A Guide to Trading in the SFL

by Jbyrd923 | 2 years ago | 1 Comments

After a month of inactivity due to the negligence of our good friends over at EA, the SFL is back! Sort of....soon we will be starting up a fresh new league with some people keeping their teams while other owners entered themselves in a randomized team draft to find a new home. And while it does suck that we have to restart I think we can find one bright side to come out of this, that being everyone who got trade raped in the league get a new chance to keep their virginity in tact this time around! In this post im going to be looking at the dynamics of trading here in the SFL. As some may know I've been vocal in the chat about this subject but instead of just complaining in there I'm putting out an article to help put things in perspective for people with little experience trading in the SFL.

Let me start by saying this for all the new owners and PLEASE listen carefully when I say this. 99% of the time if an owner who has been around is slithering his way into your PMs looking for a trade, I promise you no matter how they try to word it, they ARE NOT there looking to "make your team better"! No matter what you think you know, if you're new you are not familiar with how things like the trade calculator, development, drafts, etc all work in this league specifically! There are things that don't show up in the trade calculator that are very impactful such as a player being dumped from a team to avoid having to pay them, a player that is clearly going to regress, trading for a 1st round pick that will be bottom 12 etc. I'm going to be showing some examples of some VERY BAD trades that happened prior to our restart and go over why they were horrible trades.

Lets look at this trade between the reigning SB Champion Chargers (Q) and a guy who just had entered the league and had no idea of how anything shakes out in the SFL later in the cycle.

First problem here is that Dolphins owner is trading for a running back, RB is the easiest position to development and get abilites for in madden and it is NEVER worth it to give up large amounts of capital for. The only excpetion to trading for an RB is if they are an X factor with wrecking ball / freight train IE. Henry bc those RBS are broken. Ekler on the other hand does not have either trait and you could easily draft or trade for a RB thats speedy and feed them to eventually get whatever abilities. Secondly when you look at this trade, the TE involved was an X factor rookie!!! Just horrible he was involved in this deal, thats an X factor at TE which you dont see many of, that also will be getting paid 1M each year for the rest of the cycle, thats a huge steal to have and he should not been anywhere close to this deal. Third, Ekler was on contract year and was around 99 ovr w X faxtor meaning he'd be getting top RB money, Q was a able to dump ekler off on this new guy and not have to worry ab paying him and not being tight for cash having to pay other young stars like Herbert. Q got great draft capital, an X factor rookie TE, a solid young interior Oline in return for dumping off an X factor back that needed to be paid and  didnt have wrecking ball / freight train, an absolute fleecing of a poor new guy.

Now we have another truly horrible trade that was made involving another new guy. Here the Steelers traded for two average defenders with no abilites (Smith also 30 years old and will regress) a first and a third and sent away X factor safety Minkah Fitzpatrick. This is a bad trade because when you look at the two aquired picks you have to figure that Steps is probably making the playoffs so that pick is most likely going to be in the bottom 12, I PROMISE YOU! You are not drafting anybody that is going to have the impact on your team that Minkah will have on field. That is a player in the deep part of the field your opponent just cannot throw too and is huge to have on defense! It'll make your life much easier when defending to have someone like Minkah and nobody you are getting with those 2 picks will be a better player then minkah by the time the cycle ends. You have to remember with each season that passes, the less valuable those draft picks are despite what they say in the calculator. The average cycle is about 4 seasons so a player selected in the 2nd draft will only give you 2 seasons worth of dev, that player will not become a Minkah Fitzpatrick. And with us having to restart we dont know how long this cycle will be which in my opinion makes trading for picks and giving up studs even more foolish. Steps with the fleece here!

Third trade here we have another new owner (looks like a pattern) trading with Turk and GB. Aaron Jones is a 28 yr old RB that was making 16M per who was a superstar with the following abilites: Matchup Nightmare and Recupuration. Neither of these abilties have anything to do with the power back build and recupuration just gives better stamina recovery while nightmare gives better cuts vs linebackers but is that really worth trading a first round pick for? NOOOO!! This was an average RB with an expensive contract dumped off for a first round pick, fleece by turk! You could have any average RB fill in for AJ here and keep your first rounder because you most likely as a new owner with a bad team are going to have a high pick!

Now after analyzing these trades I hope it will open the eyes of people who were trading and getting fleeced, just remember anyone who pops up in your DM is probably looking to trade rape you if you are new, they are not looking to make your team better. And this article is not here to try and make me look like a good guy because if one of you came into my office looking to get fleeced, I would fleece you too! So please look out for yourself when trading here. Do not trades for players with useless abilites, guys that are old and going to regress, guys that have mid abilities that are on contract year and will be a great dump off for other owners to get off the books or runningbacks with freight train or X factor, stay safe out there new guys, and remember no mean no!