Trade leverage in bye weeks

I’ve already written about the importance of planning for and around bye weeks in the NFL. If you haven’t done so, it’s too late now because you’re in the belly of the beast. Six NFL teams are on byes in week 9.

One of the opposing teams in my league had seven of his 15 players on bye this week, and he also had Dalvin Cook on the bench. In case you haven’t been following the NFL, Cook appears to be on a permanent bye.

If you have teams in your league like this one, who got themselves in a bind because of poor planning, you may have leverage to pull off a favorable trade. The key is to have a decent player on the bench to trade with.

When I say a decent player on the bench, I mean someone that’s better than the hot garbage your opponent will find on the waiver wire but not good enough to crack your starting lineup. It’s a player you can give up.

In my case, my opponent needed a serviceable wide receiver, so I traded Doug Baldwin for Alshon Jeffery. Both have had injuries this year, but Jeffery has come back strong and had three games with 20 plus fantasy points.

The problem for my opponent was that Jeffery was on a bye this week, and he needed win a game to stay in the race for the playoffs. He’s currently 3-5. Otherwise, he probably wouldn’t have made the trade.