Now tha🔯t your drafts are complete and Week 1 of the NFL season has officially begun, your real work as a general ma📖nager is just getting underway.
League championships are not won on draft day. You may get off 🥂to a strong start, but fantasy football championships are won on the waiver wire and on the trade front. But it isn’t just identifying high-end players to target via free agency and trade, it also is about knowing which pitfalls you must avoid.
Meet the owner of Mark Ingram. In the wake of Le’Veon Bell’s holdout and Jerick McKinnon’s torn ACL, t🧸he owner of the Saints running back is now shopping his guy around the league in the hopes of getting someone to overpay out of desperation. He will admit freely that Ingram is suspended for the first four weeks of the season and says he will accept a slightly discounted offer, but he will also remind you of back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons and the 12 touchdowns he scored last year even with Alvin Kamara sharing the backfield.
If you’re struggling with 🉐your backfield, the prospect of having Ingram in Week 5 and for the duration of the season seems pretty enticing. Or does it?
Though Ingram is fully expected 🔥to return to the Saints for their Week 5 match-up against the Redskins, he is nothing more than fool’s gold in the fantasy realm. Ingram’s owner will tout him all day, but what he won’t remind you of is that the Saints haꦗve a Week 6 bye.
Trade for him today and not only do you not get to use him for the first four weeks of the season, bu♕t he also won’t appear in your starting lineup for🎃 five of the first six weeks of the season. Is that returning value on the high-end wide receiver you just dealt for him?
To make matters worse, the Saints’ schedule after the bye looks horrendous — matchups against the Ravens, Vikings a🌄nd Rams, three of the league’s top run defenses. A Week 9 matc💦hup with the Bengals probably won’t be a walk in the park, then come the Eagles in Week 10.
You will have traded productive talent in the first week of the season for a guy who may not be a viable starter until We⛦ek 11, and even then you have to wonder if he is someone you can trust with your f♛antasy playoffs on the line.
Fantasy football leagues are filled with wolves in sheep’s clothing. They come bearing gifts under the guise of help and camaraderie, but really they’re just looking to fleece you and leave you for dead. Your draft prep was just the beginning of your research. Don’t think because you know last year’s stats 🍨and watch this year’s highlights that you can’t be sold a bad bill of goods.
Howard Bender is the VP of operations and head of content at . Follow him on Twitter and catch him on the award winning “Fantasy Alarm Radio Show” on the SiriusXM fantasy sports channel weekdays from 4-6 p.m. Go to FantasyAlarm.com for all your fantasy sports advice, .