Fantasy Football Trade Value: Buy Low On Josh Jacobs, Sell High on Kyren Williams
There's nothing more fun in fantasy football than making trades. However, it can often be hard to know which players to target, and which of your own you can get good value for. That's where FantasySP's tools come in: We can use the FantasySP Fantasy Assistant to find players that have the most Expected Trade Interest (ETI), and then cross-reference them with the Trade Value Chart to see how much those players are worth. Let's take a look at three players with high ETIs that I think are either overvalued or undervalued by the current market.
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Best Fantasy Football Trades To Make Week 4
Buy Low On Josh Jacobs
The top four current players in our Predictive Analytics Expected Trade Interest (ETI) are Josh Palmer, DeVante Parker, Dawson Knox, and K.J. Osborn; solid players, but not exactly needle movers or players who are ever likely to be the centerpiece of a trade. Instead, I want to look at the player fifth in ETI, Josh Jacobs. In many ways, Jacobs is almost too obvious of a buy-low. A top-three RB in all formats last year, Jacobs was drafted in the early rounds of fantasy drafts this offseason despite some concern that he would hold out for a new contract. He eventually reached an agreement with the Raiders, but has been far from his 2022 self, averaging just 8.3 Half-PPR points through three weeks of the season.
However, all signs point to an eventual increase in production for the fifth-year back. He is still one of the few surviving workhorse backs in the league, ranking in the top five among running backs in each of snap share (80%), rush share (71%), and target share (15%). Those are right in line with his 2022 numbers (74%, 85%, and 12%), he just hasn't had the production to go with his usage.
I'm not saying to expect Jacobs to return to his 2022 elite RB1 form: This offense is not as good as the 2022 Raiders' offense, so far averaging over eight fewer points per game. Jacobs himself also doesn't seem to be the same player, as his yards per attempt has been cut in half from 4.9 to 2.4. However, the Raiders have played two of the best defenses in the league in the Bills and Steelers, and Jacobs' advanced stats aren't quite as bad as his traditional ones: His yards over expected per attempt has still fallen, but only from 0.47 to -0.8. Jacobs has also yet to score a touchdown after racking up 12 in 2022, which makes his slow start feel even slower than it has been.
Currently, our Trade Value Chart has Jacobs listed as the RB12, which isn't that unfair of a price. But I am willing to bet there are plenty of managers who are willing to move him for a lot less than that. As the Raiders' schedule lightens up, starting this week with a matchup against the Chargers' terrible run defense, and he works his way back into shape after missing most of the preseason, I expect Jacobs' huge workload to start converting itself into plenty of fantasy points.
Sell High on Kyren Williams
Three weeks into the season, Kyren Williams is looking like one of the best fantasy football draft picks (or wavier adds) of the season. The 2022 fifth-rounder is the RB6 in Half-PPR and, following the trade of his top competition in Cam Akers, played every single snap for the Rams on Monday night. On the season, Williams leads all RBs with an absurd 86% snap share, hardly coming off the field in a surprisingly efficient Rams offense.
However, we've seen this story before. Just last year, Darrell Henderson surprised everyone by being the Rams' lead back over the first three weeks, and he didn't even last on the Rams' roster all season. Now, Henderson never hit the highs that his 2023 counterpart has already hit, and I certainly don't expect Williams to be cut at any point this season. But Sean McVay is already talking about how Kyren's current workload is unsustainable, and other running backs will need to be involved. As a fifth-round pick without a track record of success, Williams has exactly zero guaranteed job security.
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Even if he maintains something close to his current workload, Willaims' fantasy production is bound to regress. So far, he has benefitted from incredible TD luck, both on the ground and through the air. He has accounted for all but two of the Rams' touchdowns, and those four touchdowns in turn account for essentially half of his fantasy points. He has also racked up an incredible 19 targets in just three games, 6.3 a game. No running back except Austin Ekeler and Christian McCaffrey reached that number in 2022; forgive me for not thinking Kyren Williams will continue to be a receiving threat on par with those guys.
With a mediocre 3.8 yards per attempt, Kyren is reliant on volume, passing work, and TDs to produce fantasy value, and all three of those factors will likely trend downward for him heading forward. Our Trade Value Chart has him listed as the RB28, just behind Raheem Mostert and ahead of names on better offenses with more secure roles like David Montgomery and Isiah Pacheco. If you can get Mostert for him, obviously do it, and I would happily trade Williams to receive Montgomery or Pacheco plus a little extra.
