Transcription
Week seven is upon us, and there are a ton of injuries, a ton of opportunities for you guys to buy some players. We do have a couple of trade targets for you. Five buys, three sells, and a couple of reissues.
First, we're going to talk about the reissues. Ravens players that are on buy right now: Derrick Henry, Lamar Jackson, and Zay Flowers. All still good trade targets. We've talked about them in weeks past.
J.K. Dobbins, I talked about last week, still a very good trade target coming off of a down week. Travis Hunter's usage is back up. Good upside piece for those of you guys that are contenders. And Saquon Barkley chained together a couple of bad weeks in a row. Do you want to talk about any of those guys a little bit more, or do you want to just go right into our guys?
I think we can go into our guys. Um, on the inverse though, I will say we talked about, for example, a guy like DK Metcalf as a selling piece weeks ago. He obviously has another big fantasy week. If you can sell him high, maybe get wide receiver two-level price tag, you can go and try to sell him on the market as well.
For sure. So, let's get into the first guy. And uh, Danny may or may not have already purchased this guy. And yeah, I'll spoil the deal because apparently every other channel in the Flock League just likes spoiling Flock League content. Like, we have Mason on his live stream reading out the names of the players involved in the trade. We have Zach every Monday posting the context of his matchup before it's released. I will give you guys this for free. If you are an FSE subscriber, here it goes. Flock League. I end up making this deal with Zach. He's desperate. He's a two-and-four team. I go and buy Puka Nacua. I give him Drake London. I give him Jalen Daniels. He gets me Puka Nacua, Bam Knight, and $7.
And you might be looking at this thinking, well, Danny, Jalen Daniels is a stud. Drake London obviously coming off of two big games. Why would you trade those guys at the peak of their powers for an injured player in Puka? Because not often does a guy like Puka Nacua even become available in your league. And this is a plea. If you're six-and-oh, if you're five-and-one, four-and-two, even if you're three-and-three, and maybe you're top five, top six in points scored in your league, dude, if you can get Puka added to your roster going forward, you need to inquire. Because with Puka Nacua, we do have this report from D-Pac over on Twitter that the injury he sustained in week six could range from him playing in week seven to him maybe being back about week nine is about the expectation. We do see the three potential, uh, potential injuries he suffered. We do have the left footed ankle. It says if it's a low ankle sprain, he could play week seven. No concerns about his ability on the field. If it's a mid-foot sprain, we're looking at about a zero to one week recovery time, aka he would be back in time for week nine after his bye week. And then if we get a little bit worse news, it's a high ankle, maybe a mild capacity, we're looking at about a one to three week, uh, recovery time. But we already have a quote from Sean McVay labeling Puka Nacua day-to-day. So that has me more optimistic on his timeline. And look, the only reason why this guy is even available is that he left last week's game early because we're talking about legitimately 2019 Christian McCaffrey, 2021 Cooper Kupp, 2020 Alvin Kamara, 2006 LaDainian Tomlinson. If I told you at the peak of those powers in those seasons, if you can trade for those players, you wouldn't ask how much would you have to give up. You would say, "No, give me the player that can end up winning me the league." Not only winning my league, but can be a legendary level player. Puka, prior to going down, was on pace for the fourth best fantasy football season of all time, and he was scoring every other player in fantasy by over two points per game. Christian McCaffrey great year, 24.8. Puka Nacua was averaging nearly 27 points per game in weeks one to five.
Yeah, he's a monster. If you are doing yourself a disservice if you're four-and-two or better and you don't currently have Cooper Kupp on your team, or Cooper Kupp, he might as well be Cooper Kupp. If you don't have Puka on your team, you should be going and sending out offers for him because like you said, especially if you're in an eight or a ten-man league, man, like I would give up three starters to go get Puka in an eight or a ten-man league. But yeah, the deal that you made, I'm really surprised that people in the league think you lost the deal because given the league market that we have, Jalen Daniels is great, but he's one of like eight to ten quarterbacks.
