TRADE 01: Depth Perception

With kickoff nine days away, we have our first trade of the season, from the likeliest of culprits- more on that later. First, lets examine the deal- a back end of the roster shuffling focused on positional depth.

PAWNEE ACQUIRES RB DEANGELO WILLIAMS
PHOENIX ACQUIRES WR MOHAMED SANU

Deangelo Williams is a former pro bowler looking to prove he has some tread left on the tires: Le'veon Bell's two game suspension will give him ample opportunity to prove he does. With some immediate value, he's plausibly startworthy in weeks one and two. The Pride expect to start Mark Ingram and Doug Martin in week one if they're healthy, but with Isiah Crowell's committee role murky, David Cobb injured, and Montee Ball third string, he's a very viable bench option.

Mohamed Sanu is a big, physical receiver coming off a pretty good season- as it stands, he's the Uprising's top scorer at WR in 2014. But it's 2015, and his role is unclear: he led the league in dropped passes last year, raising doubts about whether feeding him targets really optimizes an offense. He was "bottom of the totem pole" in Pawnee's Gold Medal winning WR corps, playing seventh fiddle. In Phoenix, he's got a far more direct route to playing time. 

A little bit of history: The Larkspur Bowl is now in its SEVENTH year. In six of those years, Phoenix has made the first trade of a new season- in 2013, they made the year's second trade. Since 2012, Pawnee has made the first trade of the season EVERY year, as this move makes it four in a row. If you're keeping score at home, yes, that means that Pawnee and Phoenix have broken the seal in three of the past four years. Let's take a look at the other two inaugural trades between these teams:

8/27/12
Phoenix receives RB Fred Jackson & S Kam Chancellor
Pawnee receives RB Peyton Hillis, CB Charles Woodson, & LB James Anderson

8/28/14
Phoenix acquires RB Trent Richardson & WR Josh Gordon
Pawnee acquires RB Darren McFadden & WR Markus Wheaton

This also marks the fifth trade between the squads all time.
Here are their other two swaps:

10/2/12
Phoenix receives QB Andrew Luck & WR Santonio Holmes
Pawnee receives RB Ben Tate & WR Sidney Rice

11/15/14
Phoenix acquires RB Darren Sproles
Pawnee acquires RB Charles Sims & WR Justin Hunter