Originally Posted On beatchuckie.blogspot.com September 6, 2018
Author: Wings
A look at the league offices last night.
After a relatively quiet preseason with the only trade being that god-awful Nauch/Chuck fiasco, the floodgates exploded the night before the start to the season with 3 high-profile trades. Let’s break them down and see what the state of the league is now that the dust has hopefully settled. Any rankings I cite are from the most recent Beer Sheet because fuck you thats why.
1- 4:43PM, A Tale of Two Thomases
Long Dick Style took my trashing of his trade in this week’s power rankings personally and immediately made moves to bolster his thin RB core, adding the RB15 Drake adds a safety net while we see what RB20 Freeman is capable of. This pickup did come at a price…
Team Slap Ass did indeed give up Drake, but with Gordon, Fournette and a wild card Washington backfield he could definitely afford to give him up in order to upgrade from WR19 DT to the WR5 Michael Thomas. This trade definitely worked out in favor for both teams, as both have immediately improved their starting roster with this.
Trade Grade: LDS: A, GIO-:A-
2- 7:51PM, Put the Pitchforks Away Guys
I love shitting on any trades Chuck does as much of the next guy, but for once I think the anti-chuck squad overracted a little too much to the trade details.
Smoke Screen finally learned that the jig is up on the olden days of straight up trade rape and did make some hefty sacrifices (s/o Colin Kaepernick) to have the RB 3 and 6 as his starters. Shipping off the perennial TE1 in Gronk is going to be a massive downgrade no matter what- especially when his TE Options are Shaky due to Reed’s injury concerns and an unproven Colts offense. Chuckie also loses a breakout candidate in the WR26 Corey Davis and likely starting Josh Gordon who will be on a snap count week 1. There is also a revolving door at flex that he needs to deal with.
The Toe Goblin got a lot of flak for trading away the RB3 DJ, but Devonta Freeman, currently ranked the RB12, is worth the downgrade when you look at the broader roster with Mixon, Gronk, and Davis all part of the supporting cast. Call me crazy with this take but, at least in the short term, Anthony won this trade.
Trade Grade: …: B+, SUCK-:A-
3- 8:58PM, Hell’s Bells
I gotta say.. this one came out of nowhere. With the Lev Bell situation becoming increasingly toxic very quickly , Hurtado didn’t want to hold on and decided to ship him off while there was still value there. This is a really unique situation because it’s hard to place value on a totally healthy player that has between now and week 10 to return to his team, but damn, there were some big names involved.
Along with shipping off Bell, Brown Town (this team name is absolute trash btw) coughed up WR36 Alshon Jeffery and WR41 Randall Cobb to justify adding RB19 Jay Ajayi to the deal. Smart move since Hurtado avoids having to start Latavius Murray while waiting for Ingram to return.
Hard Nipples, meanwhile, adds overall WR depth to try and fill the glaring hole that trading Antonio Brown leaves. Until Bell returns, Weege’s RB core is very suspect and may end up being a liability the longer this holdout goes.
People were so quick to rag on Chuck’s trade but don’t realize the real fleece was here. This trade is by all means fantastic in the world where Bell isn’t nuking all his goodwill with the Steelers, but there are legitimate fears that this trade can and will blow up in Weege’s face.
Trade Grade: BTWN: A+, LBC-:B