Week 3 Trade Market: Top Buys and Sells 💰

Cannot WAIT to scoop up Daniel Jones off the waiver wire after this Thursday night game.

What’s in store:

• Kareem Hunt is back in Cleveland 🐶. How worried should those who scooped up Jerome Ford off the waiver wire be?

• Kendre Miller is slated to make his debut. With little competition for work, this could be a golden opportunity for the rookie RB.

• Week 3 trade market: buys and sells. Zach offers some moves he’s looking to make heading into Week 3.

• Vanilla Vick returns in Week 2. Daniel Jones is Top-2 among all QBs in two critical stats for fantasy production.

• RB Kareem Hunt returns to Browns on 1-year deal in wake of Nick Chubb’s season-ending knee injury

  • With Kareem Hunt hanging around in the free agency pool since being released by the Browns last offseason, this was the logical answer to the Browns issue surrounding Nick Chubb’s injury. However, this doesn’t necessarily wreck RB Jerome Ford’s fantasy value – not only did Ford look good in his action in relief of Chubb, but he was also named the teams primary running back by HC Kevin Stefanski earlier this week. Since Stefanski has been in town, Cleveland has deployed a platoon approach in their backfield, and there’s a good chance that continues moving forward even without Chubb.

• Giants RB Saquon Barkley Ruled OUT for tonight’s game at 49ers

  • This was the expected outcome after Saquon looked to be in a pretty significant amount of pain on Sunday. The matchup for Matt Breida and Gary Brightwell is far from ideal, but the two will likely see some run regardless unless the game script calls for the Giants to go pass heavy (it very well may). For now, fantasy managers can look forward to a potential return from Saquon in Week 4, but also be prepared to be without his services until Week 5.

• Colts HC Shane Steichen says that QB Anthony Richardson remains in the NFL’s concussion protocol, availability for Sunday in doubt

  • Richardson suffered the concussion on the second of two touchdown runs early in the game against the Texans last weekend. While the turnaround can sometimes be fast enough that a player doesn’t have to miss any time following the injury, that doesn’t appear to be the case here. Richardson has played incredibly well in his first two games and was on his way to another monster day against a Texans defense that kept the Ravens offense largely in check in Week 1. Whenever he’s back, he should be inserted immediately back into starting lineups. In the meantime, Gardner Minshew should be expected to start Week 3 against the Ravens. He played well to close out the game last week, but he shouldn’t be started in standard 1QB leagues.

• Saints rookie RB Kendre Miller expected to be “full go” in practice this week, slated to make his NFL debut vs Packers

  • After weeks of anticipation and seeing him battle through multiple injuries throughout training camp and the beginning of the season, Miller will draw the start for a Saints backfield that is exceptionally short on depth going into Week 3. The largest obstacle between Miller and his emergence as a potential weekly contributor was Jamaal Williams, and he’s now sidelined with a hamstring injury that could hold him out for more than just a week or two. The return of Alvin Kamara looms large, but a strong performance this week would go a long way in establishing a role for Miller in the Saints offense moving forward – even once Kamara is back and up to speed.

• SELL WR Adam Thielen, CAR

  • But Zach, you’re the Adam Thielen guy, why is he a sell? He just had a 20 point game - did you see the same game I saw last night? Did you see how horrific the Panthers offense looked? It took a total garbage time touchdown with literally a minute left in the game for Thielen to put up a respectable performance. He was the lone bright spot on the night for Carolina.

  • If it wasn’t already obvious, Bryce Young is doing rookie things. Thielen is the best of a bad supporting cast – and it might seem like I soured on him fast, but remember when we made our projections for the year, there was optimism for the Panthers offense in what was supposed to be a non-competitive division. We blinked and suddenly the Panthers, Bucs, and Falcons are all 2-0. The only thing non-competitive in this division? Carolina’s offense.

• BUY RB Breece Hall, NYJ

  • Is he going to be easy to buy? Nope, probably not. That’s what’ll happen when you average 12.7 yards per carry and in your first action back from an ACL tear. He looks a lot better than Dalvin Cook right now in the Jets backfield - Hall is averaging 9.7 yards per carry on the season, which is the highest among all RBs with at least 10 carries. Cook has the 5th-lowest yards per carry at 2.4. But his price isn’t going to be any lower than it is right now, and his potential is through the roof - his ceiling is only going to get higher with each passing week while he gets back to 100%.

