Plaxico AND Ward???

[Chopper]

I know it will probably anger the FFB gods, but I couldn't pass up a trade and ended up with both.
Do I need to move one now??? I'm actually considering keeping both. Please talk me out of it.
I went so far as to look at the stats from each Pitt game last year and it was encouraging. It's a very rare occassion that anybody ever shuts them both down and their peak weeks seem to complement each other. And then 3 or 4 times they will absolutely annihilate the opposition. Of course, if Maddox goes down....

[Questi4110]

BYE Week will screw you. Plus, you can upgrade other parts of your offense with either one of these recievers - I would trade Ward.

[Chopper]

Thanks, Quest.
Not too worried about the bye. I won't get wrapped around the axel for a single week. Besides, even without the Steelers I think I can still field a competetive team that week (7):
Me:
Pos Player Opp Pts
QB Culpepper, Daunte (QB-Min) Den -
WR Robinson, Koren (WR-Sea) Chi -
WR Mason, Derrick (WR-Ten) @Car -
WR Chambers, Chris (WR-Mia) NE -
RB Tomlinson, LaDainian (RB-SD) @Cle -
RB George, Eddie (RB-Ten) @Car -
TE Shockey, Jeremy (TE-NYG) Phi -
K Still working on this...
DEF Carolina (DEF-Car) Ten -

Opponent:
Pos Player Opp Pts
QB Garcia, Jeff (QB-SF) TB -
WR Bruce, Isaac (WR-StL) GB -
WR McCardell (WR-TB) SF
WR Smith, Rod (WR-Den) @Min -
RB Alexander, Shaun (RB-Sea) Chi -
RB CMart (Not Yets) Hou -
TE Gonzalez, Tony (TE-KC) @Oak -
K Feely, Jay (K-Atl) NO -
DEF Miami (DEF-Mia) NE -

It'd be great if I could get a Moulds-level WR for one of them, but I'm just afraid that rosters are locking down and nobody's giving much value -- At least not for my guys ---Doesn't everyone always think that...

[moochman]

If you feel that strongly about not having both, you should have no trouble trading Ward for Moulds. I might entertain that idea, especially when you consider starting against the Ravens. They could be a defensive juggernaut again.

[josebach]

Definately get Moulds if you can, but not for Ward... trade Burress.

Ward had 112 receptions last year.
Burress had 78.

To me that makes it an easy pick as to who Maddox's favorite target is. Where I agree, Burress has more "big play" potential, Ward's 12 touchdowns and 3 two point conversions last year makes it pretty obvious who Maddox goes to in the red zone.

Burress will have some great weeks this year, no doubt, but for my money, I'll take Ward.

[Questi4110]

burress is Maddox's favorite target. Stewart helped out Ward a lot with those numbers and it was hard for Maddox to even out the numbers while still giving balls to Ward. Burress will do better this year.

[poo-bah]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Maddox threw 7 TD's to Plax and 8 to Ward, and the number of balls thrown favored Ward considerably, not to mention the 2pt conversions previously mentioned.

[Goose]

As a Ward owner in 2002 and a utilizer of direct TV to view his games, I can attest that Maddox favored Burress to Ward. Putting the +1 TD for Ward aside, when Maddox was in, more pass plays seemed to go Burress' way (perhaps someone on the forum has the actual statistics--hard for me to find anyone that breaksdown scientifically the # of plays Steelers ran to Burress with Maddox in as opposed to all year).

With all that said, the Steelers still call a # of trick plays and runs that involve Ward and he appears more prevalent at the goal line. If your league does not award bonus points for lengthy scores, then I rate it somewhat of a crap shoot over who to keep. I agree with the other poster that you should expect Burress' fantasy points to go up this year and Ward's to go down--it's just a question of how much (unfortunately).

If I were you, I'd just keep both. Your team looks strong during the bye week and I think you correctly assess that barring an injury to Maddox or one of the two WRs, you are likely to be competitive every week with the two of them and have some weeks where you utterly destroy people because they go off for 3 TDs and 170 yards between them. Good luck.

[josebach]

Ok, guys. Maddox started a total of 13 weeks last season.

Receptions/Yards/Touchdowns/Traditional Points

Maddox
start
week - Ward - Burress
week 5 - 5/45/1/10 - 4/59/1/5
week 6 - 4/24/0/2 - 8/149/0/13
week 7 - 5/76/2/19 - 6/79/0/7
week 8 - 8/97/0/9 - 5/55/2/17
week 9 - 9/79/1/13 - 4/69/0/6
week 10 - 11/139/1/19 - 9/253/2/37
week 11 - 10/168/2/28 - 4/41/0/4
week 14 - 9/76/0/7 - 6/83/0/8
week 15 - 3/39/0/3 - 6/120/1/18
week 16 - 6/78/0/7 - 5/127/0/12
week 17 - 5/46/1/10 - 3/52/0/5

post season
Cleveland - 11/104/1/16 - 6/100/1/16
Tennessee - 7/82/2/20 - 2/31/0/3

Totals - 75/1053/11/163 - 68/1218/7/151

This doesn't take into consideration Ward's 3 two point conversions either. If you ask me, they are pretty damn even.

Considering Ward is ranked about 10 spots lower than Burress, I think Ward is a better bargain.

[brdmaverick]

I would hang onto both. They will both have great numbers again, and that's all that matters right?