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The Big Takeaway

I had planned to write an article this week about various ways to use your league mates’ own biases against them in trade negotiations. In fact, I was halfway through when, for the second straight year, some unexpected league news pushed the originally scheduled content back a week.

Again, I'm reporting The JETS have just agreed with Seattle to a trade sending WR Percy Harvin to NY for conditional pick

— Jay Glazer (@JayGlazer) October 17, 2014

Luckily, I’m a year older and a year wiser, so hopefully I have learned some of the lessons from the aftermath of the Richardson saga. My initial knee-jerk reaction last year was glowing; in fact, I believe the exact words I used were “My initial take on the trade is overwhelmingly positive for Trent Richardson”, though I later went on to say that it did raise a few red flags. After a week to reflect, my concerns began to overpower that initial giddiness and Richardson’s inexorable slide down my rankings began.

This time around I’ve learned my lesson: when a team gives up on a player so early during his tenure, this is a major red flag. I’ve been perhaps the staunchest Percy Harvin supporter around, but there is no avoiding that simple fact. Being traded away for anything- let alone for a “conditional mid-round pick”- calls for a serious downgrade in our expectations.

Some people have asked what it would take for me to drop Harvin in my rankings. That. That’s what it would take.

— Adam Harstad (@AdamHarstad) October 17, 2014

Why is this the case? Well, remember how we are supposed to process new informations when we are thinking like proper Bayesians. Percy Harvin was either a good player or a bad player, and we did not know which. The available evidence we had yesterday pointed us to one point on the spectrum. Regardless of where that point was, the available evidence today is more negative, so it tilts us further towards the “bad player” side.

The stronger the new information, the more pronounced the resulting tilt, and it’s hard to get much stronger than “traded away for a middling draft pick by a receiver-needy team in the middle of a championship window”. I still believe Percy Harvin is a very good receiver, but I’m far less certain of that than I was yesterday. New evidence came in, and so I must update my priors.

With that said, there certainly was some positive news to emerge for Percy Harvin, as well. According to several reports, Harvin is a malcontent who got into fights with several teammates and has potentially serious anger management issues. I know, this seems like an awfully bizarre thing to present as a positive for Percy Harvin, but history has shown that players who are traded for off-the-field issues typically have more left in the tank.

Again, this is simple Bayesian reasoning: Harvin either got traded because of on-field considerations or because of off-field considerations, so every piece of data that points towards off-field considerations reflects favorably on his football talent.

I was told “Harvin’s anger issues are just too much to deal with and he could single handedly bring down team chemistry”. Wow. Unreal.

— Lance Zierlein (@LanceZierlein) October 17, 2014

Terrell Owens produced more fantasy points over his career than any receiver except for Jerry Rice, but he was run off of three different teams. Randy Moss was essentially dumped from Minnesota for Troy Williamson, and dumped from Oakland for less than that. Jay Cutler and Brandon Marshall wore out their welcome in Denver, (and, for Marshall, in Miami as well), and they’re still going strong a half-decade later in Chicago. Even this last offseason provided a great poster child, as Philadelphia surprisingly parted ways with DeSean Jackson, who has been a fantasy star in Washington.

So, provided Percy Harvin can get his anger in check and not tear New York’s locker room apart, there’s a better-than-average chance that he’ll still prove to be the talented player that Seattle gave up so much to acquire.

Of course, that’s an awfully big “provided”, and one that cannot merely be taken for granted. Santonio Holmes was another talented receiver who was traded to the Jets based on off-the-field considerations, and Holmes became a locker room cancer who wore out his welcome in New York.

Enough waffling back and forth about what this trade means for Percy Harvin, let’s get down to brass tacks: what does this trade mean for Harvin’s dynasty owners? Well, in the short term, probably not a lot. Harvin’s owners are now forced to sit through three bye weeks, which is bad (Seattle had its bye in week 4, New York has its bye in week 11, and Harvin earns a de facto bye this week because New York has already played).

Other than the extra missed time, though, there’s no reason Harvin can’t be just as productive in New York as he was in Seattle, or even more so. It’s hard to pick up a new offense on the fly, but Harvin only plays a limited number of snaps, (around 60% for the Seahawks), so it’s easier to quickly work in some “Percy Harvin packages” and expand from there. There’s no way he’ll be able to develop good timing and chemistry with Geno Smith on the fly, but there’s only so much chemistry required for a constant barrage of slip screens and tunnel screens and bubble screens and jet sweeps.

While his short term prospects remain relatively unchanged, Harvin’s long-term prospects take a nose-dive. The chances of him being out of football entirely within three years have just increased dramatically. Harvin had already fallen to 8th in my rankings prior to the trade, behind a fast-rising Antonio Brown and Jordy Nelson.

In the immediate aftermath of the trade, Harvin now resides at 17th among wide receivers, but even that is a tentative ranking. This is a fluid situation that will undoubtedly change a lot in coming weeks as more information comes out. I suspect that if Harvin goes anywhere from here, it will only be further down.

Second Thoughts

On a more positive note, Rob Gronkowski continues to work back to full health, and the results on the field are showing it. Over the last three weeks, Gronkowski has 30 targets, 18 receptions, 262 yards, and 1 TD. Is that good? Well, over a full 16-game season that would translate to 160 targets, 96 receptions, 1397 yards, and 5.3 touchdowns. That yardage total, in particular, would be a new record for a tight end.

Meanwhile, in the two weeks since his huge breakout game, Larry Donnell has 3 targets, 1 reception, 6 yards, and 0 touchdowns. If there’s a better argument for the importance of using Bayesian reasoning when updating your beliefs on a player, I can’t think of it.

On the topic of record-setting tight ends, Julius Thomas has 9 touchdowns through just five games, a ridiculous pace that would shatter Gronkowski’s current position record. Before we crown him, though, I should point out… since 2002, there have been five other players to score 8 touchdowns in the first six weeks of the season. Here’s the players, as well as how they finished the season:

For those keeping score at home, that’s an average of 6.6 touchdowns the rest of the way. Which… you know, regression to the mean. It’s a powerful force. On the other hand, if 7 touchdowns in 10 games qualifies as regression for you, that’s a huge sign that you’re pretty fantastic.

Leaving the tight ends for a bit, how about that out-of-nowhere performance from Joe Flacco? Not only did he score five touchdowns faster than any other passer in history (less than 20 minutes of game time), it wasn’t even particularly close. A five-touchdown game is phenomenal, and it should certainly raise our opinion of Flacco… but before we go too crazy, let’s remember that we’ve also seen 5-touchdown games from Josh Freeman, Derek Anderson, Andy Dalton, and Alex Smith, (as well as a 6-touchdown game from Matt Flynn). This is a positive development, but perhaps the best development is that Joe Flacco is going to sit a bit too high on the fantasy point leaderboards for a few more weeks, meaning his owners will have a nice window to try to move him if they’re so inclined.

I don’t often devote much space to them here, but defenses are people, too. Seattle, the overwhelming consensus #1 defense before the season, ranks in the bottom ten in every single one of my leagues. They’ve had a bye and a brutal schedule to this point, but as expensive as they were, that hardly excuses it.

On the other hand, Philadelphia and Dallas, universally considered terrible defenses, have been winning games for their owners. They’ve been huge difference-makers that were available for free. This is why you don’t commit big resources to acquiring a defense- it’s not because they can’t be valuable, it’s because we can’t know ahead of time which ones are going to be valuable and which ones won’t.

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