I'm back to even par, 2-2, after starting the year 0-2.
There was a marquee trade this week.
The first of the season.
milano's Swag Team (
It's an interesting trade that hinges on LeVeon Bell continuing to not show up (or, being traded) and how you think that may play out.
I saw this morning that Bell says he intends to return in week 7 or week 8. Bell essentially flipped his hand over and said he didn't want to risk being injured over the course of a full season (with next year being a contract year for him), which is what I always suspected.
There's still hope for Connor in the form of Bell being traded, or maybe not featured even when he returns. If the Steelers are playing meaningful games, I can't imagine them not using Bell. If they're out of contention, maybe there's a chance they tell him to eat it.
(The best way to sabotage Bell, I think, would be to use him, but use him on your weakest play calls and worst situations. If you just don't play him, it doesn't seem like it would hurt his value at all.)
The whole Bell saga is interesting.
On one hand he should know that a franchise tag is something that a team is allowed to do and that this is what he's signing up for when he becomes an NFL running back.
But then the same can be said for the team. A player not showing up for a couple months is (apparently) something they can do, and so you run the risk of them doing it if you don't entertain their request to have the tag removed.
At the end of the day I think it basically highlights how, when the money is this big, a player's interest isn't naturally aligned with their team's interest.
So you can call LeVeon a bad teammate. And ya, it's hard to do much worse than not showing up. But it's hard to blame someone for caring more about the life changing amount of money than a game.
Trades
Our league is set to "commissioner approval" for trades. For the record, I'm not going to veto anything unless it looked like pretty clear collusion. (And I'd look for agreement from other managers.)
Doubt that would ever happen in this league.
The only other action I'd ever take as commissioner is I'd reverse the moves if a team rage quit and dropped their best players to be a troll, or something along those lines. (Again, doubt it will happen here.)
Good luck to everyone in Week 5!
Christopher's Team (
