Last Place Team Trades Away AP (Part II)

Q: A trade was recently accepted in our 10 team league (standard scoring, 2 RB, 2WR, 1 RB/WR).

Team A (currently tied for 2nd at 5-3) sent Santana Moss, Clinton Portis, Brett Farve and Percy Harvin to the last place (1-7) Team B in exchange for Adrian Peterson.

Team A has Phillip Rivers, Randy Moss, Michael Turner, Vincent Jackson and now AP.

Only six teams make the playoffs and Team B has virtually no chance of making it in this year.  The 6th, 7th and 8th teams have 4-4 and 3-5 records respectively.  Meaning all 4 teams ahead of him have to lose at least 4 of the next 5 games and Team B must go 4-1.

Lastly, Team B’s roster prior to the trade included.

Carson Palmer
Kurt Warner
Miles Austin
Derrick Mason
Steve Smith (Car)
Marion Barber

All ranked equal to or higher than players received in return.   Essentially making the trade Farve and Portis for AP.

This stinks of collusion, your thoughts?

A: team is suspicious.   Some leagues choose to implement a trading deadline around week 6 to prevent teams that are out of the running from trading with contenders.   It is hard to find proof of collusion, so lets look at this trade by itself first.

Clinton Portis is currently the 28th best RB (according to ESPN rankings) which makes him barely a flex option in a ten team league.   AP is the top ranked RB so this is obviously a massive downgrade at RB for Team B.   The question is if Team B is sufficiently compensated at QB and WR.   At QB,  Favre is the 6th ranked QB, making him a slight upgrade over Team B’s current QB (Palmer) who is ranked 10.   At WR, Moss (ranked 28th) and Harvin (ranked 16th) could be a considered a bit of an increase over the 34th ranked Steve Smith.

In our opinion the upgrades at QB and WR do not provide sufficient value to offset the loss of Peterson.   Regardless of whether you can proove collusion in this scenario, we recommend a veto.