Fantasy Football Trade Advice Week 3: Should You Trade Jaylen Waddle, D'Andre Swift, Tony Pollard?
Ted takes a look at what to do with three of the hottest fantasy football trade pieces heading into Week 3.
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 with the Trade Value Chart to see how much those players are worth.
Heading into Week 3, Carson Steele is atop the ETI charts with a 24% mark. However, players like Steele who are fresh off waivers are often actually the hardest to trade. Especially given the uncertainty surrounding the Chiefs’ backfield, his value will vary wildly from league to league.
Instead, I’m going to focus on three other players high in ETI with more established values: Jaylen Waddle, D'Andre Swift, and Tony Pollard. These players were all high or mid-round draft picks, and they’ve each had big changes impact their fantasy value over the first two weeks of the season … for better or worse. Let’s take a look at what to do with them.
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Best Fantasy Football Trades To Make Week 3
Buy Low On Jaylen Waddle
Everything is going wrong for Jaylen Waddle right now. After an okay Week 1 performance, he caught just four passes for 41 yards in Week 2 against the Bills. Even worse, Tua Tagovailoa suffered another concussion, for which he is now on IR. Tua will be replaced by Skylar Thompson under center. The last time we saw Waddle with Thompson, his production was abysmal. There’s a real chance that Waddle is a useless fantasy asset for the next few weeks.
However, that is what makes him a true buy-low. Waddle is still a very talented player. He ranked fifth in the NFL in PFF Receiving Grade in 2023, as well as sixth in yards per route run. The only thing holding him back from a truly elite fantasy season was touchdowns: He ranked in the bottom 10 among qualified WRs in both touchdowns per reception and touchdowns per receiving yard. With positive regression on the TD front and better injury luck (he missed three games due to injury and was limited in a few more), Waddle came into this year due for a breakout season.
Obviously, Tua being sidelined will put that breakout on hold for a bit. But all indications are that Tagovailoa will be back. Especially if you’ve started hot or have good depth and can afford to take a few bad weeks from Waddle in the meantime, trading for him now could pay off huge down the stretch.
Sell Low On D'Andre Swift
You read that right: It’s time to sell low on D’Andre Swift. I was down on Swift coming into the season, as he has always been a less efficient runner than his new Bears teammate, Khalil Herbert. Through two weeks, at least half of that prediction seems to be coming true. According to NextGenStats, Swift has been the second-worst back in the league in terms of rush yards versus expected, gaining over two full yards less than expected on average per carry. His 18.2% success rate is also the worst among qualified RBs. This is all happening while Swift has faced stacked boxes on just 8.3% of his rushes, the fifth-lowest rate in the league. To be fair, these advanced stats do account for that … but his miserable 2.0 yards per carry doesn’t.
Herbert hasn’t been involved much, with just four carries for seven yards. However, he has the team’s lone goal-line carry and has also been called upon twice on fourth down — the Bears’ coaching staff clearly already trusts Herbert more in key short-yardage situations. If Swift’s struggles continue, Herbert’s role should expand. And Swift’s receiving usage, which has been key to his fantasy value in the past, hasn’t been great either: He has just a 9.1% target share, 26th among all RBs.
Obviously, Swift’s value isn’t very high right now. He is just the RB40 in Half-PPR formats. However, I think he still has room to fall, as Herbert will cut more into his workload as time goes on. The Bears’ offense as a whole has also been so bad that there is an argument that Swift’s fantasy struggles are not his fault — his high ETI indicates that at least some managers are interested in trading for him. Even ESPN’s Week 3 outlook for Swift notes his “stranglehold on the Bears’ backfield” and calls him an “electric playmaker.” There is still a market for Swift, and I recommend taking advantage of it before the bottom completely falls out of his value.
Sell High On Tony Pollard
Through two weeks, things have been going great for Tony Pollard. Where many expected a true 50/50 split between him and sophomore RB Tyjae Spears in the Titans’ backfield, the former Cowboy has been the clear lead back. He has seen 33 carries to Spears’ 10 and even out-paced the receiving back in targets, 10 to six. According to Fantasy Points Data, he ranks seventh among running backs in his share of his team’s expected fantasy points — right above Saquon Barkley.
However, there are reasons to be worried about Pollard going forward. The first and most obvious is that the Titans’ offense is struggling mightily. They have the fifth-lowest EPA per play in the league, as well as the sixth-lowest yards per play. Will Levis has the third-lowest PFF Passing Grade in the NFL, barely beating out Bo Nix for the worst among active starters (RIP Bryce Young). Touchdowns and 20-carry days are going to be few and far between for Pollard as long as that continues.
However, I believe the Titans’ offensive woes are baked into Pollard’s price in most leagues. What isn’t baked in is that his usage may not continue to be as good as it has been. You likely know that the Titans’ coaches said coming into the season they wanted a true 50/50 split between Pollard and Spears. And after Week 1, Brian Callahan reiterated that they would rather have Spears more involved going forward. However, what is going overlooked is that they actually followed through. Spears suffered an ankle injury in Week 2; Prior to the injury, he carried the ball just one fewer time than Pollard in the first half and actually played five more snaps. The end-of-game stats are skewed by Spears’ early exit, but what we saw with both healthy in Week 2 indicates the Titans do truly plan to have a 1A/1B backfield. Combine that with their offensive struggles, and Pollard is going to be hard-pressed to provide weekly fantasy value. Now is the time to move him, before it becomes clear that his bell-cow usage over the first two weeks is a mirage.
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