose trade screen shown here is Team Domination’s proposed trade to team Malbec. Notice the green arrow pointing to Matt Forte on the right. Team Domination is looking to trade Forte for Jamaal Charles on the left (red arrow).

At the bottom of the screen you can select how long to keep the offer open and send an optional email discussing your proposal. Don’t forget to click on the “Finalize Trade Offer” button at the bottom of the screen.

Once you have proposed a trade, nothing happens until it is accepted by the team owner you sent it to AND approved by the trade commitee.

Say What? A Trade Committee?
It is common in fantasy football leagues to have some type of approval process for trades. The reason behind this policy is to avoid unequal trades to benefit close friends or family. Without it, Mothers would trade Tom Brady for Kyle Bohler just so her sweetie can win the league.

Many leagues use a voting system where team owners vote or leave approval to a commissioner or committee for team owners. This year we have chosen to have a three owner committee to approve trades so that more than one person will have decisionmaking power but not everyone will have be burdened with voting since everyone is relatively new to the fantasy experience.

Our league’s trade committee consists of me, and Sebastian. Our mission is fairness and we encourage every owner to make their team as competitive as possible through the waiver wire and trade process. For more on trading from ESPN, go to ESPN’s Trading Players Information Page.

Undroppable Players
ESPN’s default rule for “undroppable” players is also geared toward “erratic” behavior by team owners. The rule blocks a list of players from being dropped from a team’s roster. Here is ESPN’s explanation:

The Undroppable list comprises players who cannot be dropped to waivers at any time during the season. ESPN introduced this feature to prevent collusion (In these cases, owners would be able to drop star players, allowing those first on the waiver wire to pick them up). League creators of ESPN Custom and LM Leagues can choose if they want to allow owners to be capable of dropping all players or be prevented from dropping designated players.

I don’t believe anyone has come across this issue yet, but I believe it is consistent with the goal of preventing collusion. We have the option to turn this setting off, if you feel strongly about it I would love to hear from you. The list of undroppables changes based on NFL league happenings – so if Brady breaks his arm, he’s taken off the list. You can find the list by following this ESPN undroppable players link.

Good Luck,
Commish Shelley