If you have not seen the Patrick Swayze masterpiece Road House … you haven’t lived. And I’m not sure we can still be friends. The Tao of Swayze is not only a way of life, but it’s also a book. It’s true. You can buy it on Amazon.
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There’s something magical about a world of bouncers who live like rock stars, and are described as ‘Coolers.’ My job would be infinitely more enjoyable if I could call myself a ‘Cooler’ when people asked me what I do for a living.
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What makes a movie or a television show great is its quotability factor. We live in a world where pop culture references are king, and the 20 percent of my Twitter timeline that doesn’t reference fantasy football is spent talking to people in quotes from The Wire.
With that in mind, and it being close to heavy duty trading time in 2-QB fantasy football leagues, which usually coincides around the quarter pole of the NFL season being completed, it seemed like as good a time as any to talk about trading in 2-QB leagues. To do that, I looked to the man himself, The Swayze, and his work in Road House, to help us traverse the 2-QB trading atmosphere.
“Pain Don’t Hurt.”
What this saying means, nobody really knows.
But what we can take from it when trading in 2-QB leagues, is that sometimes you have to be able to come away a “loser” in trade talks. The best trades aren’t the ones where one side clearly comes out the winner, because trades like that don’t happen. The art of the trade is a hard one to master, but if you can make your trade partner believe they are wining the deal, and you actually trade away something of value, you’ll get a valuable player back yourself.
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A Rob Gronkowski and Andrew Luck for Aaron Rodgers and Antonio Gates trade might not seem like there’s a clear winner involved, but it’s more of a win-win trade for both sides. If Team A really wants a QB1 upgrade, and Team B needs a tight end upgrade, why can’t such a trade work? It might be painful to lose a Gronkowski or a Rodgers, particularly in a 2-QB league, but as The Swayze taught us, ‘pain don’t hurt.’
You have to to be able to feel the “pain” of losing a good player, in order to make your team better.
“Be Nice … Until it’s time to not be nice.”
This piece of advice is for the more ruthless fantasy players out there, or those that have read C.D. Carter‘s ‘How To Think Like a Fantasy Football Winner’Â book. If you have no heart, and don’t care about utterly humiliating fellow fantasy league mates in trades, then the Mr. Nice Guy act should only be used as a charade to get what you truly want.
- Patrick Swayze, Kelly Lynch, Sam Elliott (Actors)
- Rowdy Herrington (Director) – David Lee Henry (Writer)
- English, Spanish (Subtitles)
- Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Buttering up the lineup of your fantasy league mates, and casually throwing out gratitudes will make it seem like you respect them, and the fantasy team they assembled.
But there are plenty of fantasy football owners out there who are cocky, and don’t think that any other team is better than theirs. Some do it quietly, while others boast publicly. The silent but deadly ones are who you want to watch out for.
Read More: High Anxiety: Fantasy Football & Your Personality Type.
Just as The Swayze said, be nice in trade talks. Compliment the roster construction of your competition, and let them know there are certain players you wouldn’t mind having. But then if trade talks go sour, that’s when you can start to hammer at them with the knowledge you have, but think they don’t have.
Not everybody has a subscription to Pro Football Focus, or rotoViz, or reads numberFire daily. There has to be something from all your hours of reading fantasy football content that you can use to your advantage. For example, in a 2-QB league, we know that any and all starting quarterbacks have value. But to a certain point.
Jeff Tuel might be the new starter for the Buffalo Bills, but he’s an undrafted free agent quarterback who looked completely out of his element in place of EJ Manuel Thursday night. If you scooped him up in your 2-QB league, you did so with the intent of trading him to the Manuel owner, or another team in need of a QB2/QB3. Trade him now before the Bills bring in a veteran quarterback, which you know they might, because you read an article like this one.
The quote in this section can also be used to tell those in your league making you absurd trade offers such as Brandon Weeden and Greg Little for Aaron Rodgers, just because you’re a Browns fan, to quietly go where the sun don’t shine. You can only be nice to a certain point when rebuking ludicrous trade offers, and you know when that time is.
“My way… or the highway.”
If you enter into trade talks where they’re completely one-sided and there’s no room for negotiation, simply walk away from the discussions. Trades are supposed to be even on both sides, and if the person you’re trying to trade with isn’t willing to listen to reason then tell him to take a hike. But do so in a polite manner, because trade talks may be rekindled down the line.
“Whatever he’s saying, you can be fairly sure it’s a lie.”
If there’s an avid truth stretcher in your league, or you play with C.D. Carter, you know that player will tell you anything that can be used to their advantage.
“Of course you should trade for Sam Bradford, man! He’s the 14th highest scoring quarterback in fantasy football this year! He’s better than Tom Brady, Russell Wilson and Colin Kaepernick! You’d be doing me a favor taking him from my team. And, I’d rather trade him to you, because I like you, rather than trade him to anybody else in this league.”
Of course what isn’t mentioned was how Bradford scored less points in weeks 3 and 4 than he did in Week 2, and that his points total combined for those two weeks are short of his Week 2 points total.
An astute 2-QB owner knows when the right time to jump ship is on quarterbacks, and you don’t want to be the prison inmate Jimmy was talking about in the Road House referenced quote before this one. As long as you can spot fantasy trends yourself, and are up-to-date on your fantasy research, that shouldn’t be happening anytime soon.
“Have you ever seen a better pair of attitudes?”
Sure, your 2-QB starting quarterback tandem of Aaron Rodgers and Michael Vick has surged you to the top of your league standings, but if there’s a hole somewhere in your roster, it wouldn’t hurt to consider downgrading one of your quarterback spots for an upgrade elsewhere.
Your “attitudes” might look good now, while you’re in first place, but if the losses start to piles up, because you have a weakness at running back, those “attitudes” will have a lot less “attitude” the longer the season drags on.
Hopefully the Tao of The Swayze can lead you to pulling off successful trades in your 2-QB fantasy football league, and if not, “There’s always barber college.”
Last update on 2024-04-19 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
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