Should these trades be approved?

Fred Jackson, Tashard Choice and Jay Feely for Ronnie Brown, TJ Housh and John Carney.

Next trade proposal

Donnie Avery, Willis McGahee, Patrick Crayton for Anquan Boldin, Michael Turner and Mario Manningham.

These are two trades that currently exist in our league.  Both trades involve team A giving up Brown, Housh, Carney, Boldin, Turner and Manningham to receive players from team B and C.

Thoughts on whether these are balanced trades or just a way to skirt the rules?

I'd probably raise a stink about it if I was involved in the league.  I wouldn't even feel good proposing something like that to anyone, even if that other owner was clueless.  If you can trade draft picks for next year's draft, I would insist on picks for next season to the team getting the lesser of talent.  Other than that, those are too lopsided.

Yeah they're way biased. If you want to know another example. In a league I'm in, Team A traded Todd Heap and got Dallas Clark from Team B. The League Manager has removed the ability to veto trades a few weeks back so all trades go through straight away. And guess who the League Manager owns? Team A. Mmmm...

I'm not a veto guy, but those are ridiculous. Here's how we handle it in my league...

I'm commissioner, and I have total say. If a trade is ridiculous, I veto it. If a trade involves my team, and there's a possibility of a concern, I ask two other owners to make sure it's acceptable.

But in order to make that work, you have to have someone in the commish chair that everyone trusts. Even though I don't personally know everyone in my league, when we started it, I had enough people trust me that there wasn't a problem. Now that the league has been in tact for a number of years, and everyone knows how I handle things, there hasn't been a problem. And in 7 years, I've only had to execute the power of veto twice. One was supposed to be an either/or proposal that ended up as a both proposal, and the other was a technicality involving future draft picks.

I'm guessing that it's tough to find one guy in most leagues that everyone trusts won't take advantage of the job, but personally, I'm very careful to not ruin that trust. If you can find one person to handle all responsibilities of commissioner in the fairest way possible, I think that's the best way to go. But you have to be able to separate the league, and your team.

Bad deals.