Exactly. You have Caleb Williams already. He's one of eight to ten every-week starters. And yes, maybe he's on the higher end of that because of the rushing and stuff, but Caleb Williams has outscored him this year in terms of points per game. So, uh, yeah, I think you made a great deal there. I'm really surprised that other people in the league don't. Um, but yeah, more to gain from having Puka, and I'm kind of scared of your team now that you have Puka, CeeDee Lamb, and Romo Dunay as your top three receivers, and a lot of people should be.
Well, that's the exciting thing because, uh, again, we do have the tweet from Coach Peak Index, 90% reliability uh rating for Sean McVay when it comes to coach speak, and he expects that Puka Nacua will miss no more than one game. If I only have to sit out, okay, week seven, sure, probably worse than my chances of winning this week against the Devs. Week eight already going to be tough. I'm playing Avery. Puka Nacua obviously now on bye. I also had a couple other by-week players. Week nine on, if you have me on the schedule and you have to play against CeeDee Lamb, Puka Nacua, and Romo Dunay, you combine all those three players, you're looking at 65 points per game.
Yeah. Yeah, and I play you in week 11, which is fun. Um, but, uh, not a great situation for us in the Flock League. I'm very, you guys are going to see when the vlog comes out that some people think that Danny lost that trade, and I'm, I think by four or five weeks' time, people are going to be like, "I can't believe people said that Danny lost that trade." Because again, Jalen Daniels, great asset. Drake London, great asset. I think your team got better. I do think on face value, I paid probably about the highest premium that you'll actually see an injured asset go for in most leagues. Even if, like, realistically, could it cost a doomsday plus Caleb stack right now if the guy's one-and-five right now? Like, people will be panicking even more than when Zach was. So if you can capitalize for less than I paid, all the power to you. I'd be willing to even overpay if I have to get it done.
Yeah. Like you can see some of the deals here like Alvin Kamara, Debo Samuel, Dallas Goedert for Puka, and like even if that was just for Puka, I would do that. Uh, let alone the other assets that got dealt in that deal. Josh Jacobs, Adams, Scataboo for like even one of these other guys in Puka is such a steal. So yeah, there's, there's people panicking out there right now. And it's weird because you think people who have Puka Nacua probably not in a two-and-four or worse situation, but some people are, right? If they didn't draft well, they definitely could be in a rough situation there. Maybe they paired him with Jeudy or something and he went down for the season or whatever. So yeah, definitely a guy that you have to go trade for if you guys are in a winning position. This could be the only buying window that you have the entire season. It might even later in the week, you might not even be able to buy him. Like you might need to buy him ASAP before it gets announced that he's going to play in week seven. I'm literally not counting out a Thursday or Friday bomb where it's like, "Oh, Puka Nacua is good to go for for Sunday." And in the two days you had for a trade window to get him or close shop.
Yeah, exactly. So, he's the best trade target bar none in fantasy. If you didn't take him, I was going to. Obviously, you were the one who made the trade, so I let you pick him for sure. Uh, Quinshon Judkins is a nice trade target for me right now because he is, there's a couple of factors going in his favor. For starters, it's the Browns. Nobody likes the Browns. The second they have a down game, people are like, "Why do I subject myself to watch this offense every Sunday?" The Browns spent more time in two-minute drill situations and long down and distance than any other team in any other game this season, which is a rare oddity that'll probably correct itself. And we know that as of right now, Quinshon Judkins is the early down running back for the Browns. Jerome Ford, Dylan Samson, they mix in guys on third down. That resulted in Jerome Ford outsnapping Quinshon Judkins, which probably won't happen for the rest of the season. And he's still a top 12 graded back per PFF, averaging 4.6 yards per carry, the fourth most yards after contact per attempt. And the last two games, in my opinion, are the floor of how bad the Cleveland Browns quarterback play will be because you had Dylan Gabriel in his first two starts, who wasn't a very good prospect. We're either going to see better Dylan Gabriel going forward or Shedeur Sanders, who's a better quarterback than Dylan Gabriel. So, for me, I think Judkins is a great trade target, especially when you factor in, like I said, he is literally by all metrics a top five to ten running back talent in the league right now. Top five in yards after contact per attempt, 4.6 yards per carry, and a top 12 graded running back per PFF.
