Trades Buy/Sell

Jalen Hurts earned his first start in Week 14 and looked like an instant QB1. He is in the upper echelon of all-time athleticism among quarterbacks. In his first start, he rushed 18 times for 106 yards. His rush attempts were the fifth-most for a quarterback since 2000 and his yardage total is top-15 in a single game. He’s the ultimate Konami Code passer and his two matchups to close out the fantasy season are supreme.

Devin Duvernay posted an above-average 32.5-percent (59th-percentile among qualified wide receivers) College Dominator Rating to go along with his 4.39 (95th-percentile) 40-yard Dash time and 121.9 (53rd-percentile) Burst Score. For teams dealing with injuries in the fantasy semifinals, Duvernay is among the best pickups of the week and is worth a desperation start.

With a higher Average Target Distance mark than his teammates, Michael Gallup is often deployed as the deep threat in the Dallas offense, logging 198 (No. 19 among qualified wide receivers) Unrealized Air Yards through 12 weeks. That deep threat role is a valuable one, but it’s not being capitalized on with sub-par QB play post-Prescott. Gallup’s 4.1 (No. 105) Target Quality Rating is far below Amari Cooper’s 5.4 (No. 60) and CeeDee Lamb’s 5.6 (No. 53) marks, more evidence that he’s doing a lot with a little.

It’s never good for a top-3 dynasty RB to lose a year due to an ACL tear. The silver lining is that Saquon Barkley’s injury happened in Week 2, giving him more than enough time to make a full recovery ahead of the 2021 season. Even better for our purposes, he and his explosive plays have been out of the public perception for a very long time. This presents a choice buying opportunity in fantasy football dynasty leagues.

Cole Kmet wasn’t a mind-bending prospect that was expected to take the league by storm as a rookie and he certainly didn’t. Up until Week 10, he hadn’t logged a game with more than two targets. However, since Week 10, Kmet has stolen the starting tight end job from Jimmy Graham. There’s been a changing of the guard for a team averaging 42.7 (No. 4) Team Pass Plays per Game, and that may translate to Kmet emerging as a viable streaming option in the fantasy playoffs.

It was fun while it lasted with Marquez Valdes-Scantling, but he’s been all but benched for Allen Lazard. Since Lazard returned in Week 11, Valdes-Scantling’s Routes Run and Snap Share have both fallen in consecutive weeks. He bottomed out at two targets and zero catches last week. MVS already had a comically low Target Rate, seeing a target on 15.4-percent of his routes run this season. That mark is No. 158 among qualified wide receivers.

Go trade for Antonio Gibson because he looks like he’ll be a three-down back to close out the year. He ran over twice as many routes on Thanksgiving as J.D. McKissic, who only saw two targets. If Gibson is able to solidify himself as the primary runner and pass-catching back in Washington, he will be a top-five running back in the fantasy playoffs.

The Titans use a committee approach at tight end, and the only thing holding Jonnu Smith back from being Irv Smith this year is touchdown efficiency. The problem is that Tennessee is fine running two tight ends, with the non-Smith tight end being the route-runner. He’s fancy Cameron Brate, and if the touchdowns ever stop flowing, expect to be holding more zeroes than TE1 games.

This year, Chase Edmonds is top-10 among qualified running backs in Breakaway Run Rate, Yards per Touch, and Production Premium. Because he is so efficient on a regular basis, Edmonds has been an RB2 in five of eight weeks that Kenyan Drake was active for and finished. If your league still allows trading, buy Edmonds as a volatile RB2 with top-five upside if Drake gets hurt again. If your league doesn’t, keep tabs on him in case his owner decided to cut him after more healthy games from Drake.

Jarvis Landry’s struggles have been two-fold. The first is that he simply has not been efficient in any way as evidenced by his -18.0-percent (No. 95) Target Premium and -16.1 (No. 71) Production Premium. The second is that his team is trying to play football like it’s the 1960s and is passing just 29.3 times per game, No. 32 in the NFL. Players need to be either efficient or pumped up with volume to succeed as fantasy assets. Landry is neither.

