Krumpin: Tony buys a second quarterback; My Team Sucks! takes the Burden
Daniel Jones and Deebo head to Tony; Luther Burden joins My Team Sucks! The Superflex slot explains the trade.
By Skip Krump, Senior Columnist, Unlicensed League Psychiatrist
Tony’s Terrific Team needed a quarterback. My Team Sucks! needed to turn one bench receiver into a more useful lineup. Somewhere between those two sentences, Deebo Samuel Sr. also got packed into the box.
Yahoo’s November 5 trade log has the receipt: My Team Sucks! sends Daniel Jones and Deebo Samuel Sr. to Tony’s Terrific Team for Luther Burden III. Tony also dropped Tua Tagovailoa in a separate transaction at the same displayed time. The drop is not part of the trade, no matter how badly the transaction page wants to make this look like a yard sale.
The quarterback tax
This is a 14-team Superflex league. Tony’s roster had Matthew Stafford in the quarterback slot, Aaron Rodgers on a bye, and Joe Fagnano on the bench. Jones is now sitting in Tony’s Q/W/R/T slot on Yahoo’s Week 9 page. That is the part of the trade that makes sense immediately: Tony bought an actual second QB option instead of trying to talk a running back into doing quarterback things. Tony is 2–6 and in 13th place; there is not much time left for conceptual depth.
Deebo is the second chip, and the uncertainty is part of the price. Yahoo lists him as questionable and on Tony’s bench, with a Week 9 projection of 3.03. A projection is not a sentence, but it is a warning label. Tony did not just swap Burden for a clean, ready-made receiver and get Jones as a thank-you card. He took a swing on Deebo’s availability and upside while buying the quarterback he needed now.
The other side of the receipt
My Team Sucks! is 5–3 and fifth, with the league’s third-most total points on the current Yahoo team page. Drake Maye occupies its QB slot and Justin Herbert is on the bench. There is an empty Q/W/R/T spot in the Week 9 lineup as currently displayed; moving Jones does not magically fill it, but Herbert is already on the roster. That is why this deal can be more than “how could anyone sell a QB in Superflex?” The roster had another quarterback and now has Burden, who is currently on its bench. The lineup still needs the actual clicks.
Burden’s Week 9 Yahoo projection is 11.93. He gives My Team Sucks! another receiving option alongside Tetairoa McMillan, Christian Watson, DeMario Douglas and Emeka Egbuka. Whether that is enough return for both a startable QB and Deebo depends on what those two do after leaving. It is a bet on a receiver, not a declared robbery.
The room is already in its natural state
Not a reaction to this trade: the recent group chat has been behaving like a Superflex panic room all week. Kittle Corn announced “Got me a QB3” after the backup-QB scramble and followed a waiver exchange with “You snooze you lose.” Haters Gonna Hate admitted he had mixed up Joe Milton and Jalen Milroe. GolfNut declared it was a “New day time to bug Phil for Josh Allen.” Meanwhile, after the Week 8 record-book news, Haters congratulated GolfNut on a season record and GolfNut answered, “Yes!!!!!!” It is quarterback scarcity, trade fishing and victory laps in one scroll. This deal walked into that atmosphere; those messages were not votes on the Jones–Burden swap.
The call: Tony gets the more urgent positional fix; My Team Sucks! gets the cleaner receiver bet, provided it actually fills that Superflex hole. I like Tony’s process more than his record, which may be the first time anybody has said that without checking for a fever. If Jones stays in the starting slot and Burden stays on the other bench, this trade will have supplied its own punch line.
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