*Reviewing the SJS/ARI Trade

[kckolbe]

Waiting on @kckolbe's response like

Really? All right.

I found out about the trade first in Outlaws discord, so naturally the trade was presented in a very positive light for us. Naturally, I was excited, but there were so many unknowns that I wasn’t going to say anything about who won. However, having been tagged on site and in NSFL discord, I’ll go ahead and cash in.

San Jose Recieves:

S10 ARZ 1st

Arizona Receives:

S11 SJS 1st
S11 SJS 2nd
LB Barnaby Earl

This looks, at first glance, like a huge win for Arizona. Both teams gave up a first rounder, but San Jose also gave up a young player and a second round pick. Well, as with any future trade, you have to try to figure out where that pick will end up.

For Season 10, Arizona had the 2nd overall pick. This year, San Jose has the first overall pick, but does anyone really expect the same next year? No. Time for some quick S11 power rankings.

San Jose will have a 3rd year QB, likely the worst offensive weapons, and the second-worst defense (Philly being the worst). Year 3 has been a big break out year for Maximus and Applehort despite everything else about their career being wildly different, and given that Pennington will have a slightly improved receiver corps, I am expecting a huge improvement from him, and am actually expecting him to be about as efficient as Mat Akselsen next year. Baltimore, New Orleans, and Colorado all appear to be clearly better than San Jose, so I can’t see the S11 pick being worse than 5th. However, Philadelphia appears to clearly be worse, so I can’t see it being better than 2nd. That leaves Yellowknife, Orange County, and Arizona. Let’s look at those more closely.

Yellowknife: I only listed them due to a very unlucky S9. Yellowknife seemed to catch every bad break, and just couldn’t get going. However, despite similar QB talent, the rest of these rosters are not close. Yellowknife has a much better defense, headlined by Boss Tweed and Dermot Lavelle. The Wraiths will have a better record than San Jose, but that doesn’t mean they will draft later.

For one more season, the NSFC looks to be a bit deeper than AFSC, and while the Wraiths are a better team, if SJS makes the playoffs, that won’t help Arizona.

So let’s look at Orange County. They were clearly better than San Jose last year, but this year a lot of their players regress, 2 might walk in free agency, and they lost Mike Boss, Robert Phelps, and Jordan Yates all retired. Are they still in different tiers?

As with Yellowknife, I think both offenses are comparable. Pennington is going to improve immensely, but Showbiz is going to play almost as well as Boss did last year, and certainly better than he would have played last year. I expect Pennington will make fewer mistakes, but also stall out more. On defense, though, once again there is no comparison. Winchester, Broxton, and Spector will all be better than San Jose’s best defenders, and they have a more complete roster. This means Orange County will likely be the #2 team, pushing San Jose’s pick up 2 spots to #2 or #3 overall.

That just leaves the Outlaws. Last year, Arizona went 2-0 over San Jose, but one of those wins looked a lot more like a gift than a victory. This year, as with every other non-Philadelphia team, San Jose appears to have the weaker defense, though it is much closer. There is, however, one thing very much hurting Arizona’s chances of beating San Jose: me.

For all my talk about how great a rookie I was (fucking phenomenal) and how bad a sophomore Pennington was (on par with Bercovici), that third year, combined with an upgrade in receiving talent, should be enough to vault San Jose’s offense ahead of Arizona’s. There are some huge variables here, the biggest probably being Tegan Atwell. I dare say that whichever team lands Atwell finishes ahead in the standings. These teams are that close.

For now, though, I will go with the less optimistic approach and assume that San Jose beats Arizona.

San Jose Receives:

S10 Pick #2

Arizona Receives:

S11 Pick #3
S11 Pick #11
LB Barnaby Earl

Okay, now we have a better idea of what’s happening. If every draft class was the same, San Jose would be losing terribly, giving up a young linebacker and an early second round pick to move up 1 spot. However, the S11 class is still forming. At this moment, there is technically a Pick #11, as 14 prospects have created. However, 3 of those are QBs, and given how few teams need QBs and how many QB prospects there are in S10, I don’t see any of those QBs being drafted in the first 1.5 rounds unless there are no other options. With a couple of other prospects not exactly being needs for Arizona, that could bode poorly for the second round pick. However, last year, about half of the draft prospects created within a week of or well after the draft. Based on that, I am expecting there to be considerable talent available in the second round.

Earl last posted on the 17th of July. He’s visited the site since, but odds are that he is gone. However, if he returns, he actually doesn’t have too bad a bank account, and would be a field-ready asset by S11 at the latest.

All in all, I think Arizona came away from this one significantly better off, so why did San Jose make this trade?

I think SJS is trying to create a window, and in the AFSC, that is very hard to do. Borkus Maximus is now the oldest QB in the ASFC, beginning in S6. Pennington, 2 years younger, could very well lead San Jose into being New Orleans’ successor, but to do that, talent needs to be acquired now rather than over the next 3 or so seasons. After all, with Showbiz and Fitzpatrick just one year behind, Pennington’s window begins closing the moment he starts regressing. In addition, there is also free agency to look at. The S9 draft class was the first in what seems to be a wave of big talent, and when they hit free agency, teams will need to show that they are trending upward strongly, which San Jose can’t do without some bold moves now.

All right, I got my 1k words out of this. Comment away.

[Moosecop]

Kolbe, are you a computer?

[White Cornerback]

Kolbe, are you a computer?

YES i am

[run_CMC]

Kolbe, are you a computer?

YES i am

[kckolbe]

Apparently I am both a computer and a multi.

[ErMurazor]

What's a computer?

[Bzerkap]

Kolbe isn't a computer, he's the machine

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