RADIO
One half of the fantasy football season down, one half to go! For fantasy leagues that make Week 17 of the NFL schedule irrelevant, because too many star players sit out due to their games being meaningless, we are officially at the halfway point of the season.
The trade deadline in many fantasy leagues might only be a week or two away, if the leagues copy off the NFL and prefer not to have their deadline too late. If that is the case for your league, you cannot waste any time pulling the trigger on some trades.
Without further ado, here are the buy-low and sell-high candidates for Week 9 of the 2017 NFL season.
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Fantasy Football Buy-Low Candidates
Dak Prescott (QB, DAL)
Prescott is on the verge of losing his security blanket unless tailback Ezekiel Elliott gets another reprieve from the courts regarding his longstanding six-game suspension. Elliott’s absence might make fantasy owners shy away from Prescott, but there are several reasons to think the super sophomore should be AOK while his top tailback is away. Six of the nine teams he has remaining on his schedule have pass defenses ranked 17th or lower in the NFL. Prescott will probably be asked to throw more, which means more opportunities for passing yards and touchdown tosses. Plus the veteran twosome of Alfred Morris and Darren McFadden, along with Dallas’ awesome offensive line, will prevent defenses from keying on Prescott’s passes. Trade for Dallas’ dime thrower if the Prescott owner in your league is itching to deal him.
Delanie Walker (TE, TEN)
Walker cannot go much lower on the buy-low scale. After averaging 900 yards per season over the past three years, the Tennessee tight end only has 324 receiving yards and has yet to score a touchdown this season. Some of the blame can be pinned on the banged-up Marcus Mariota, while some more can be put on Walker’s own body for breaking down a bit. Coming off a bye week should be good for Walker (and Mariota), though, and Walker should be able to be one of the more productive fantasy tight ends during the second half of the season. Just know that Walker might not be available this weekend due to a bone bruise in his ankle that has him listed as questionable.
Aaron Rodgers (QB, GB)
Wait, what? Rodgers? Last time fantasy owners saw him he was being carted off the field with his right arm held close to his body, nursing a broken collarbone. Now the only time we see him on TV is when he is starring in State Farm commercials. While Rodgers has zero trade value in year-to-year leagues, though, he still holds value in keeper and dynasty leagues where teams can bank on him being the cornerstone of their fantasy franchise in 2018 and beyond. So if you are an unlucky owner who is in rebuilding mode because you thought Julio Jones and Terrelle Pryor would have more than two touchdowns combined at this point when you drafted them, trade some healthy bodies to a contender in your league for Rodgers and bolster your keeper list for next season.
Fantasy Football Sell-High Candidates
Kelvin Benjamin (WR, BUF)
Benjamin was unexpectedly traded from the Carolina Panthers to Buffalo for third and seventh-round picks in next year’s draft. No one in football or fantasy football saw that coming. Many fantasy owners might think this helps Benjamin’s value since he will become the clear cut No. 1 option in Buffalo’s passing attack instead of having to share the spotlight with tight end Greg Olsen (when Olsen is healthy) in Carolina’s offense. If one of these owners is in your league and you have Benjamin on your roster, feel free to trade the lanky wideout for a king’s ransom. Buffalo quarterback Tyrod Taylor has never been an asset to any of his receivers. Ask Sammy Watkins, Chris Hogan and Jordan Matthews. Going from Cam Newton to Taylor is a downgrade for Benjamin, and a double downgrade is going from Carolina’s run-heavy offense to Buffalo’s run-only offense. Benjamin will not be any better with Buffalo than he was with Carolina, and might end up being worse.
Matthew Stafford (QB, DET)
Stafford has not let off the gas pedal after becoming the highest-paid player in NFL history. Detroit’s franchise player has thrown for 1,851 yards and has 12 touchdown tosses and only four interceptions through his first seven games. But while he is on pace for 4,200 passing yards and 25 touchdown passes if he keeps this up, there are no signs that Stafford can do more than what he is doing during the second half of the season – when fantasy owners could use 400-yard or four-TD games the most. Stafford never gets any help from his running backs (Ameer Abdullah is no Barry Sanders), nor does he have a No. 1 WR (Golden Tate and Marvin Jones are solid No. 2 receivers) or a decent tight end to throw to (Eric Ebron is getting booed out of the building during Lions home games). Stafford may be the highest-paid QB in football, but he remains a QB2 in fantasy football. Trade him now while fantasy owners in your league are still scuffling for replacements for their injured signal callers and get a premium player in return.
Josh McCown (QB, NYJ)
Talk about getting better with age. Only Cindy Crawford has been aging better than McCown this year. The veteran journeyman has played the best football of his long, long career with the Jets, throwing for 1,840 yards and a dozen touchdowns in his eight starts. This was as unexpected as Papa John’s blaming the company’s problems on the NFL. McCown would easily shatter his career-highs in virtually every major quarterbacking category if he started all 16 games this season, but that probably will not happen. He is injury-prone, so he may not last physically, and if the Jets fall out of the playoff race, he may be benched so they can look at Christian Hackenberg down the stretch. Trade McCown now while he is playing like a top-15 fantasy QB before the bottom falls out on his season.
