Fantasy Football Trades Week 10: Kareem Hunt, Marvin Harrison Jr., Josh Downs
Ted breaks down three of the hottest players on this week's fantasy football trade market.
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 who 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:
This week, the clear leader in ETI is Kareem Hunt, who has put up four straight top-24 RB finishes but could see his value fall off a cliff with a return from injury by Isiah Pacheco. He is followed up by a pair of talented young receivers in Marvin Harrison Jr. and Josh Downs, both of whom have frustrated fantasy managers at points this season. All three of these players may be valued wildly differently depending on your league, so be prepared for an article full of qualifiers and hedges … but I’m in a buying mood.
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Best Fantasy Football Trades To Make Week 10
Buy Low On Kareem Hunt
This may be the most qualified “Buy” recommendation I have ever given. Hunt is not the type of player who is simply undervalued across the board and makes a good addition to any roster. However, the recent buzz around an impending return for Isiah Pacheco has opened up a very sneaky buying window for the veteran.
Right now, fantasy analysts everywhere are recommending offloading Hunt ASAP, which, on a first glance, makes sense. There’s no way Hunt will maintain his bell-cow role over a healthy Pacheco. If it were possible to move him for anything close to his current high-end RB2 production, that would be an obvious smash move. But most fantasy managers aren’t stupid. Anyone considering trading for Hunt will do enough due diligence to realize an impending Pacheco return might completely destroy his value. He’s simply not going to be valued as high as his current production.
That is why I think we may have a buy-low opportunity here. If you’re fighting for a playoff spot, Hunt’s production could be invaluable, even if it only lasts a few more weeks. And predictions of returns for injured players, especially those who haven’t returned to practice yet, are often overly optimistic. We may not see Pacheco for a month, if not longer — the 8-0 Chiefs have no reason to rush him back.
Even when he does return, Pacheco might not be the same player right away. Remember, the sophomore fractured his fibula — we’ve seen that same injury turn Tony Pollard (last season), Tank Dell, and Mark Andrews into much lesser versions of their former selves. Meanwhile, Hunt ranks third among qualified running backs in success rate (per SumerSports). If Pacheco isn’t quite himself, we may see the veteran maintain a real role in this offense, especially near the goal line.
It’s still most likely that Hunt will return to irrelevance when Pacheco is back, so this move is mostly recommended for managers fighting for a playoff spot over the next few weeks. But that extra upside if he maintains a role is just the cherry on top for a player producing right now whom you should be able to get for very cheap from a manager looking to offload a depreciating asset.
Buy Low On Marvin Harrison Jr.
Again, this suggestion depends on context. I don’t think we’re going to see MHJ pay off his borderline first-round draft prices. If someone is demanding that level of value in return, tell them to kick rocks. But, as a Harrison Jr. manager myself, I can attest that rostering him has been a very frustrating experience. With only three top-24 finishes and quite a few complete duds, there are likely plenty of managers willing to move the fourth-overall pick at a discount.
And, if we peel back the curtain ever so slightly on MHJ’s first nine NFL games, there are some very promising signs. He has a very solid 21.4% target share on the season, as well as a 42% air yards share that ranks 10th overall and fifth among players who haven’t missed any time.
The main issue with MHJ’s production has been his 52% catch rate, the 11th-worst among 118 players with at least 25 targets. This isn’t entirely his fault, as he also ranks 20th-lowest with just a 70% catchable target rate — that’s a product of both his high ADOT and some bad chemistry with Kyler Murray. To be fair, neither of those problems is necessarily going anywhere. MHJ ranks fourth among WRs with at least 100 routes with 50% of his routes having a vertical break, according to Fantasy Points Data. Even though he ranks sixth in yards per route run on horizontally-breaking routes, Arizona continues to use him primarily as a downfield X receiver. That kind of role will always come with a low catch rate.
With that said, MHJ is probably still due for some positive regression in that area — he has a totally fine 3.7% drop rate (two drops on the season) and Kyler ranks average or above average in measures of QB accuracy. And all that downfield usage means even a small increase in catch rate would be a big boost to his fantasy production. Combine that with the chance that the Cardinals could switch his usage to be more fantasy-friendly (or that the 22-year-old rookie simply improves), and there are plenty of paths for Harrison Jr. to finish the season outperforming his current trade value.
Buy Low On Josh Downs
That’s right, it’s an all-buy-low article. The vibes in Indianapolis are currently at an all-time low. Heading into Week 9, the Colts benched last year’s fourth overall pick, Anthony Richardson, for 40-year-old Joe Flacco. They then proceeded to embarrass themselves on a national stage by scoring just six offensive points on Sunday Night Football. Even from a fantasy perspective, Flacco taking over for Richardson didn’t go how we may have hoped. Downs, Michael Pittman, and Jonathan Taylor (not to mention Alec Pierce or Adonai Mitchell) all underperformed their projections and previous outings with Flacco.
To be fair, Downs was the best of the bunch, with six catches on nine targets for 60 yards. But some segments of fantasy football Twitter seem to be particularly annoyed that the sophomore played a season-low 50% of the Colts’ offensive snaps. However, this usage really wasn’t that out of the ordinary for Downs. He never plays in two-receiver sets, and his 63% route participation rate was only 7% below his season average.
Despite his limited snap shares, we’ve seen Downs absolutely dominate with Flacco under center. His averages in four games played by the Elite Dragon are a 28% target share, a 35% first-read target share, 69 receiving yards, and 13.7 Half-PPR points per game. Flacco did disappoint in Week 9, but the Vikings’ defense is one of the toughest matchups in the league. His 6.08 adjusted net yards per attempt is still miles ahead of Richardson’s 4.63. The gap is even bigger in adjusted EPA per play, where Flacco is at +0.107 and Richardson is worst among qualified QBs at -0.097. Week 9 was rough, yes, but Flacco is undeniably a huge improvement for this passing offense, and Downs is a very talented young WR. If you can get him for cheap, now is the time to do it.
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