Week 10 Fantasy Football Trade Value Chart Watch: Buy or Sell Christian McCaffrey? Take Fliers on Diontae Johnson and Dak Prescott?

It’s time to continue our FantasySP Trade Value Chart watch series!

The Trade Value Chart is used in the FSP Trade Analyzer and many other tools here. By checking out the biggest movers each week, you can know when to buy/sell a fantasy player. Here’s last week’s story. Let’s get into it!

Explore the best in-season fantasy football tool to manage your team and get league rankings with the Fantasy Assistant. Use our  trade analyzer and trade value charts to break down trade scenarios with Fair Trade ratings. Need a fantasy expert on call for waivers specific to your league? Our AI Fantasy Expert can break down any player for you inside the Fantasy Assistant.

McCaffrey Rises as He Nears Debut

Christian McCaffrey is finally ready to make his season debut, and his trade value is going up as a result. Over the past week, McCaffrey has seen his player rating bumped up 3.2 points. Once he is officially active, McCaffrey should sit inside the top 50.

You might look at that and think he’s undervalued. But we’re talking about a player who missed the first 10 weeks of the season with injuries. Yes, when healthy, CMC is one of the top fantasy players in the game, but it’s hard to envision him being that player again - at least right away.

And sure, maybe you will need to give up a player ranked much higher than McCaffrey if you are interested in acquiring him, but this spot seems more than fair for him to start at.

I think the fantasy owners who waited 10 weeks to get CMC back are going to want to start him the rest of the season, but if you are worried about him not being his former elite self, now might be the best time to trade McCaffrey away. We still don’t know how the Niners will utilize him and Jordan Mason together, and we can only speculate. 

Maybe CMC gets a majority of the touches, but Mason takes enough looks away every game to hold McCaffrey back from being a top-end fantasy talent every week. This Niners’ offense is still good enough that McCaffrey could find the end zone often, which would help him still deliver good fantasy totals.

Maybe in time, McCaffrey does become the workhorse back again, making Mason completely irrelevant. Like I mentioned before, when McCaffrey is right, he’s easily the best fantasy player in the NFL.

Or maybe CMC isn’t even close to the same player he once was, and his game-changing abilities are diminished after the injuries. He could be shut down for the season if his body isn’t right.

There’s so many possibilities, with some being positive and others negative. You’ve already lost a ton of fantasy points with CMC missing the first nine weeks, and if you are worried about his health moving forward, trading him now would probably be the wise move.

I believe in McCaffrey and think he’s going to be a good weekly starting option, even if he’s splitting the workload almost 50/50 with Mason. I’d hold on to CMC if I rostered him, while checking in on his availability if you are in need of some RB help. He might be a little cheaper than usual, and if you have depth to play with, why not try to add one of the better fantasy players from the previous several seasons.

Mooney Soars into Top 50

Darnell Mooney has somewhat quietly had a really good fantasy season. He has 588 yards and five scores on 41 receptions and 68 targets.

He’s gone for over 85 yards and a score in back-to-back games, and now might take on more offensive responsibility with Drake London dealing with a hip injury. Even if London can play through the injury, it’d make sense for the Falcons to utilize Mooney a bit more these next few games, at least.

While Mooney’s fantasy value has never been higher, I’m also an advocate of trading for him now. He’s scored in double figures as a fantasy performer in all but three games, and has five games over 15 points. He’s played well enough to start most weeks in standard leagues, even in tougher matchups.

He’s got more tough matchups looming, but based on how he’s played, and now factoring in the London injury, I'd try to add Mooney to my fantasy team.

It’s going to cost a little bit to make the trade happen, but moving a couple depth pieces, or a single player from a position of depth should get the job done, and not hurt your fantasy team all that much. It’s a move that should pay off as London heals up especially, but also be a good move for the remainder of the season.

Buy Low on Johnson

Diontae Johnson was traded from the Panthers to the Ravens before the trade deadline. It was a move that fantasy owners loved, as the Panthers’ offense was inconsistent, while the Ravens are a juggernaut. 

Instead of making Johnson a fantasy star, he’s barely done anything through two games with the team. 

In the first game after he was traded, he didn’t get a target across 17 offensive snaps played. We wrote that off as him not being up to speed with the offense yet and figured he’d be more involved this week. On Thursday, Johnson caught one of his two targets for six yards while playing only five snaps. 

Now that the team has some extra off days before their next game, Johnson should be able to familiarize himself with the offense and be more involved going forward. But because of what’s happened the past two weeks, after he missed week 8 with an “injury,” Johnson’s player rating is way down.

He currently ranks 117th on the trade chart, and is probably going to be dropped in a bunch of leagues. I think this is the perfect time to buy low on Johnson.

Johnson has some more favorable matchups ahead, but the biggest reason for wanting to trade for him is because he should be relatively cheap right now. You can flip a player from a position of depth and take a chance on Johnson getting going in the final weeks of the season. It’s a very low risk, high reward situation, and one I’d be all over, especially if my fantasy team was doing well and you were just trying to add talent for the stretch run.

Prescott Freefalling After Injury

Dak Prescott is dealing with a hamstring injury, and it’s apparently a bit more severe than initially anticipated. There’s a chance he misses the remainder of the season.

So why am I bringing him up in a trade article?

In deeper leagues where most quarterbacks are rostered, Prescott’s value is extremely low right now. He will be dropped if he’s out for the season, but if you want to take a big gamble on him returning in a few weeks, why not try to acquire Prescott?

The schedule ahead for the Cowboys’ quarterbacks is extremely favorable, and if Prescott can avoid a season-ending injury, you could land a weekly starting QB for almost nothing.

I’m not one to take big risks in fantasy, especially when dealing with trades, but this is another low risk, high reward situation in my eyes. It won’t take much to land Prescott, and if the injury does end his season, you can simply drop him. The trade is really no different than making a waiver wire transaction.

This is a trade to make if you are already set with quarterbacks, and have depth at another position to trade for him with. Prescott should be viewed as a longshot lottery ticket, not a late-season savior.