Fantasy Football Trade Advice Week 5: The Raiders Are Trading Davante Adams, You Should Too

Ted takes a look at what to do with three of the hottest fantasy football trade pieces heading into Week 5.

There's nothing more fun than making a fantasy football trade. 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. Here are this week’s leaders in ETI:

As you can see, the top players are normally those who have seen their values change, for one reason or another, over the last week. Every fantasy manager wants to buy low and sell high, so the most-moved players will be those whose values are in flux. This week that means a lot of underperforming early-round draft picks dominate the top of the list. We'll focus on two of those guys here, as well as the man of the hour: Davante Adams. 

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Best Fantasy Football Trades To Make Week 5

Sell Low On Rhamondre Stevenson

The top player in Expected Trade Interest this week is Stevenson, fresh off his second straight dud game. On the one hand, there are some compelling arguments to be made that Stevenson is a buy-low candidate. His usage through four weeks has been very solid, ranking among the top 16 running backs in snap share (16th), rush share (14th), and route participation (ninth). Both of his bad outings came in very tough matchups with the 49ers and Jets. The Patriots have better matchups going forward, starting with the Tua Tagovailoa-less Dolphins in Week 5.

However, there are also massive red flags in Stevenson’s profile. The most glaring of these is that Patriots Head Coach Jerod Mayo is threatening to bench Stevenson after he has fumbled in each of the team’s first four games. To be fair, I do think this is more likely to be Mayo sending a message to his running back than a real threat to Stevenson's job. After all, he was careful not to actually say that he plans on benching Rhamondre, just to say that it is "under consideration." Still, this is certainly not a good sign. 

Meanwhile, the Patriots just lost their center, David Andrews, to season-ending surgery. That will make an already injured O-line, which PFF has graded as the fourth-worst run-blocking unit in the league, even worse. Despite the better matchups coming up, the Patriots also project to be playing from behind early and often. That doesn't work well given that Stevenson's target share is down to just 11.9% (he was as high as 16% in 2022). In a terrible situation and with his role potentially slipping away from him, now is the time to move on from Stevenson, even if you aren’t able to get full value in the process.

Buy Low On Brandon Aiyuk

Aiyuk has quietly been one of the biggest non-injury-related busts of this fantasy season so far, averaging just 5.8 half-PPR points per game. I say quietly, but you can be sure that his managers have noticed — that level of production from an early-round pick is often week-losing. With that in mind, now is the time to trade for the $30-million man. 

Aiyuk came into this season due for regression, as his 12.8 yards per target in 2023 was historically efficient. However, that insane number wasn’t just a fluke. Aiyuk ranked second to only Tyreek Hill in PFF Receiving Grade last season; he earned that big contract. 

Of course, Aiyuk has struggled on all levels so far this season. He hasn’t earned targets at the same rate, with just a 19.7% target share despite having been the only key 49ers weapon to play all four games. And he’s been less efficient with those targets, with 6.7 yards per target. That isn’t just down from his insane 2023 number; it’s flat-out bad. Aiyuk also ranks near the top of the league with a 13.3% drop rate, way up from his 5.7% career number. 

However, I don’t think Aiyuk suddenly went from one of the league’s best receivers to below-average in his age-26 season. More likely, he’s just a bit rusty after having missed the vast majority of training camp while negotiating his contract extension. As he works his way back into shape (hopefully sooner rather than later), Aiyuk should return to being a weekly fantasy play, albeit a boom-or-bust one in this loaded 49ers offense. Especially if your team has started the season hot and you can afford to wait, now is the time to trade for the hyper-talented WR.    

Sell High On Davante Adams

This is perhaps the only scenario in which you can “sell high” on a player who is currently week-to-week with a hamstring injury. However, recent news that the three-time All-Pro has requested a trade has completely overshadowed his injury. Many analysts seem to be dismissing the injury entirely as a ruse designed to help hasten Adams' departure from Las Vegas. That’s possible, but I think we can’t dismiss the possibility that he is actually injured — I struggle to remember any scenarios in which an NFL player has entirely fabricated an injury. 

Even if he were completely healthy, now might be the best time to trade away Adams. Fantasy managers are imagining pie-in-the-sky scenarios of Adams paired with Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes. But these situations rarely play out in the most exciting way for fantasy. Adams’ reported top two destinations are the Saints and the Jets, to reunite with Derek Carr and Aaron Rodgers, respectively. New Orleans has so far been the most run-heavy team in the league, while Rodgers is throwing for fewer yards per game than Daniel Jones and Gardner Minshew (Adams’ current quarterback in Vegas). Both teams also have established young WR1s in Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson.

As for Adams himself, there is reason to believe he is not the player he once was. His PFF Receiving Grade has declined in each of the last three years, from 92.7, to 90.1, to 79.1, to 64.4 so far this season. It’s the same story with his yards per route run (down to 1.66 from a 2.92 peak), ESPN Receiver Score (down to 52 from a 88 peak), and Fantasy Points separation score (down to -0.08 from +.21 in 2022, the first year charted). There are a lot of excuses to be made here: Poor quarterback play could be to blame, or maybe Adams was simply already checked out and planning his trade request. But maybe, just maybe, the 31-year-old has lost a step. Between the injury, overhyped potential landing spots, and statistical decline, the chances Adams immediately returns to WR1 form on his new team seem slim. If you can move him for WR1 or high-end WR2 value, either now or when his destination is announced, I’d do it. 

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