Trade Dispute: Romo and Marshall for Hassleback and Gates

Q:  The league I’m in has very nice prizes.  It is a little unorthodox – here is a sample of the scoring:Pass TD’s worth 4 points – 250 pass yards worth 5 points, 300 worth 6 points 50 receiving yards worth 4 points, 75 worth 5 point, Rush or Rec. TD worth 6 points,  No TE needed, but TE can be used as WR or Flex – so we have 1 qb, 2 rb, 2 wr (wr/te), 1 flex (rb/wr/te), k , def.   Here’s the trade:

Team A – out of playoff contention – 0-9 record trades Tony Romo and Brandon Marshall (Has brees as a backup)

Team B – second place in the whole league – 7-2 record – trades Hasselbeck and Gates

Basically, Team A moves brees into starting role and “upgrades from marshall to gates” – but he cannot win any prizes at this point.  Team B gets the second highest QB.

Here are the player points to put it in perspective.

Brady – 192

Romo - 139 pts

Big-ben – 130, DA – 120, Peyton – 116, Favre -  105, Palmer – 98, Hasselbeck - 92, Brees – 85  (#1 RB Adrian Peterson 135 points, #2 RB Westbrook -121, #1 Wr - Moss 128, #2 WR - Edwards 102).  Gates has 70 points, Marshall has 50.

Now, I believe this is an slightly unfair trade, but I would be ok with it if the 0-9 team was in contention for any prizes (there’s more that $4G in our league).  Should whether a team is in contention decide whether a trade is acceptable?

A:  Trades between teams out of playoff contention would not matter if your league was a keeper league, but since you did not mention that to be the case we will assume that it is not a keeper league.

We do not believe that the prize involved in a league should sway the evaluation of whether a trade is legit or not.  Vetoing trades are meant to A. prevent collusion and B. to make sure that both teams will benefit from the trade in order that one team isn’t being taken advantage of due to ignorance.  The team that is already statistically out of the playoff hunt can not benefit from any trade.  Thus it violates B that all trades must benefit both teams involved so we would recommend that you veto this trade.