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Fantasy Football Trade Targets, Sells, and Holds – Week 9

Who Should You Buy, Sell, or Hold This Week?

DeAndre Hopkins enjoyed a crazy Sunday with a first-time starter at QB.

Davante Adams endured a crazy-bad Monday night with a QB we’ve seen too much.

So what should we do with these two veteran WRs – along with other intriguing buy and sell trade targets – as the NFL bye weeks start back up?

Read on to find out … 

Check out all our chart options:

• PPR fantasy trade value chart
• Superflex fantasy trade value chart
• Tight End Premium fantasy trade value chart
• Dynasty trade value chart
• Dynasty superflex trade value chart

Process

To make the market version of the fantasy football trade value chart, I aggregate expert consensus rankings and use them to feed my model.

The goal is to align players within their positional groups and then look for crossover points across positions. Expert rankings (ECR) feed the market model since most users follow experts (duh). 

I then run the Draft Sharks rankings through the same model and normalize the scale to 100. 

Comparing ECR and Draft Sharks values generates the VS Market field on the chart. The Trend is the DS values vs. the previous week. 

How to Use a Trade Value Chart

Add player values (left column) on each side of the trade and compare for fairness. Add up the values of multiple players on each side, and you can look at larger trades.

That's a basic answer, but it doesn't do the question justice.

Trade value charts are designed for one-for-one trades and don’t do a great job when looking at larger or lopsided trades.

Two-for-one and three-for-one trades need to account for the benefits a top-tier player adds to a team and for freeing up roster spots. In two-for-one, three-for-one, or three-for-two type trades, the side sending more players needs to overpay for the smaller side.

For example, if you are trading for a player with a value of 75 and want to send two players, they likely need a combined value of 30-50% more than 75 (98-113).

Use Trade Value Charts to Look for Positional Swaps

Let’s say I have a ton of RB depth, and I want to trade an RB of 35 value for a WR. I'll look for WRs around 35 in value and check the rosters to see if they are weak at RB.

I'm looking for “win-win” trades that are likely to get done.

I find sending lopsided and/or nonsense trades that aren’t helping both sides waste time.

Fantasy Trade Value Chart Vs. Market - Week 9

Fantasy Trade Targets

Joe Burrow, QB, Cincinnati Bengals

Draft Sharks Value: 34.5
Market: 20.5
Profit: 14

The best time to try to acquire Burrow would have been a week ago, before he delivered 283 yars and 3 TD passes in a surprisingly easy win over the 49ers.

But missing that opportunity doesn’t mean the buy window has closed.

The profit margin above suggests that the market hasn’t adjusted Burrow’s rest-of-season expectation up as much as we have. It’s quite possible your Burrow-holding league mate agrees.

Perhaps he/she remains wary of a QB who has been inconsistent this year. We see a guy who has finally gotten healthy – especially off a Week 7 bye – and gotten WR Tee Higgins back healthy.

We’re treating Burrow as a top-5 QB the rest of the way, with tiny gaps between each of the guys in that range.

David Montgomery, RB, Detroit Lions

DS Value: 36
Market: 35
Profit: 16

We highlighted Montgomery as a trade target in this space two weeks ago. And he has appeared among the “honorable mentions” in other weeks surrounding that. Why bother including him again?

Two key factors:

1. There’s a chance Montgomery’s ready to play after the Week 9 bye.
2. Jahmyr Gibbs’ enormous 31-touch, 189-yard Monday night performance likely has plenty questioning how much of a role Montgomery will return to.

HC Dan Campbell as recently as mid-October referred to Montgomery as a “workhorse” and Gibbs as “the change up.”

Gibbs has undeniably improved over his early-season performance and likely earned more touches than he got in the three games shared with Montgomery to date. But we’re not betting that the rookie has flipped the coaching staff’s view on the duo.

Montgomery still outweighs Gibbs by 24 pounds. He’s still in Year 1 of a contract paying him $6 million a season. Bet on the vet remaining central to the plans for a team that likes to run the ball.

Jerome Ford, RB, Cleveland Browns 

DS Value: 22
Market: 17
Profit:  5

If you’re fretting over Ford playing fewer snaps than Kareem Hunt last week, then you’re probably looking at the situation wrong.

Ford sprained an ankle in Week 7, reportedly a high-ankle sprain (albeit “low grade”). That he played at all in Week 8 was fairly surprising. That he played just one snap fewer than Kareem Hunt despite the injury seems to suggest that Cleveland really wants Ford involved.

Does that mean Ford will take a clear touch lead over Hunt as he gets healthier? We’ll see. But he has been the better performer, including this lead in rush yards over expected per carry:

• Ford 0.45
• Hunt -0.42

If you buy on the backfield uncertainty now, you could reap benefits as soon as this week’s high-upside matchup with the Cardinals. Overall, Cleveland has the third-best remaining RB schedule by our adjusted fantasy points allowed.