Yeah, workhorse size, 220 pounds. Like, but not to mention like, yeah, this week we didn't see the receiving usage, but we did see against Detroit, for example, um, four catches, 33 yards. Like, I don't think he's going to be a complete zero in the receiving game because the big context here, he is a rookie running back who missed all of training camp basically with the stuff that was going on. I'm not going to talk about the legality of it, but he has a week bye. And Corey, what is one of the big things we've stressed on this channel when it comes to rookies?
Post-bye rookie bump. Especially when you're not getting all of the work and you're playing really well.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, 4.6 yards per carry on arguably the worst team in the league.
Yeah. And their their offensive line has not been good this year, too. It's not like this is all the Browns.
Samson and Ford right now.
Yeah. Historically, the Browns have had a pretty good offensive line the last like five years or so, but it's old. They're not playing as well as they used to. Their tackles are pretty bad. So, um, I would imagine that the Browns are going to be spending a lot of their draft picks on offensive line talent. But even still this year, Quinshon Judkins has to be considered still, in my opinion, a top 12 to 15 running back rest of the season. And because he plays for the Browns, there's some sell-high candidates in the RB2 range. You might be able to get up to him pretty easily.
And it's funny because I was actually in advance talks with Nathan to potentially acquire him. But, um, I, I, I couldn't pull the trigger on the specific deal. If we do end up making a trade, you guys will see the update on it. But the specific deal, I'm sure I, I think I mentioned to you, I just wasn't able to pull the trigger on.
What were you offering him? I'm just out of just out of curiosity.
The the two-for-two that he wanted to do was Judkins plus Garrett Wilson for Romo Dunay plus Jaylen Warren, but I was trying to work Marvin Harrison Jr. into the deal and I would give him like immediate production because he's doing four. That's what I'm trying to work right now.
Yeah, he's reached out to me a couple times. Not about buying. I told him I was interested in Judkins, but, uh, everybody else I'm not. Uh, yeah, that, that's fair. I think that makes a lot of sense. A lot of people love Odun. But, um, Danny, you can move on to your next trade target because he's also a rookie running back and a guy that we kind of expect to to continue to get better usage going forward because despite fumbling on Monday Night Football, he did actually post a season high in snaps.
Yeah. And I guess he only technically fumbled once because the other exchange was pinned on, I believe, Jalen Daniels as the fumble because it was on a handoff. But regardless, I mean, people watch Monday Night Football. People see the RB38 production, him fumbling one time, messing up another exchange. The thing that I love most in fantasy is capitalizing off of emotion on an island game because everybody is up watching this game. Everybody is watching Jaxon Smith-Njigba [ __ ] his pants on Monday Night Football against the Chicago Bears. But that's to our advantage, man, because he quietly posted the best usage he's had all season. And there's really no debate, man. 67% of the snaps, 71% of the backfield carries. Obviously, now with Tasha, an offense we believed in, Washington looked great. Jalen Daniels looked back. He was rushing the ball yet again. I think we could peg Washington as a top 10 level offense. And the schedule's opening up in the next couple of weeks. We get Dallas on deck. We get Miami on deck as a couple cupcakes. And we also get some big time overall over-under type of game environment. So with Breece, if he can continue being, you know, a 70% snap, 60-plus% uh backfield carry type of guy, we could be looking at a top 12 to 15 guy rest of the season. And I actually think his market value went down because he had a bad box score.
Yeah. Yeah, his, his, um, schedule the rest of the year. Other than Seattle in week nine and Detroit in week 10, like you said, the next couple weeks, he does have some easy matchups. Other than those two, every other matchup for him is an above-average matchup for the rest of the year. And he has Dallas in the fantasy championship, which is the single easiest by a country mile for fantasy. So, this is a guy that, um, you could definitely count on to, um, produce better. And then week 12 bye, maybe after that bye, he has another bump in usage or whatever. Um, yeah, this is somebody I've not been super high on, but he has really good underlying metrics and he is now finally getting the work.
And full transparency, so you saw the final deal for the Puka Nacua, I ended up getting Bam Knight plus $7. The initial deal that we're trying to work on and I was trying my hardest to get this done is I was going to give him Daniels, London, and Jaylen Warren for Breece Hall plus Puka. But he already, he told me he's like, "Dude, like Corey, Breece Hall, he's already home. I'm not trading him. He's my guy." And I'm like, "Okay, fair enough." It'd be like me trading like, you better give me an overpay. It's just not gonna happen.
