0-2 - What to Do?

Good morning everybody. Part of this Wednesday's Thundering Blurb Fantasy Football Podcast (9pm PST/6pm PST) will be dealing with how to get yourself out of a 0-2 hole. We'll also be dealing with continuing your winning ways and solidifying a 1-1 team but I thought as Tuesday morning cal be a brutal one in fantasy football, maybe a little early reassurance that it isn't all over might be a good thing.

First of all, as always, don't panic. You can turn a losing team into a winner - and depending upon who you have on your team (or in the case of Tom Brady owners - HAD) you may have a decent team that is battling injuries. I, like many of you, had Marques Colston go down, which has shattered my wide receiver core in a Dynasty league. I, like many of you, had Tomlinson biff it this weekend, which hurt me not once but twice in an Auction/Dynasty hybrid since we played a double-header this week.

So, I feel your pain. But you cannot panic. No hurried trade offers to send half your team for that ONE stud. No jettisoning your whole team for fresh faces like a bad hand in a poker game.

The first thing you need to do is hit the waiver wire. See who is being consistent the first two weeks and see who your leaguemates are not paying attention to. LJ Smith is out there in leagues. He's not setting the world on fire but if your TE is Kevin Boss and Zach Miller, he could be a step up. John Carlson in Seattle - I have spoken about him a ton - lots of targets there and some opportunity.

Have Bernard Berrian as your #2? Not working out too well, huh? Hit the wire - while Tarvaris Jackson figures out the forward pass, you might be able to find Vincent Jackson out of San Diego. Jackson only has a few targets less than Chris Chambers and almost as many yards. Both may be on your waiver wire though I prefer Jackson as Chambers can be inconsistent. But the tagerts will hold as Gates is hurt and frankly, I think Jackson will take a big step up this season.

Running Back is much tougher. In most leagues, even guys we weren't sure about like Julius Jones, Pierre Thomas And Darren Sproles are gone. You may need to dig deep and look for Le'ron McClain who might be on the wire still since Baltimore had a sudden bye this week.

This is where you may have to start looking for a trade. But not the home-run, everything in, sort of trade.

Now, honestly some of you might need that. I don't favor trading a ton of players for one stud as most of the time, you put yourself in a tougher position than you were in before. Very few teams have enough bench depth to make that trade and still have the supporting players to win consistently.

Also, the guys who look like studs now (Aaron Rodgers, Kurt Warner, Anquan Boldin, Matt Forte) may not be in a few weeks or at least not coughing up 35 points a week for owners.

So I vote for looking long and hard at your team. How did you lose? By 5 points? By 50? Is it Braylon Edwards hurting you? Did you lose when LT was out for 2 quarters? Or did it all go wrong when Colston/Brady went out?

Once you examine your team and find the holes, you can patch them. And again, it will be very dangerous to sell the whole team for Tony Romo. He may get you top QB points, but if all you have around him is Berrian, David Patten, Laurence Maroney and Steve Slaton - it's just not enough.

But if you were to add a JT O'Sullivan and couple him with another good QB in a QBBC (say, Trent Edwards), that might be worth doing, be a heck of a lot cheaper and leave you with whatever other good players you have.

Remember you need to add more than you subtract. And while it's important to swing for the fences, you have to leave yourself with enough to play the game effectively and well.

So take a hard look at your team today. Take a long, hard look at the waiver wire. Take a very, very long look at the opposition. Who are they using? Who has been on the bench two weeks so far?

Start making moves. The time is now. But choose and act wisely.

If you have a question or want to bounce a trade, waiver move or implosion of a team off me, email me at thunderingblurb(a)gmail.com.