While listening to Fantasy Focus on ESPN Radio, I heard ESPN's fantasy expert, Eric Karabell, offer his Tip of the Week. With trading deadline looming, he suggested dealing your bench strength to shore-up your starting line-up. After all, if you're going to play QB Marc Bulger every week, having Michael Vick ride the pine won't help as much as improving your RB2 or WR3.
A bit later, he mentioned that fantasy football play-offs are won by the Jeff Garcias and Kyle Bollers of the world. In this context, he brought up Raiders QB Aaron Brooks in a postive light. (ed: cue-up "That's why I hate fantasy football.")
Maybe fantasy footballers shouldn't trade their bench depth in the event one of their starters can't play during the three-week play-offs? Maybe the tip should have been to make sure you have a quality back-up at QB entering the play-offs and trade for that depth if you don't have it?
Want proof of this? Go into your free agent pool right now and run what-if scenarios. What if my starting QB went down, who could I pick-up? What if my RB2 went down, who can i pick-up? My WR2?
If those scenarios make you worry, then trade for depth!