The problem being that most had to start 5+ premiums down back as a result and now have no room for all these downgrade targets
There are several things to go for here...
1. Avoid sideways at all costs - You've covered this in your hold for 3 weeks thing, basically every sideways trade in the next month is going to compound and unravel your upgrades/downgrades, it's essentially a missed target, stick 3 or 4 of them in and you're dead in the water.
2. Maximise the on-field replacement on each upgrade - This generally means replacing the worst on field scorer but not always, for example a Gawn over rookie scoring 75 is a better upgrade than a 45 to a 90 forward upgrade but generally it's going to be getting the weakest rookie off the field.
3. Byes - The hidden points here can be significant, plan around them and factor it in, any rookie you bring in now is most likely there for the byes so you need to consider how they align with premiums and you also want to get the ones most likely to play in the byes, every score helps!
4. DPP links - You need to start setting them up for the rest of the season and should think about them before locking players in less than ideal spots. It's not a tiebreaker level consideration but it should certainly be considered and planned as best as possible without sacrificing targets. It's most valuable in the byes onward because it saves trades.
5. Job security on rookies, especially in a couple of weeks - The guys in the next couple of weeks will hopefully make cash and be out by the byes but from round 9 onward, the reality is most of those rookies are season long picks and thus you should target the ones who will play the rest of the season, a guy making a quick 100k you're not using has less value than a guy pumping out a 40 to avoid a donut later on when one of the premiums in every team misses.
6. Have a plan - Which positions do you need? Who are the bargains at those positions? How can you get them? Is the bargain the right call? Is the value the obvious name or the less obvious name? Is May this week at 410k better value than Ridley at 510k next week, especially if it is your D6 upgrade? The other factor, is there a super premium you're missing at that position that you need to get, they're going to take more work to get.
7. Durability is your god - See point one but every guy you don't have to trade later is more trades, can you get those luxury trades in play later that let you have a boom or bust loophole target that actually provides more points than a minor upgrade to your last spots on field?
8. Maximise depth - This kind of plays into point 2 but if you can push the guys on-field to the bench for a few weeks of cover that's great, the stronger your bench, the more you can handle a player out for a week or two, which means you can stay on the plan and not get de-railed.
