Sell High, Buy Low: Trade ideas for Week 11, 2008

The trade deadline approacheth! In many leagues, there are just a couple days left, so if you don’t know when yours is, check your league’s settings ASAP. The default deadline in Yahoo leagues is this Friday; in ESPN leagues it’s next Wednesday.

This is your last opportunity to sell high on your overvalued players and buy low on your leaguemates’ undervalued players – let’s get to figuring out who those guys are!

Sell High

Maurice Jones-Drew - This season, MJD has been only been consistent in one way – he has great games against bad defenses (Indy, Denver, Detroit) and horrible games against good ones (Tennessee, Pittsburgh). He hasn’t shown any signs of being able to rise to the occasion against top-tier defenses this season. His schedule for the next four weeks: Tennessee, Minnesota, Houston, Chicago. Gulp. Houston would stand out as the lone opportunity for a big game in there, except for one little detail: Against the Texans in week 4, he contributed a whopping 49 total yards. In a high-scoring, 30-27 game.

Steve Breaston – I expect Breaston to be a decent WR3 the rest of the way, but his 7-catch, 121-yard performance last week will have some owners thinking he’s capable of putting up WR2-type numbers every week. Don’t believe it. Breaston’s certainly talented, but he’s still the third option behind two of the best receivers in football, and with Boldin now clearly back to 100%, I don’t expect him to catch 7 balls again any time soon – though admittedly, if he was going to do it again, it would happen this week against Seattle. Against the Giants and Eagles in weeks 12 and 13, expect Breaston to come hurtling back to earth as Warner will likely get back to basics and target his starters as much as possible.

Buy Low

Matt Forte – It’s not like Forte’s value is particularly low right now, but given his schedule and the Bears’ growing confidence in him, I think he’s got a good chance at being a top-5 running back the rest of the way. With two games against the terrible Packers rush defense still to go, as well as nice matchups with the Rams and Saints, he’s poised to finish the season with a bang.

Anyone on the Colts… even Marvin – I’ve said it before, but Indy’s end-of-the-season schedule is just plain silly. Next five games: Houston, San Diego, Cleveland, Cincy, Detroit. Think Peyton Manning isn’t drooling as he studies film of those sorry pass defenses (especially after he was able to throw for three touchdowns against Pittsburgh last week)? We’re going to see some old-school Indy offensive brilliance for the next few weeks. Peyton, Wayne, and Clark are the obvious guys to target in trades, but Harrison is startable in all five of these games, and his owner might give him up for a song at this point. Joseph Addai is definitely worth targeting as well – he remains a bit of an enigma, but the odds are good that he’ll find his footing against such a weak schedule.