Fantasy Football Week 9 Trade Analyzer: NFL deadline has passed but there are still fake deals to make
Sal Vetri is a new Yahoo Fantasy contributor this season. He'll write a weekly football trade story focusing on players to deal. This week, he highlights four players to trade two to target and one to hold.
Note: You can view recent trades completed on Yahoo Fantasy for the players mentioned in this article to help provide additional ideas on potential deals. Visit the trade market for more details.
Deal DeAndre Hopkins off big game
He was the second-highest-scoring receiver in Week 8. Hopkins posted 128 yards and three scores in Will Levis’ NFL debut. Hopkins appears to be fully over his early season injury. He now ranks 13th in WR target share and 19th in efficiency this season.
Look, he’s been great when healthy and I don’t have to tell you he’s still a strong fantasy option, but it’s worth trying to sell high on him after this game and all the hype Levis is getting. Odds are Levis comes back down to earth after a historic first game.
Hopkins only earned 20% of the targets from Levis in Week 8. It just so happened that half of them went for TDs. I’d try to trade him for someone like Garrett Wilson or Tee Higgins.
Trade Tyler Lockett away
He bounced back in Week 8 with a strong 18.1 points on nine targets. But Lockett’s efficiency has reduced this year in his age-31 season. This is occurring at the same exact time that DK Metcalf is back to full health and Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s role is expanding.
Metcalf ran his most routes since his early season injury and this led to a season-high 39% of the targets. Smith-Njigba has run 76% of the routes and earned 18% of the targets in the past three games.
This makes it tough for all three to get there every week. Metcalf appears to be the clear alpha downfield and in the red zone. Lockett is a quality player but why not try to upgrade him? Especially when you consider he’s just 63rd at beating man coverage and ranks 37th in WR usage. I’d deal him for Diontae Johnson or James Conner.
Target Javonte Williams in a deal
His snaps have now increased in four straight games. In Week 8, Williams played a season-high 63% of the snaps and earned a massive 30 opportunities. Backups Samaje Perine and Jaleel McLaughlin combined for just four carries. Williams appears to be fully healthy based on Denver giving him 19 and 30 opportunities these past two weeks.
Through six games, Williams ranks top-10 in breakaway runs despite facing the seventh-most stacked boxes. His upcoming schedule is juicy. Williams gets the Bills, Vikings, Texans and Chargers over the next five weeks. All are bottom-half-of-the-league run defenses.
Sell high on Rachaad White
He once again delivered through the air in Week 8. White caught all seven of his targets for 70 yards leading to a solid 14.4-point day. White has now caught 13 balls in the past two games, but there’s an issue.
He continues to struggle on the ground. He turned nine carries into just 39 yards in Week 8. This is a concern because it’s unlikely he will continue to catch 100% of his targets and average 10 yards per catch like he has these past few games.
White’s role is indeed strong, but this will only keep up for so long before the coaches have to involve other backs. It’s worth noting that Chase Edmonds returned from IR in Week 8 and handled 21% of the carries. I’d expect his usage to increase moving forward.
White has some tough spots against the Falcons, Titans and 49ers coming up. Look to trade him for Zay Flowers or Nico Collins.
Buy low on Chris Olave
He’s been one of the more frustrating players in fantasy. The frustrations continued in Week 8, when Derek Carr threw for 310 yards but Olave only finished with 46 yards. It was Rashid Shaheed who had 153 yards on just three catches.
Despite the low yardage, Olave still earned 31% of the team’s targets. He now ranks top-10 in WR usage this season. The issue is Olave ranks 63rd in catchable targets as 37% of his looks aren’t catchable. This should only improve based on regression and Carr looking healthier. His upcoming schedule is promising against the Panthers, Giants, Bears and Vikings secondaries. Buy low on Olave.
Try to trade Courtland Sutton
He’s now scored a TD in five of his last six games. Despite the hot stretch, he’s not seeing an increase in work. He’s topped seven targets just once since Week 3. Simply put, Sutton is on a wild TD streak. He only has eight red-zone targets this year and it’s led to six TDs. He’s scoring a TD on 13% of his targets, 2-3x more than the NFL average.
This sums it up well. Sutton ranks 44th in expected points based on his role, but he’s top-25 in actual points scored. If you look at his previous games and remove the TDs, he would’ve scored under seven points in four of his last five games. Trade him for Chris Godwin or Diontae Johnson.
Hold Gabe Davis
He just had a big game and it was actually different than his usual outings. Typically, Davis is a boom-or-bust WR who thrives on low-volume, downfield targets. But that wasn’t the case against the Bucs.
Davis' average target distance coming into the game was 15.5 yards downfield. This was leading to many big games, but also some flops like we saw in Week 6 and 7. However, in Week 8, Davis saw a season-low 6.9-yard average target distance. This translated to a season-high 31% target share and 19.2 fantasy points.
There was a reason for this shift in usage. The Bills changed their offense after losing TE Dawson Knox to IR. This led to Buffalo running a season-high in three-WR-sets and Davis ran more shorter area routes.
Next up is a matchup against a bottom-10 Bengals secondary and then a bottom-five Broncos defense. Don’t sell high on Davis.