Michael Pittman broke out in Week 10 with 101 yards on seven receptions. His college profile indicates that he will keep breaking out all over the place and suggests he can be the focal point of the Colts passing attack. He posted an above-average College Dominator Rating and is a supreme athlete. His 112.1 SPARQ-x score is in the 73rd-percentile among qualified wide receivers. If there is a second-round pick to be buying on in Indianapolis, it’s Pittman.

Jerick McKinnon is outside the top-30 RBs in Juke Rate, Yards per Touch, True Yards per Carry, and most other important metrics. The 49ers have also shown a general reluctance to get him the ball frequently. When practice squad player Jeff Wilson was on the roster with McKinnon, Kyle Shanahan chose to split the work between them. With Raheem Mostert supposedly on track to return next week, McKinnon will likely continue to be efficient, but on less volume.

The only reason Mike Williams doesn’t have more WR1 weeks is fluky touchdown production from Los Angeles role players. Keenan Allen, Hunter Henry, and Williams make up 61.9-percent of the LA targets, but only 47.1-percent of the touchdowns. Meanwhile, the Chargers have five players with touchdown rates over 15-percent, only one of whom even has double-digit targets. As long as Justin Herbert keeps throwing dimes, Williams will have more spike weeks in the near future. 

Jamison Crowder entered Week 9 with a 31.5-percent (No. 2 among qualified wide receivers) Target Share, but his competition for targets was nonexistent. With Breshad Perriman and Denzel Mims back in action, Crowder now has more than just practice squad players alongside him at receiver, and his Target Share will take a massive hit in future contests. Still playing on the Jets, a diminished Target Share may be the end of WR1 and WR2 Crowder as we know him.

Corey Davis has largely struggled in the NFL, but he hasn’t been Josh Doctson or Laquon Treadwell-level bad. He posted 955 yards from scrimmage in his second NFL season. That came on a Titans offense that ranked No. 25 in total yards per game. Davis is a volatile WR3 and has a non-zero chance of continuing to outproduce A.J. Brown in the coming weeks.

Marquise Brown’s usage has been supreme. He has a 23.8-percent (No. 15 among qualified wide receivers) Target Share and a 38.9-percent (No. 7) Air Yards Share. The problem has been his quarterback’s accuracy. Unless Lamar Jackson miraculously turns his season around, Brown should be viewed as a boom/bust WR3. As the top-target of the reigning MVP, Brown may have more value in trades than he’s actually worth.

Ezekiel Elliott will get loaded with carries and targets going forward, but his upside as the primary running back for a Ben DiNucci-led offense is basement-level. A running back will only be as good as their offense lets them be, and Elliott may be playing for one of the worst offenses in the league for the rest of the season. It shouldn’t surprise anyone if he performs like Le’Veon Bell did with the Jets last year.

JuJu Smith-Schuster finally came back to life in Week 7 with 15 targets, but those did not come at Diontae Johnson’s expense. Chase Claypool was the odd man out with only one look in the passing game. Johnson produced as a rookie in the NFL with Mason Rudolph and Devlin Hodges as his quarterbacks. Unsurprisingly, the upgrade to Ben Roethlisberger has been a godsend for him. The No. 1 receiver on a competent passing offense, he has WR1 potential if he can stay healthy.

Mixon is a true bellcow back in a league that has few. He had no scores and three targets per game through three weeks. Giovani Bernard was seeing more opportunities in the passing game and it looked like Mixon would be relegated to a grinder role once again. In the following three weeks, Mixon has scored four times and been targeted 17 times. He’s top-10 in running back targets over that span.

T.Y. Hilton’s inefficiency is brutal and it’s only compounded by his lack volume. Both his Target Share and Air Yards Share rank outside the top-30 receivers. He was out-targeted by Marcus Johnson and Zach Pascal last week. Hilton is on bye this week, so it might be worth waiting to sell low because his market will get a slight bump once he’s back in action. Look to move him for anyone with a pulse including Travis Fulgham, Preston Williams, and Randall Cobb.