I tried, man. I, I, I think Breece Hall could very well win people championships.
He could. Yeah, it wouldn't shock me if he did. And like some of the deals, the other thing that you didn't mention, too, is that the Commanders are probably, you know, had a hobbled Debo Samuel on Monday night and still don't have Terry McLaurin and he'll probably be back soon.
Yeah, for sure. And if you get those guys back, you're getting more explosive on the boundary. Yeah, we see the least efficient game for Jaxon Smith-Njigba Merritt this past week, but going into this game, he was one of the top five graded running backs in terms of efficiency metrics this year.
Yeah, and some of these deals, you can see Quinton Johnson for Breece Hall is a decent option there. Terry McLaurin for Breece Hall and Ricky Pierce all there. Like, there's definitely deals to be made, uh, involving Breece Hall. Jaylen Waddle, Hunter Henry for Addison and Addison and Breece Hall makes a lot of sense. So, definitely a lot of good deals out there for him. And as someone who's notoriously not been very high on this player, I do actually agree with you. I think he is a really good buy right now because we finally did see him get the majority of the work, the majority of the snaps, 71% of the carries like you said, um, even despite the fumbles and the mistakes that he ended up making. So hopefully that continues. Um, this is one guy that probably got to plug your nose a little bit if you're going to buy him, but I do think he can be a profitable buy at the moment. Uh, T. Higgins has at least six targets in three of his last four games. The Bengals have seven of their last ten opponents ranking bottom half in the NFL among wide receivers scoring allowed in fantasy. Sunday's game against Green Bay was the highest graded PFF passing grade a Bengals quarterback has posted since week one when Joe Burrow played, and it was actually basically just as good as Joe Burrow posted in week one. Grades were like really down. Yards per attempt was really down when Jake Browning was starting. And of course, we know Jake Browning had just a litany of drive-killing interceptions, turnovers that were just completely screwing the Bengals offense. And we saw last week against the Packers, despite a really good defense, despite a really tough matchup, Ja'Marr Chase is able to get there. T. Higgins has an okay game, had an opportunity to score in the red zone, just didn't cash in on it, and Chase Brown looked his best he's looked all season. So, I will say that even though, you know, Flacco is not a great quarterback, he does appear to be a modest upgrade from Jake Browning, and this is a dude in T. Higgins that is talented enough that if he has functional bottom half of the NFL quarterback play, let's say Flacco's the 23rd best starting quarterback in the league for the rest of the year, he can still be a top 24 wide receiver based on the usage and the talent of the player that we have here. So, if you can get T. Higgins using some of these like overperforming pieces the last couple of weeks like a Kendrick Bourne or something like that, using Kendrick Bourne plus another piece, you could probably get up to T. Higgins. DeAndre Swift was sold for T. Higgins straight up. I think that makes a lot of sense as well. Even in package deals, you could see there Matthew Golden, Juan Dale, and Rasheed Shahed for Diggs and T. Higgins makes sense as well. Um, those are the types of trades that I would be looking to pull off for Higgins because if you have him as like your second flex for the rest of the year, I think you're going to get those big games still.
Yeah. And the thing with Joe Flacco, again, I understand there was volume before, but Browning just simply uh wasn't playing well. And I do understand as well that Joe Flacco was on a different team this year. But when we look at the overall games that Joe Flacco has started, we're talking about 45 attempts, 45 attempts, 36 attempts, 34 attempts, 45 attempts. Joe Flacco is your standard old-school gunslinging quarterback. He's going to stay in the pocket. He's not going to roll out of it. You know how many yards on the season Joe Flacco has as a rusher?
Probably like two.
