The playoffs are beginning, and if your team is one of those competing and your trade deadline has passed, then the only way to beat your opponents is to have the players they need to beat you on your bench. You can score a lot of points in the playoffs, or you can keep your opponent from scoring a lot of points. Why not do both?
Playoff teams play the exact same way in dynasty and redraft, so this is about making sure your bench holds the players your opponents need. In multi-QB leagues, I’m known to keep lots of QBs and a very strong team looked at my 7th-place team and noticed I was short on RBs, so he gave me Haskins, McNichols, & Abdullah for a single 4th-round pick. The real reason was that my team didn’t have lots of drops; however, I was holding Wentz and Danny Dimes on my bench, and he was simply trying to get me to drop Wentz as he has Mahomes and he thinks the only way for him to lose is for either Mahomes or Kyler injury and then him not have a QB to use.
He has Brandon Allen or Rudolph, but no guarantee they get points. I wouldn’t give up Wentz for less than a 1st plus, knowing that I could control his team simply by holding Wentz based on the Mahomes injury possibility. I will be dropping other players for a simple 4th round pick; I’m not going to mess up the monopoly on the QB position. Sometimes, you can make the trade so appealing that the other team attempts to drop value on the wire. I’ve found that many people like to get to a roster minimum as soon as they go over. It’s critical to understand the league rules so that you can capitalize on areas that you can win by simply following a process.
This week, following the trade deadline, my one dynasty share of CMC is on a team that I’ve found that an 8-5 record as the defending champion doesn’t have a good way to win and realize where things come off the rails on this squad. Picking late in the draft in a non-league has made picking RBs a real challenge. I did make a decision several years ago to run CMC into the ground as the market in the league was too low so last year, I won a championship for the 3rd time with CMC on the squad. Losing out of the playoffs signals a failure to have a next-man-up plan in place when simply losing two players takes me out. I lost Dobbins and CMC with Hunt & Ford going down in value mid-season I’m in a world of trouble.
This is the time to look at week 14 and make sure you can get a win to get into the playoffs, and sometimes that’s by knowing what your opponents need. Good luck in the playoffs.