Honorable mentions:

Running Back

Isiah Pacheco +11
Javonte Williams +17
Devin Singletary +8

Wide Receiver

Zay Flowers +10
Mike Evans +15

Tight Ends

David Njoku +10

Fantasy Sells 

Najee Harris, RB, Pittsburgh Steelers 

DS Value:  17.5
Market: 18.2
Disparity: -0.7

This one’s not about specific profit margin. It’s about trying to take advantage of recent performance.

Harris’ best fantasy outing of the season came two weeks ago against the Rams, when he finished 13th in PPR points among RBs. Last week found him down to RB22, still his third-best weekly finish among seven games this season.

Those games pushed Harris all the way up to … 40th among RBs in PPR points per game for the year. They also found him averaging just 3.1 yards per rush and 4.2 yards per touch.

His 5 receptions vs. Jacksonville marked the first time this year Harris exceeded 3 targets in a game. He’s now averaging 2.4 per contest.

This remains an unexciting player in a bad offense. See if you can sell the recent production to a league mate with a RB need, such as anyone with these guys on bye:

• Christian McCaffrey
• Travis Etienne
• Jahmyr Gibbs
• Javonte Williams

Davante Adams, WR, Las Vegas Raiders 

DS Value: 38
Market: 68
Disparity: -30

Wait a second … wouldn’t this be a terrible time to sell Adams, after we all watched him struggle to just 1 reception among 7 targets against the Lions on Monday night?

Yes … if you’re expecting a big bounce back. We’re not.

Adams sits a respectable 10th among WRs in expected PPR points per game this season, according to PFF. He ranks just 19th in actual points per game.

That would make for an enticing positive-regression candidate, if Adams had better QB play.

QB Change

The Raiders have elected this week to shift from Jimmy Garoppolo to Aidan O’Connell. Maybe that brings improvement, but it’s tough to pin our hopes for a big Adams rebound on a fourth-round rookie QB.

O’Connell’s first start (in Week 4) sent 13 targets toward Adams. He caught eight for 75 yards. That’s a solid PPR day. But we didin’t draft Adams to put up “solid” stat lines.

Test the market now to see if you can find someone willing to pay a WR1-level price to get him.

Jordan Addison, WR, Minnesota Vikings

DS Value: 14
Market: 12.5
Disparity: -1.5

Addison has been very good through the first half of his rookie season. That has included scoring on 19.4% of his receptions, a rate he’s not likely to sustain. That alone could make him a potential sell, especially as Justin Jefferson’s return approaches.

Addison’s target share has jumped to 20.3% over the past four games, starting with the contest Jefferson left. He drew just 12.7% over the first four games, with a healthy Jefferson.

So the looming return of the lead wideout figures to threaten the rookie’s target-share consistency anyway. Throw in QB Kirk Cousins’ season-ending Achilles’ tear, and you have reason to aggressively sell Addison this week.

That doesn’t mean you should just take whatever you can get. You can hold if you don’t find a good enough return. 

But I’ve already heard from one Draft Sharks customer who swapped Addison straight up for Jefferson. It’s OK to dream.

Honorable mentions:

Running Back

Tony Pollard -9
Alexander Mattison -8

Wide Receiver

Any you can use to upgrade at RB

Tight End

T.J. Hockenson -20

Fantasy Holds 

Kenneth Walker III, RB, Seattle Seahawks

If you have Walker, it’s alarming that rookie Zach Charbonnet finished Sunday’s game with just 2 fewer touches than Walker … and 10 more snaps played. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the Seahawks are flipping their backfield.

HC Pete Carroll said afterward that they put Charbonnet on the field more in the fourth quarter because they wanted to get him some use and then stuck with the alignment that was working. He did not indicate a larger shift in usage.

It’s also worth noting that Walker sat out practices Wednesday and Thursday ahead of the game while dealing with a calf issue. Whether that limited his Sunday snaps, we can’t know for sure.

It’s certainly a situation to monitor going forward. And Walker isn’t a “must” hold if you find a beneficial trade. Just make sure you don’t panic-sell him off this game.

DeAndre Hopkins, WR, Tennessee Titans

WOW. Three TDs from rookie Will Levis in his debut?!? That’s obviously not happening again, right?

Probably not. But who out there thinks otherwise?

That’s the point with this hold. If you can find someone who just believes that Levis brings exactly what Hopkins needs and the vet is about to smash the second half of this season, then make a trade with that person.

Otherwise, let’s see where this goes.

Looking for Help on the Waiver Wire?

Matt and Jared talk through the top Week 9 waiver wire targets in this video. The Free Agent Finder can point out the best pickups in your league.

Matt Schauf, Editor

Matt has earned two Fantasy Pros accuracy awards for IDP rankings and won thousands of dollars as a player across best ball, dynasty, and high-stakes fantasy formats. He has been creating fantasy football content for more than 20 years, with work featured by Sporting News, Rotoworld, Athlon, Sirius XM, and others. He's been with Draft Sharks since 2011.