A little bit more. He's got 13 though. 13 in what is that? Five starts made. Yeah, every Bengals play is a pass pretty much cuz their defense is bad and Browning isn't really running the football very well. So, you are going to get a minimum 35 pass attempts per game out of this team. And also too, like when you're a veteran quarterback, you see a number five one-on-one in the red zone, you're going to throw them back-shoulder fades and that kind of thing. Like the touchdowns, the spike weeks, the big plays are going to come still for T. Higgins. And it's pretty much been as bad as it can possibly be, um, if you drafted T. Higgins at like the two-three turn or whatever. But I do think adjusting expectations, he's probably borderline top 24 receiver, top 28-ish receiver for me rest of the season.
Um, I would pro I'd be a little bit lower than that. I would say I would feel confident putting him in the mid-to-backend wide receiver three area. And then if he keeps doing this, I would be willing to move him back up there. But I have him at wide receiver 34 rest of the season, just behind Ricky Pearsall, Matthew Golden, and Jordan Addison.
Okay. Yeah, he's my wide receiver 28. So I wasn't capping when I said 28-ish area. That's exactly where he ranks for me. So I, I feel pretty good about him. I think he's a a good flex option, a guy that you can count on every other game to have a big week. He'll probably be inconsistent because of the offense and the quarterback play, but other than that, I mean, that's what you're getting out of like DeVonta Smith, who has like, you know, theoretically a much better quarterback.
Yeah, 100%. But we can move off of T. Higgins. Again, you mentioned you kind of have to plug your nose here. If you can get him for cheap, do your due diligence. He hasn't had the craziest box scores in the first six weeks, but maybe we do see some positive regression with Joe Joe Flacco slinging the rock. Um, this is our combined guy. Um, I'll let you take the reins here because otherwise I'm just going to be accused of being biased.
Yeah, I think Nico Collins is a really good buy right now and, um, Danny obviously will agree with everything I say here, but, um, he's just simply too good to be the wide receiver 18 in points per game all season. He's averaging 14.0 points per game. He has a 25% target share on the year. But the thing I'm kind of looking most forward to, and this is kind of like just like ball knowledge 101 in my opinion, is the protection that C.J. Stroud has seen this year, I think we can all agree, has been terrible. His offensive line has not played well, but after the bye, we've seen this from other teams like the Steelers had protection protection issues. After the bye, they looked a lot better. The Bears last week had protection issues. After the bye, they looked a lot better. For example, the Bears 70-plus pass blocking and 70-plus run blocking grade per PFF. That's the first game this season that's happened. That was right after their bye. When you have a lot of new pieces, which the Bears had and the Texans have on your offensive line, it takes a little bit of time for that to gel. And that's kind of why I was always anti-Nico in drafts is that I thought he could get out to a slow start. And now I think this is a perfect time to buy low on him because the Bears O-line obviously is better than the Texans, but I do think it will be better going forward with Christian Kirk coming back. Maybe Dameon Pierce more involved as a runner. The Texans offense could be a lot better going forward than it's been so far this season. And other than Seattle this week and Indianapolis in week 13, every other game for them for the rest of the season is a top 20, top 18 matchup for wide receivers. So, with Collins, we haven't seen the big plays. We haven't seen the touchdowns. We haven't seen even necessarily the heavy target share games all the time. Um, but I do think we're going to get a lot more consistency out of Nico Collins going forward because I actually just think that the protection is going to hold up. And if they transition to Dameon Pierce, which I expect them to do going forward, they'll probably run the football and sustain drives a lot better, too.
Yeah. And again, I will give Dameon credit, too, cuz he's quietly at like 4.3 yards per carry this year, too. Like I think between him, I do expect Pierce to get more usage moving forward. But between Pierce and Dameon, like I think they've playing playing some adequate football. I think going into the year, our expectations for the Texans running backs was a lot lower than what it's been right now. So if that's going to keep rounding out, on top of that, like you said, the Texans protection, it was bad to start the year. The last two weeks have actually been the best two games for them.
Yeah. Yeah, no, their protection has improved and they've played some some tough matchups. I mean, other than Baltimore last like before the bye, and that was just such a boat race of a game that, you know, they completely just ran over them. Uh, the Rams and the Titans and like the Bucs and like the Jags, those have been pretty good defenses this year, the four games that they played before the bye and before the Ravens game. So, it's not like they played cupcake matchups and they do have a much easier schedule going forward.
