In our Joywok fantasy football league, some awesome members write news stories and press conferences for big events. I'm posting them here so they are public to all and are never lost.
OCTOBER 4, 2013
PALISADES PARK – Though it has been more than a week, the full effect of arguably the greatest trade in the history of the 4-year history of the Joywok Fantasy Football League is still being felt. In a span of 24 hours, seventeen players were reshuffled from their original rosters, a change that can have major ramifications to all 12 teams for the remaining 12 weeks of the 2013 season.
According to insider sources, the trade originally came out of a proposed 3-team deal between Logan, Manning the Deck, and the GioDudes. Despite a 2-1 start, it has been an open secret throughout the league that GM Caleb Tseng of the GioDudes has been desperately shopping for upgrades to the quarterback and wide receiver positions. By last Monday night, Tseng has already designed the frameworks of two separate 3-team deals that will allow him to net
Matthew Stafford, Julio Jones, and Tavon Austin in one package or Demaryious Thomas and Calvin Johnson in another. The major players of both 3-team trades will involve Tseng and his GM counterpart, Tim Yu of Logan with Manning the Deck’s Thomas Wei and Black Soldiers’ Brian Wuu as supporting components of their respective deals.
As the night progressed, it became clear that the former trade proposal featuring Stafford, Jones, and Austin was gaining traction amongst all parties involved especially once it was agreed that Yu’s RB depth allows him to include Ryan Matthews to be sent to Manning the Deck to upgrade Wei’s weak running back core, which previously featured the under-performing Maurice Jones-Drew and Chris Johnson. There are doubts about how much the injury-prone
Matthews can strengthen Manning the Deck’s running back position, though by securing three high-talent players at the position, Wei does increase his chances of coming out with one top-tier RB out of the deal. For Logan, Yu
recognized the need for his team to have a top-notch player, and thus operated accordingly, trading a talented package that included Robert Griffin III, DeSean Jackson, amongst others in order to obtain LeSean McCoy, arguably the best running back this season. Though McCoy under-performed in his Logan debut (failing to score double digit points for the first time this season), he should prove to be a valuable addition to the Logan lineup while also allowing Yu to essentially corner the Philadelphia Eagles running game market as he now rosters both McCoy and his backup, Bryce Brown.
The trade was not without compromises from all three sides. Yu desperately wanted to avoid starting both Andre Johnson and Matt Schaub, whom he would receive from the GioDudes as part of the trade. His attempt to further dump Johnson to secure Cam Newton from Tseng was rebuffed quickly and sharply. “I was like wtfffff.” Laughed the GioDudes’ GM, “THAT DEFEATS THE WHOLE PURPOSE OF THE TRADE.”
Both Wei and Tseng also expressed sadness in sending away top players that were part of their original rosters. When asked about the trade, Wei admitted that “losing the only players that do anything every week” will be tough but the chance to upgrade both his running backs and gain a top-notch tight end in Jordan Cameron made the deal well worth it for his team. In addition, the trade forced Caleb Tseng to give up his top player, LeSean McCoy. “Man my
heart hurts. He’s my favorite player.” But kudos to Tseng in taking an objective approach towards the season as he puts all personal favoritisms aside in order to build upon last year’s playoff appearance and attempt to advance
past the 1st round for the first time in franchise history.
Once the trade was processed, Tseng continued his wheeling-and-dealing ways by completing his second blockbuster trade in as many days by sending Fred Jackson, Martellus Bennett, Miles Austin, DeAndre Jordan, Cam Newton, and BenJarvus Green-Ellis to the Black Soldiers for Alex Smith, Demaryious Thomas, and Arian Foster. The hope is clearly that Foster will supplant some of the lost production that resulted from the loss of McCoy. However, it remains to be seen whether the new quarterback pair of Stafford and Alex Smith is better than their predecessor, Newton and Schaub.
For the Black Soldiers, after last season’s 3-10 disaster, and a mediocre 1-2 start to the season, the thought process was clearly that a shakeup was necessary. However, perhaps even more important than hoping that the new Black Soldiers prove their roster spots worthy, GM Brian Wuu hopes that an easier shift in schedule will inspire a run into a potential playoff position. After one month into the season, the Black Soldiers lead the league in total points against including being on the receiving end of two 200+ point performances by opponents.
The four teams involved in last week’s player shakeup went a combined 1-3 last week with the only victory occurring when Logan beat the GioDudes 191-182 despite strong performances from each of the new GioDude players. Manning the Deck suffered the largest defeat of the season since the trade when they lost 190-109 to the Pharma-niners. Their 109 points was also the 4th lowest point total registered by any team this season. Meanwhile, the Black Soldiers fell to 1-3 when they lost 151-132 to Paul Blart JamaalCop as two of its new additions, Green-Ellis and Miles Austin combined to score 1.30 points. Currently, none of the four teams have records above .500 and it will be interesting to see what ramifications these moves will have the rest of the season both on their respective teams as well as to the overall playoff picture.
Finally, due to the lack of trade activity in recent years, the latest news once again brought attention to the fact that only the commissioner has the power to veto trades. While this is consistent with the practices of similar league entities such as the NBA and NFL, being that the commissioner is also the GM and owner of a team in the league, it raised the question of potential conflict of interest and a league-wide investigation will be conducted in the offseason on possible reforms to the issue.
Written by Shawn Wu (Futt Bumblers)
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