RotoMind

Thanks for returning! If you haven't already, please subscribe to my RSS feed to keep up with RotoMind's latest content.

Braylon Edwards was traded to the New York Jets yesterday, and it marks one of the big deals of the 2009 season to date.

From a fantasy perspective, getting Edwards out of Cleveland can only be a good thing for his fantasy value, right?

Well, not so fast. Let’s break down the Braylon Edwards debacle and access how his fantasy value will change (if at all) on the balance of the 2009 season.

Cleveland Situation

On a Cleveland team where Edwards was supposed to be the go-to guy and the No. 1 option, his numbers barely show it. 10 catches, 139 receiving yards just doesn’t cut it.

Mohamed Massaquoi (CLE, WR) posted better receiving totals.

While you can easily blame Edwards’ underachievement on the quality passers in Cleveland, you’d have to think that Edwards would at least post reasonable numbers considering how much they chuck the football. 141 passing attempts for Cleveland is good enough for 8th in the league.

New York Situation

Edwards moves to a questionable fantasy situation in New York. While Mark Sanchez (NYJ, QB) should be able to pass the football decently, Edwards has a significant amount of better players around him competing for catches.

Jerricho Cotchery (NYJ, WR) should still be the go-to receiver here, and Dustin Keller (NYJ, TE) is a red-zone threat.

More likely than not, the impact of Sanchez’s enhanced passing skill on Edwards  is significantly minimized when considering the players he will compete for catches with.

However!

Edwards does have a big value uptick for owners in keeper leagues. Sanchez has an incredible, bright future ahead of him, and as he continues to improve, so will Edwards and his opportunities. If he was dropped in a keeper league, he is worth an immediate pickup and stashing away for later.

At the very least, Sanchez has more long-term upside than Derek Anderson (CLE, QB) or Brady Quinn (CLE, QB).

If you’re wondering if you should roster Chansi Stuckey (CLE, WR), don’t. Besides the fact that he needs to get acclimated with Cleveland’s playbook, he does not have consistently decent QB play, and may not even be the top option in the offense.

Take a wait-and-see approach, but you probably won’t miss out on much if someone else rosters him. Even his keeper potential is capped until Anderson or Quinn shows significant improvement.