Yeah. And on top of that, in the two games prior to the by-week, yes, it's against Tennessee and Baltimore, but we did see signs of life from C.J. Stroud about 240 passing yards per game in that stretch. Six touchdowns, no interceptions. Like if we can get at least a semblance of rookie year C.J. Stroud, I think Nico Collins can get back to 19, 20-plus point per game upside. But even if we're just getting let's say 80, 85% of rookie year, uh, C.J. Stroud, I still think Nico Collins could be a damn good mid wide receiver one.
Yeah. No, absolutely. So, um, those are the buys. And again, we talked about some honorable mentions at the top of this video. Let's pivot into the sells. And you mentioned kind of DK Metcalf still a good honorable mention sell to get into, but another kind of wide receiver three spike week king here that you have listed is Jameson Williams.
Yeah. And like I understand the appeal, like especially in best ball. I was drafting him a little bit in best ball. You're getting spike weeks, very, very good offense. We project Detroit, you know, top three implied total every single week. Like, I understand the situation for why somebody will be in on Jameson Williams, but please don't let the situational factors take away from the fact that this guy was borderline unusable for four of his six games this year. And look, I get it. If you drafted him in best ball, you don't care about week-to-week consistency. But at the same time, if you're playing in a managed redraft league and you're looking at a guy with a body of work of less than five targets per game, it's very clear that the Lions view him as number three in the pecking order. 17% yearly target share. Like, I get it. The offense will set him up in smash spots, but to me, when I'm looking at Jameson Williams, he's just a ceiling raiser. In games that the Lions offense is struggling, Jameson Williams is going to get two, three, four targets. In games that the offense is flowing, you know, Amon-Ra St. Brown's moving the football, the run game's going, Sam LaPorta is giving you that presence across the middle of the field. In those type of scenarios, we can see Jameson Williams really pop off. It's just he needs so much to go right for him to actually have that big game and enter your lineup. Yeah, it's, uh, as gross as this sounds, um, he's not that different from like Jahan Dotson where you like no idea. You know what I mean? Like Dotson has actually averaged, um, more fantasy points per game than Jameson Williams at 11.0 versus 9.7. And Dotson's highs have actually been higher as well. Like his big games have been bigger than Jameson Williams' big games. So as much as like that sounds like a disgusting comparison and I'm not saying that I would actually prefer Dotson rest of the season to Jameson Williams, that's kind of what he is though. Like he's like in deep leagues where you have a lot of flexes. Yeah, you like having guys like Jameson Williams who can give you those big performances, but like four out of the six games this year, you've been adamantly disappointed in what you've gotten from this guy.
Maybe this is Taysom Hill because he was on my team. Again, this guy's not on my team, so don't call me biased in the comments. I traded this guy, but genuinely speaking, in what world should we be taking Jameson Williams over Jahan Dotson?
I, I don't think you should take him over any world. I don't think you're biased for that at all. Jameson Williams isn't getting the targets. Jahan Dotson is getting the targets and it's not like Jahan's getting disgusting ugly target shares. He's been good and Jahan had a couple big plays this season as well. So yeah, like Jameson Williams for those of you guys that drafted him in like the fourth, fifth round thinking he was going to have this breakout season. St. Brown and LaPorta are playing too well for Jameson Williams to be carving out a large target share right now. If LaPorta and St. Brown weren't playing well, then maybe Jameson Williams would be able to command more targets. But he's basically just a big play or bust kind of play at this point.
And hear me out. I've called this guy disgusting multiple times, but I do have to give him his flowers when he's playing this well. David Montgomery has genuinely been one of the best running backs in the league this year. And we already have reports from Dan Campbell that they want to also get him involved more.