  • The Jets should have learned their lesson against the Cowboys – they’re going to run the ball more in the future than they did against the Cowboys. Four carries should not ever happen again. The good news? You can leverage that turd of a performance in negotiations for a trade. The talent is among the best in the league, and you’ll be betting on his workload increasing, but sometimes you gotta take a risk to take your team to the next level. That’s the type of trade this would be.

• BUY WR Brandin Cooks, DAL

  • Cooks missed Week 2 with an MCL injury, but he should be good to go in Week 3. What you have working for you as a potential buyer for him are a few things: one, like I just mentioned, he already missed a game with injury. Two, in the one game he did play, he put up four points. That was in a monsoon in New York in Week 1 when Dak threw for 143 yards.

  • He’s got essentially zero on his resume this year, and you need to take advantage of that. The Cowboys offense just chugged right through the Jets passing defense in an incredibly efficient manner - Dak completed 81 percent of his passes. And in that game, Dak wasn’t spreading the ball around – Ceedee Lamb had a 35% target share - no other Cowboys receiver had higher than 11%. That’s because Cooks is a better receiver than all of them, and he’ll immediately be a big part of the Cowboys passing game.

  • Not to mention that he comes back for a fantastic stretch of games for Dallas at Arizona and home against the Patriots - he’s going to drastically outproduce what we’ve seen from him so far this year.

• BUY WR A.J. Brown, PHI

  • 29% target share, 43% air yards share through two weeks, and just 10 points per game to show for it. No touchdowns, either. The Eagles went extremely run heavy in Week 2 against the Vikings because that’s what was working - and A.J. Brown was the voice of all his fantasy managers on the sideline.

  • The usage to open the season has been great - the Eagles offense has just been working out some kinks as they get used to their new offensive coordinator. Plus, Devonta Smith is balling out over on the other side. They’re gonna be just as explosive as last season very soon, and Brown’s value could be a bit deflated after two disappointing games to open the season.

  • He’s quietly there in the Ja’Marr Chase tier when it comes to superstars underperforming, so don’t hesitate to pull the trigger on a trade here.

• BUY WR Mike Williams, LAC

  • Keenan Allen is Herbert’s favorite target, but we saw on Sunday that the Chargers defense is going to have the offense in shootouts every week. I mean, the Chargers are built for fantasy football prosperity - they’re loaded on offense with a defense that’s just horrific. That means Mike Williams can eat too - he had a higher target share than Allen against the Titans, and put up a very respectable 16 PPR points in Week 2. He’s a WR2 with upside these next two weeks, because he’s got Minnesota in Week 3 and the Raiders in Week 4 before the early, early by in Week 5. He’s also sporting the highest targets per route run on the Chargers offense so far through two weeks. I love his ceiling, and he can be targeted pretty easily since he hasn’t had a week-winning performance yet. That could be coming very soon.

It took all of six and a half quarters for the Giants offense and Daniel Jones to wake up and realize that the regular season started two weeks ago, but they redeemed themselves in short order against the Cardinals in Week 2. Daniel Jones finished as the top fantasy quarterback on the week, and that was thanks to his ability to move the ball with his legs – something that seems to continually fly under the radar year in and year out.

Daniel Jones currently sports the highest designed rush rate of any quarterback in the league, above the likes of even Lamar Jackson and Jalen Hurts. He also has the second-highest scramble rate in the league, which gives him a bulletproof fantasy floor against defenses that don’t play their home games in Dallas.

Jones supplemented 321 pass yards and two touchdowns through the air in Week 2 with another 59 yards and a touchdown on the ground - an additional 11.9 fantasy points added via rushing. Daniel Jones’ name value actually hurts his value somewhat in fantasy football, and there’s a chance that we see another quiet performance tonight against the 49ers. But with matchups against Seattle and Miami coming in Weeks 4 and 5, Jones’ fantasy outlook remains bright thanks to schemed rush attempts from Brian Daboll.