A Big Deal

As the regular season winds down, a quiet in-season trading block has suddenly resulted in a blockbuster deal. The Dirty Birds, walking into a first round bye at 10-3, was looking for a premier quarterback to lead their playoff charge. With depth everywhere else, GM Jon decided to offer some of his high quality bench players in order to get an upgrade over Ben Roethlisberger and Matt Ryan. He started by offering every owner with a QB higher ranked than Ryan the following deal: Dwayne Bowe, Matt Ryan, BenJarvus Green-Ellis.

As the trade offers went out, Jon's division competitor, Mike of the Inglorious Basterds jumped on the offer. With a slightly sketchy third WR and second RB situation, the trade made sense for Mike as he needed to shore up a bit of depth before heading off into the post-season. Even though he'll be sad to part with Michael Vick in the deal, insiders report that the entire Basterds organization was excited for this influx of talent.

The two GMs have done business before, with a draft day trade of picks that resulted in Andre Johnson and Roddy White for Adrian Peterson and Greg Jennings. Intriguingly, that trade netted almost the exact same number of points for each team, with Johnson and White combining for 406 points while Peterson and Jennings combined for 398 points. That's about as dead even of a trade as you could have asked for.

Vick has been twenty two points better than Ryan this season (193 to 171), and is the fifth overall QB compared to Ryan at eighth. However, Vick has had fewer games to accomplish his totals and is undoubtedly more explosive. His recent weeks of 25-49-19-23-28 points dwarf Ryan's 13-24-20-11-12 over the same span.

The key to this deal was clearly WR Dwayne Bowe, who has been a revelation this season, and the number two receiver and the fourth overall including QB/RB/WRs. Before his curious donut last weekend, Bowe had been in double digits for seven straight weeks, with 43-28-48 points in WK10-12. And the last component of the deal, RB BenJarvus Green-Ellis, has proved to be starter quality also, as he's been at 15-16-17-20 points the past four weeks and was clearly sucking up space on Jon's bench. Now he'll be free to play next to Adrian Peterson on Mike's team.

The Birds have had 158-147-156 points in recent weeks but the Basterds hit their season high of 150 points during their last regular season game, and have had five 100+ games in a row. The two behemoths are set for a playoff showdown, and the winner of this trade won't be determined until we see how they perform during a Birds versus Basterds matchup.

• For the season, the Birds have three of the top four players in Peyton Hillis, Roddy White, and Dwayne Bowe.

The trade that meowed

In a minor deal, Snake Eyes trades WR Steve Breaston to the Dirty Birds in exchange for TE Brandon Pettigrew. Breaston was summarily released for Pettigrew's real life QB, Shaun Hill, who was then injured in Sunday's game. A trade of this minor proportion would normally be barely noted except both Ryan and Jon are convinced this move will secure their playoff berths.

They consider this trade a first date, like a coffee or a drink, and hope it will lead to bigger (trade) things in the future.

Helping Hands

Straight from ESPN News, Canadian Bacon and Antoine Dodson Hide Your Wife have exchanged RB Michael Bush and TE Jason Witten.

For Canadian Bacon, the addition of Witten means that they'll have the first tight end on their roster and a nice middle of the field complement to speedster DeSean Jackson. For Oliver's Hide Your Wives, a serviceable running back was a must as their current backfield options (Ricky Williams, Tim Hightower, Thomas Jones, Brandon Jacobs) are pretty much unuseable.

Proving his value, Bush scored got 26 carries and scored 22 points in WK5 during Darren McFadden's absence. Jason Witten was no slouch himself as he catch five balls for 84 yards and a touchdown last weekend. It seems like a great trade all around!

It's a bingo!

With trade rumors swirling just minutes before the draft was to start, there was intense pressure from Dirty Birds management to trade down. A well known budget crisis plagues the franchise as unemployment runs rampant throughout the organization. As one potential trade after another fell through, GM Jon was about to shrug his shoulders and just use his number two overall pick when The Jewish Panda Bear, Mike, called with an offer. Through the use of big words, foreign languages, and a threatening Louisville Slugger, Mike convinced Jon to swap their first and second round picks. That meant the #2 and #27 picks were now in Mike's possession while Jon moved down to #8 and #21.

After Drew Brees was snatched away at number seven, Jon was forced to take the first wide receiver in the draft, Andre Johnson at number eight. On his wraparound pick, he lusted after Peyton Manning or Tom Brady but both were gone and he instead went with another receiver, Roddy White.