Yeah. And neutral pass rate wise, I believe the Lions are like up there with like the Jets as like the most run-heavy team in football. It's understandable why because Montgomery and Gibbs are very good and they are the engine of that offense. So for me, yeah, Jameson Williams when the second you get a spike week out of a guy like this, you probably should sell him, especially when he's got a big name and he was drafted highly and that kind of thing. Like if you can sell him for Xavier Worthy, who is getting way more targets and way more usage than him. If you can sell him for like a Marvin Harrison Jr., who's banged up right now, maybe a team that needs production right away. Um, if you could sell him in this package deal, you could see for Brian Thomas makes sense. Jameson Williams plus Zay Flowers. I probably wouldn't do that one because DJ Moore and Terry McLaurin are kind of ass. Um, but this one, uh, where you're going after Justin Jefferson using Jameson Williams. Like all of those types of deals make sense. Pair him with a guy like the one I'll talk about in a second who's coming off of a couple of big games and go up and try and get somebody better. And the guy that I'm referring to is Rico Dowdle. Now Rico Dowdle is clearly, clearly bar none one of the best handcuffs in football. He's literally been the best running back in fantasy the last two games. And he should see an increased role once Chuba Hubbard is back on the field. And we've already gotten reports basically saying that they're going to be like co-starters. And I would imagine best-case scenario is we're looking at a situation that is Charbonnet-Walker-esque where they're both going to have value. You could start both on any given week as top 36 type of running backs. And Hubbard obviously takes a hit because Dowdle is going to be more involved than he was before. But they just played the Dolphins and Cowboys. And Rico Dowdle was literally 200-plus scrimmage yards per game, the best running back in football the last two weeks. So if that's not incentive enough to take this guy who you probably got off of waivers or was stashed on your bench or something like that and turn him into an upgrade to your starting lineup in a significant manner, you should probably go ahead and do that. Like if you can take Rico Dowdle plus Matthew Golden, like you can see on the screen, for Nico Collins. If you can take Rico Dowdle straight up for Chris Olave. If you can take Rico Dowdle and pivot him into a Travis Etienne plus rest of the season to give you give yourself some late-season upside. If you could take Rico Dowdle plus Ricky Pearsall or something and go and get a significant contributor at wide receiver, maybe you can buy low on Garrett Wilson coming back from his injury or something. I think that those are the plays that I'm using Rico Dowdle for. And anytime you have spike weeks out of a guy who was like a waiver add or something like that, you should probably take advantage of that and upgrade your starters.
Yeah, I, I agree tentatively. I think I'm higher on Rico Dowdle than you because I do think there there could be a strong chance honestly with how he's playing. One more week of this, there's no way you could make Chuba Hubbard a co-starter with him. Like genuinely.
No, maybe not. Like, like I said, I think best-case scenario for him is not necessarily the fantasy production, but the usage that Zack Charbonnet sees, which is like he actually outsnapped Kenneth Walker this week. That I think is probably like a 55, 60% overall snap share for Rico Dowdle to me is his ceiling as long as Chuba Hubbard is there. Yeah, I, I snap share. Sure. I, I think in terms of an opportunity split though, I, I can see Rico Dowdle being a 15 to 18 opportunity per game guy.
Maybe. I, I, again, in principle, this guy's won the last two games. So, he's probably on the high for most of your league mates.
Yeah, he's a due diligence sell regardless because people are going to want Rico Dowdle. Someone's one-and-five right now or two-and-four and they see Rico Dowdle have 30 points in back-to-back weeks. You can attach Rico Dowdle to, I mean, let's just say Rico Dowdle plus Davante Adams.
Well, I was going to say, can you attach Rico Dowdle to Davante Adams and go get one of the top four wide receivers in fantasy right now?
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Using Rico to be able to upgrade your starting lineup is kind of all the reason that I'm selling him because if you have him, generally you feel very good about what you have. It's just given the trade finder and like what he's actually going for on the open market. It feels like he's being treated right now as like a mid RB2 rest of season, which is not what he should be treated as. He should be treated as a high-end RB3 most likely in terms of what his value is because Hubbard is expected probably back this week. We'll see what happens there. But especially if he has another game as the starter, you can really sell a one-and-five, a two-and-four, an oh-and-six on trading for a guy like this.
So yeah, I'm a little bit higher on him than you. He's my RB23 rest of the season, but I do have a big cluster. I have them straight up ranked higher than Hubbard, and I, I think I'm the only guy on the site that has that.
Yeah, I, I personally don't think that's the case. I think Hubbard still will be the starter, but I do think it'll fluctuate week over week the way that it does for Charbonnet and Walker. That's that's kind of what my opinion of this backfield is going forward.
