Fantasy Felony: Planning for the Playoffs

Fantasy Felony helps you hijack your fellow team owners.

If at any point during your fantasy football season, barring injury, you typically want to add a first or second-rounder onto your team. There are exceptions of course (that's what we refer to as the Shaun Alexander Clause, of course), but for the most part, you want to invite elite talent into your already elite team.

However, this year there's an interesting case of a LOT of early rounders underperforming, which makes them somewhat available on the trade market. Lest you doubt me, let's look at the following: LaDainian Tomlinson, Matt Forte and Calvin Johnson.

The last one is because of injury, but the point remains: these high profile players are available because their owners are likely sick of their inconsistent performance. The question remains though, as we roll into the trading deadline: do you want them? (Oh, we'll also discuss some value playoff matchups as well, after the jump.)

LaDainian Tomlinson, RB, SD -- If someone owns LdT, they're trying to move him right now, and hard too; Tomlinson found the end zone twice in his last game, which was a rare, rare surprise for owners who thought they might be getting a deal with Tomlinson late in the first round on a possible bounce back year. Obviously that didn't happen, and the future Hall of Famer has yet to crack 75 yards on the season. Even worse, his schedule heading into the stretch isn't great -- only Kansas City and Cleveland loom as good matchups. Unless you're getting an absolute steal on the back and will be using him as an RB2/Flex, don't even bother.

Matt Forte, RB, CHI -- Forte scored twice last week too, providing owners his best game of the year so far. But it was against the hapless Browns and right now, the Bears' offensive line is a total disaster. Making Forte a much less attractive target in a trade are matchups against Baltimore and Minnesota in Weeks 15 and 16. Not to sound weird, but I'm not sure you could lowball me enough to take Forte off your hands right now.

Calvin Johnson, WR, DET -- "Minitron," as a friend and I have dubbed him because of his lack of fantasy points and injury issues this year, hasn't done mess in 2009. But he's got some attractive matchups (looking at you Baltimore, in the playoffs, and Cleveland and Green Bay -- twice!) coming up. The best part though? He's got his bye week soon, which means that his owner, unless he's absolutely set in terms of the standings, is probably looking to deal him (hell, I was undefeated in a league and wanted to move him, just because I was panicking about my early round expenditure). Go get Megatron and enjoy a monster second half.

VALUE PLAYOFF SKEDS

Houston -- The Texans get a freaking delicious matchup against St. Louis in week 15 and a pretty decent slate against Miami during Week 16. But the best part about Houston is that they play in the same division as the Colts, which makes them pretty unlikely to be taking any of those games off.

Kansas City -- Given all that's gone on with the Chiefs lately, they seem like a horrible team to target, but fantasy knows no "real wins" or "embarrassing running back PR nightmares." And since they get Cleveland and a middling -- albeit rejuvenated -- Cincy defense, you'd pretty pretty smart to target some Chiefs in your dealings if you think you're playoff bound.

Seattle -- Jim Mora's first season as head coach is a stinker, sure, but the Seahawks get Tampa Bay coming west in Week 15 and then head to Green Bay where Matt Hasselbeck has both fond memories and some demons; he might not be the perfect guy to target, but they're gonna keep passing and even if they can't go to the playoffs, they'll still be trying this late. Which is worth gold in fantasy.

San Francisco -- And then there's this absolute treasure chest of fantasy football playoff goodness -- the Niners get Detroit in Week 15 and St. Louis in Week 16; there seems to be a pretty good chance that they'll be embroiled in a division battle with the Cardinals at this point, or at least maybe-possibly alive for a wild card, so there's not really anyone that's off limits in terms of targeting here. If you can sell people on Frank Gore only having four good runs all season (it's true!) go for it; if not, be thinking Glen Coffee -- if Gore goes down he could win a ton of leagues for people based just on his fantasy playoff performance. Vernon Davis would be nice too, but you'll be overpaying.