As for Mike, he ended up with the explosive Adrian Peterson and deep threat Greg Jennings. ESPN trade experts give a slight edge to the Inglourious Basterd end of deal as a prime time running back like Peterson trumps any dainty pass catcher, even one with the physical gifts of an Andre Johnson. Tom Jackson, speaking off the record: "The Birds got their quarterbacks snatched out from under them and now things could really blow up in their faces if AP goes wild. What a dumb move. Wouldn't want to be that guy. Idiot."

In related news, GM Jon may soon cross fantasy and reality lives, as unemployment lurks on both fronts.

Test 3

Test post from Catch the Damn Ball


As the new fantasy football season approaches, owners are getting fired up and trying to decide what their keepers will look like in our new CTDB environment. While rule changes are still being ironed out, one thing that won't change is the number of keepers per roster. While we already had a blockbuster trade earlier this offseason, ESPN has gotten news that another monster has just been signed off on. Division foes Buffy and Dirty Birds have agreed to exchange RB Michael Turner for RB Steven Jackson and WR Wes Welker.

Yes, the same Michael Turner that Buffy acquired six months ago has just been traded away again, after not notching a single game for their new owner. Oh wait, what is this? Digging deep into the archives, it has been revealed that Turner was actually Buffy's late round pick in the 2007 draft. This was before his trade to the Falcons and as LaDainian Tomlinson's backup, he was actually tabbed Buffy's "worst pick of that year." Little did we know that Turner would then explode onto the scene in 2008 and become a fantasy superstar -- albeit for just one season. Heading into the 2010-11 season, Turner is highly ranked but only rushed for 800+ yards last year (in eleven games). Without much receiving ability, it will be a tough act to follow up on his 1,700 rushing and 17 TD performance from 2008.

The running back Buffy gets in return for Turner has no questions about his consistency. Even with back issues last year, Steven Jackson finished second in the league in rushing and has never rushed for less than 1000+ yards since 2004. He also typically adds 40 or so receptions and another 300 receiving yards. The only downside with Jackson is his lowish touchdown numbers, due to being the only cog in the Rams' offense.

Shockingly, Jackson is actually a few months younger than Turner, even though it seems like Turner only exploded on the scene recently. All those years sitting behind LDT might have kept Turner fresh but he and Jackson are from the same NFL draft class. Some experts even have Jackson ranked ahead of Turner in this year's rankings so this trade could have been pretty even just one on one. However, the savvy owner that GM Roger is, he also acquired Wes Welker in the deal.

Seemingly short on receiving talent now that WR Roddy White was traded away, Buffy needed to find another pass catcher. A healthy Wes Welker could help fill that void. Mr. Consistency has put up three 100+ reception seasons in a row and piled up about 1200+ yards each of those seasons. Welker's touchdown numbers are low but he's a guaranteed double digit player each time out. Early thinking had Welker out until November after a horrific knee injury in the final regular season game last year but he seems to be recovering quickly. When healthy, Welker is easily a top fifteen receiver, and Buffy got him basically for free.

The real impetus behind this massive trade was to give the Dirty Birds and Buffy their respective favorite franchises' players. Jon is obviously a Falcons fan and he hasn't had a premier one since the heyday of Michael Vick. Roger used to boast both Marshall Faulk and Torry Holt in their primes but Faulk has long retired and Holt was cut by Buffy last year (and then redrafted as a Jaguar before being viciously cut again). By securing excellent players from their favorite NFL teams, both Jon and Roger hope to recover their championship magic from Super Bowls I and II.

With this move, Buffy continues a roster overhaul and it's possible that their 2009 keepers of Marion Barber, Philip Rivers, Roddy White, Antonio Gates, and Willie Parker could all be different after just one season. Currently they boast Steven Jackson, Matt Forte, Wes Welker, and probably some combination of Marion Jones, TJ Houshmandzadeh, Antonio Gates, and Donald Driver. As for the Birds, they needed some shaking up and had an extra keeper to spare with Adrian Peterson, Larry Fitzgerald, Miles Austin, and Knowshon Moreno all possible keepers alongside Jackson and Welker. After years of having the best running back duo on paper with Peterson and Jackson but only one co-championship to their name, GM Jon was looking for a chemistry changes.

Last year Buffy and Dirty Birds fought it out for a playoff spot and it seems like they're destined to clash again, this time with each other's players.