Is NG worth the risk?

There’s every chance that Nathan G Brown will be back in action for Richmond pretty soon. Now, I had him in my squad pre-season, and I swapped him out the day before round 1 like many others. For his talent, he’s a bargain at $236k, but I don’t reckon he’s worth drafting in.

Even if he does play regularly, and scores very well (I reckon 75 average is the best you can hope for), I still don’t think it’s worth it. Here’s why.

At this point in the year, I don’t like to ‘downgrade’ to players who will start in my 22. I flog off the bench players for rookies, to free up cash, but there’s no way I’ll recruit someone like Brown to start in the team. I will upgrade players in Brown’s price range for a gun, but I won’t swap them for someone of Brown’s price.

For example, I’m ditching Nathan Bock this week. I’ve had it. He’s gawwwn. But I’m upgrading Bock to a gun; I wouldn’t swap him for someone cheap, because cheap is almost always unreliable. And unreliable uses up trades that could be necessary for injuries, or used constructively for upgrades.

Does that make sense? My objection to Brown is more ideological than practical – I don’t like recruiting players like him at this end of the year. Obviously, you take every case on its merits and at this point the injury concerns are over-riding all else. (Remember how he was all set to go in round 1?)

I hope he proves me wrong. I hope he comes out and starts tearing some shit up, and then everyone will recruit him into their teams and no-one will benefit because everyone has him.

21 Comments