Yeah, we'll see what ends up materializing regardless of sell off the RB1 overall hype. A guy that we both agree is a sell. And it pains us because we just had him on the skyrocketing video. We're very high on this guy rest of the season. We view him, you know, top 15, top 16 level running back, but Cam Akers might be going for an RB1 level price tag in your league. So try.
Yeah, there's four reasons why I would look to shop Akers. Number one, it was Tracy's first game back. I'm not saying that Tracy's going to be a major part of this backfield going forward, but we saw, for example, in Tennessee that in Taj Spears' first game back, he wasn't very involved. And then in his second game back, he literally outsnapped Derrick Henry. I'm not saying that would happen, but it is possible that Tracy is a bigger part of this backfield going forward. So that's reason number one. Reason number two is that he just scored three touchdowns. It's pretty easy to sell high on players that score three touchdowns the week before. Number three, the Giants have the ninth hardest schedule for running backs rest of the season, including Washington, Minnesota, and Las Vegas in the playoffs, which are all top 10 defenses against fantasy running backs. Plus, they have at Denver, at Philly, and versus San Francisco the next three games as well. So, this might be one of the hardest times or the easiest times, sorry, to sell high on Cam Akers. And number four, he can be very easily used right now to tier up to better options because like you said, he is pretty much going for RB1 price tags. If you can use him to go after Jonathan Taylor or Saquon Barkley or Derrick Henry or Javonte Williams or big packages even potentially to go get Bijan Robinson or Saquon Barkley or James Cook or something like that. There's guys that, um, you know, Cam Akers plus Rico Dowdle, for example. How close does that get you to Saquon Barkley, Bijan Robinson, or James Cook? Like that might get you there.
Well, that's, you might even be able to get something back on that. Like, in all seriousness, I don't know why I whispered by the way. That was kind of cringe. But, uh, in all seriousness, James Cook has his bye week. James Cook has had two bad games in a row. And James Cook might be on a team that maybe got off to a bad start. Like, for example, Bodaki in our league is oh-and-six with James Cook. Maybe he's just saying, "Hey, I cannot eat a week seven bye week for James Cook. Cam Akers has given me so much production where even if I lose by a couple points per game in the long term, I'm willing to do that." I honestly think in some markets you might be able to add a smaller piece in Rico Dowdle to get from Cam Akers to James Cook right now.
Yeah. No, it's definitely possible that you're going to be in that position. So, again, I'm not saying to sell Cam Akers for like low-end RB2 price tags. No, he's being treated right now as like an RB1. So, if you can get RB1 price tags for him, you should sell him for that because I view him as more of a high-end RB2, mid RB2 rest of season because I do think, like I said, Tracy could be involved more, the Giant schedule is pretty bad. Also, too, Akers, the way he runs maybe susceptible to more injuries and that kind of thing. That's kind of narrative, but it is maybe a factor.
Hey, I got a few concussions, so he runs exactly like I did.
Yeah. No, exactly. So, Cam Akers, definitely shop him. Uh, those are all of our trade targets kind of for this week. Make sure to tune in, uh, to tomorrow's video. If you guys are Dynasty players, we're going to tackle 2026 first look at like the top 15, top 18 prospects in rookie drafts right now. That'll definitely be a fun conversation. If you enjoyed this video, leave a like, subscribe, uh, comment down below any of your thoughts, and make sure to check out all of our rest of season rankings, our trade calculator on my team's feature. It is the best tools out there to be able to make a lot of trades, make incremental gains, incremental profits on your teams. And by the end of the season, you have monsters that can absolutely take down fantasy championships. That's why we're the stock exchange. Me and Danny make trades left, right, and center. And by the end of the season, we take whatever hits we got, whatever misses we have, and hopefully our team looks a lot better. Like a lot of people in my league give me [ __ ] all the time, Danny, for looking at my draft and being like, "Dude, we should have just left him with this team." It's like that was never going to happen because I sold players on the high and I bought players and I added players on waivers. So, make sure you're out there not just with the same team that you drafted. Make sure you're making moves trying to upgrade your starting roster and your starting lineup. So, um, with that being said, peace out. We'll talk to you soon.