The fantasy football trade market is the fastest way to upgrade your team and the most efficient one. You can take advantage of poor tendencies and logic from other owners in your league who tend to overreact to past performance.
Every week we’ll take a look at the top players to buy or sell in fantasy football. An elite fantasy owner is active in the trade market and always looking for value (plus ways to take advantage of his competition). We want you to become that elite manager and our goal is provide you with the players who you should be looking to trade for or away each week.
Buy
Drew Brees, QB, New Orleans Saints
This is the best time to trade for the QB who has never finished worse than QB3 over the past seven seasons. His early-season struggles should subside as Willie Snead works his way back into the offense and Alvin Kamara gets more comfortable in the passing game. The real reason to buy Brees is for his schedule, one that includes six of the next 10 games at home and a fantasy playoffs schedule that rolls at the Falcons, home for Jets, and home for Falcons.
Matt Ryan, QB, Atlanta Falcons
Ryan has been a fantasy disappointment as the Falcons have failed to find their footing after losing offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan. The return of Mohamed Sanu to the lineup this week or next will help, but what you can really look forward to is a much softer schedule that gets rolling this week with the Patriots. In addition to the Pats, Ryan draws the Jets, Cowboys, and Buccaneers pass defenses in the next six games. It’s time to grab him while his owner is panicking.
Amari Cooper, WR, Oakland Raiders
Cooper has scored six points or fewer in his last five games this season — and that’s using half-point PPR scoring. So now is the perfect time to buy low on Cooper, but you wouldn’t know it unless you ran back the Raiders Week 6 game tape and saw nearly 50 yards receiving for Cooper called back due to penalties. Derek Carr will get his footing, the Raiders offense will get back on track, and Cooper will play his role. You don’t need him to realize anywhere close to his full potential at his current trade value.
T.Y. Hilton, WR, Indianapolis Colts
Andrew Luck has ramped up his practice activity and a return could be on the horizon. The goal is to trade for Hilton after a bad game and before a definitive timetable is set for Luck’s return from shoulder surgery. Hilton checked the first box with a Week 6 prime-time dud Monday night and we can also check off the second box as of Tuesday night. Hilton and Luck combined for 155 targets, 91 receptions, and 1,448 yards in 2016 — you won’t find his kind of upside on the trade market anywhere else right now for this low price.
Dion Lewis, RB, New England Patriots
Lewis looks to have finally received the opportunity to operate as the Patriots lead back following a costly Mike Gillislee fumble in Week 6 and his overall ineffectiveness. Unlike Gillislee, Lewis can run away with the job. Not only has Lewis recaptured his 2015 burst, but he also offers the upside of playing a role in the passing game. In Week 6, Lewis finished with the fourth-best elusive rating — five forced missed tackles on just 11 carries with a 3.73 yards-after-contact average. Don’t be one week too late on this one.
Mark Ingram, RB, New Orleans Saints
The time to buy was technically last week, as we discussed, but it’s not too late to get in on Ingram. With the Saints set to face an easy part of their schedule that includes: Green Bay, Chicago, Tampa Bay, Buffalo, and Washington over their next five — all winnable games — the game script should work in favor of Ingram as the featured player on the Saints offense. In addition to positive game script, Ingram will benefit from the Saints returning their elite left tackle Terron Armstead to the lineup.
George Kittle, TE, San Francisco 49ers
There’s nothing like reuniting a couple of college teammates in the pros and that’s what happening when C.J. Beathard takes over at quarterback for the 49ers. Both Beathard and Kittle played together at Iowa, all the way back to win Kittle was still a wide receiver just before converting to tight end. Beathard didn’t even start Week 6 and Kittle still managed the fifth-most targets and 10th-most receiving yards of any tight end. The chemistry will spill over onto the field going forward.
Austin Seferian-Jenkins, TE, New York Jets
Like Ingram, last week was probably the best time to buy in on Seferian-Jenkins, but it’s not too late. The reborn Jets passing game has found it’s go-to chain-mover and red zone threat and his name is Seferian-Jenkins. You can still buy ASJ on the cheap when you consider that he has seen more targets and caught more passes than any tight end over the past two weeks and that trend is likely to continue.
Sell
Kirk Cousins, QB, Washington Redskins
The Cousins-led Redskins offense is up to the same old tricks as 2016 — they can’t convert in the red zone and they can’t convert drives into touchdown. Cousins has still been phenomenal, as fantasy’s QB9 overall, but his 103 rushing yards are already a career-high and this pace seems unlikely to continue. If the Redskins can’t get Jordan Reed healthy for 2017 at any point, this red-zone offense could continue to struggle, and now might be the time to deal him.
Ty Montgomery, RB, Green Bay Packers
Montgomery’s early-season usage and touchdown has rendered him fantasy’s RB18 despite missing almost an entire game and barely playing the week after. Don’t let his raw points fool you, he is a sell-now candidate. The Packers deemed him healthy enough to play in Week 6, but his backfield mate Aaron Jones played double the snaps. Montgomery dropped a should-be touchdown in the red zone and overall looked ineffective without Aaron Rodgers.
Davante Adams, WR, Green Bay Packers
Adams has continued his touchdown frequency from 2016 without any of the expected regression so far in 2017. With five touchdowns, Adams has been fantasy’s WR5 overall so far and he’s done it on just 49 targets through six games. Although he scored with Brett Hundley in Week 6, the offense is going to take a different look going forward and Adams won’t have the same kind of touchdown upside. The regression will finally come through.
Martellus Bennett, TE, Green Bay Packers
Notice a trend? Yeah, we’re advising to jump ship on the high-scoring or name-brand Packers before things get too ugly. Bennett still carries weight in trade discussion because he is a name brand player. But if you dig deeper into his numbers, he’s been a major disappointment this season. He has just the 24th-most yards per route run this season among tight ends who have played at least 25 percent of the snaps. That’s an ugly number with Rodgers and it will get uglier without him.
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