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Fantasy Football Trade Targets, Sells, and Holds – Week 8

Who Should You Buy, Sell, or Hold This Week?

Who thought it was a good idea to have six byes in Week 7 and none in Week 8?

How did that make any sense?

Now is the time to take a look at what managers you play Weeks 9, 10, or 11 and see if you can trade them players that will be on a bye that week. 

You can sometimes steal a win that way. 

Just don’t make your team worse in the process. 

Let’s get to the chart.

Check out all our chart options:

• PPR fantasy trade value chart
• Superflex fantasy trade value chart
• Tight End Premium fantasy trade value chart
• Dynasty trade value chart
• Dynasty superflex trade value chart

Process

To make the market version of the fantasy football trade value chart, I aggregate expert consensus rankings and use them to feed my model.

The goal is to align players within their positional groups and then look for crossover points across positions. Expert rankings (ECR) feed the market model since most users follow experts (duh). 

I then run the Draft Sharks rankings through the same model and normalize the scale to 100. 

Comparing ECR and Draft Sharks values generates the VS Market field on the chart. The Trend is the DS values vs. the previous week. 

How to Use a Trade Value Chart

Add player values (left column) on each side of the trade and compare for fairness. Add up the values of multiple players on each side, and you can look at larger trades.

That's a basic answer, but it doesn't do the question justice.

Trade value charts are designed for one-for-one trades and don’t do a great job when looking at larger or lopsided trades.

Two-for-one and three-for-one trades need to account for the benefits a top-tier player adds to a team and for freeing up roster spots. In two-for-one, three-for-one, or three-for-two type trades, the side sending more players needs to overpay for the smaller side.

For example, if you are trading for a player with a value of 75 and want to send two players, they likely need a combined value of 30-50% more than 75 (98-113).

Use Trade Value Charts to Look for Positional Swaps

Let’s say I have a ton of RB depth, and I want to trade an RB of 35 value for a WR. I'll look for WRs around 35 in value and check the rosters to see if they are weak at RB.

I'm looking for “win-win” trades that are likely to get done.

I find sending lopsided and/or nonsense trades that aren’t helping both sides waste time.

Fantasy Trade Value Chart Vs. Market - Week 8

Fantasy Trade Targets

Javonte Williams, RB, Denver Broncos

Draft Sharks Value: 36
Market: 20
Profit: 16

It looks like Williams is finally all the way back from last season’s knee injury and the minor hip injury he picked up in Week 4.

Sunday found him playing a season-high 53% snap share and tying his season high of 19 opportunities (from Week 1).

Samaje Perine's snap share dropped over the last two weeks, to 17% and 25% after ranging from 31% to 50% over the first four games (before Williams missed Week 5). 

Jaleel McLaughlin’s snap share also dropped significantly in Week 7, down to 17% versus his average of 35% over the previous three weeks.

Williams' work share made him the RB13 in weighted opportunity per game (WO/G), according to Fantasy Points Data. 

He is taking over the backfield and has yet to score a touchdown — prime “buy-low” player. 

Tee Higgins, WR, Cincinnati Bengals 

DS Value: 20
Market: 16
Profit: 4

This move is based a lot on the interactions in the Draft Sharks’ Discord. Matt has been fielding a lot of crummy offers for Higgins that seem to show the market is even lower on him than the experts. 

According to PFF, Higgins sits tied at WR24 in expected PPR points per game. He’s 61st in actual PPR points per game. That makes him one of the league’s biggest candidates for positive regression.

The combo of Joe Burrow’s calf injury and Higgins’ Week 4 rib injury all but doomed those early weeks. Just look at the WR’s annual catch rates and yards per target:

• 2020: 62.0% catch rate, 8.4 yards per target
• 2021: 67.3%, 9.9
• 2022: 67.9%, 9.4
• 2023: 38.9%, 4.1

Burrow has already started his turnaround. And the Week 7 bye gave Higgins some rest time he likely needed more than most.

Bonus: You can bet that the person in your league who currently has Higgins is sick of him.

Honorable mentions:

Running Back

David Montgomery +19
Isiah Pacheco +10
Kareem Hunt +17

Wide Receiver

Tyler Lockett +8
Mike Evans +6

Tight Ends

David Njoku +7

Quarterbacks

Lamar Jackson +11

Fantasy Sells 

Kyren Williams, RB, Los Angeles Rams 

DS Value:  11.5
Market: 19.5
Disparity: -8

I post a trade value chart on Reddit every Wednesday morning. Without fail, the No. 1 comment is always: “Too low on Kyren, you idiot.” 

Williams has been a waiver-wire darling and has been punching above his weight class. Now, he is dealing with his third lower-body injury in the last two years. 

Plus, he can’t return to the field until Week 12, at the earliest. 

If your league mates are still valuing him like a top 12 RB ROS, sell away. 

Alexander Mattison, RB, Minnesota Vikings

DS Value: 18
Market: 22
Disparity: -4

Last week would have been a better time to try and sell Mattison. It is typically bad practice to sell players after an obvious down week. But the metrics are concerning for Mattison.

Cam Akers joined the team in Week 4. He played 29% of snaps each of the first two games. That dipped to 16% in Week 6. But …

In Week 7, Akers hit a season-high 39% snap share, which led to 13 opportunities. 

Mattison only had 11 opportunities, despite a 53% snap share. 

Akers and Mattison took turns getting drives to themselves.

In the previous weeks, Mattison had more like two drives to every one for Akers. 

This backfield is trending toward being more split each week. Ty Chandler even got in there a bit against the 49ers. And for people in return yardage leagues, Kene Nwangwu got designated to return from IR last week. 

My goal would be to package Mattison and a producing WR for an upgrade at either position. Target a team that needs RB depth and also has some higher-end talent.

Honorable mentions:

Running Back

Jaylen Warren -7.5

Wide Receiver

Chris Olave -20
Jaylen Waddle -28
Gabe Davis -4

Tight End

What TEs?

Fantasy Holds

Hold Christian Watson, WR, Green Bay Packers

If you drafted Watson – probably at a WR2 level – and then held him through his three-week absence … then you might be getting a little sick of him

Watson’s three games back have produced these half-PPR finishes:

• WR34
• WR24
• WR59

The first was a little encouraging. He played limited snaps and saw only 4 targets but caught a TD. Game 2 brought a playing-time jump, 7 targets, and 91 yards.

Sunday’s dud at Denver sucked. A 3-27 receiving line and just 17 team points against the league’s worst-performing defense this season? Woof. And worse, he hurt his right knee on the final drive.

Don’t Quit Yet

That all makes this the worst time to give up on Watson. He’s still a talented guy, and he’s only had two full games back with a first-time starter at QB.

His mere 50% catch rate should improve. And we’d bet on an increase from his 19.7% target share over the two full games. The knee issue also doesn’t sound like a big deal.

Moving Watson might make sense at some point. But you’ll probably need to wait for at least a big outing or multiple strong performances to get meaningful value.

See Who's Available on the Waiver Wire

Trades are great, but you also might be able to find some help on waivers this week. Check out our in-depth Week 8 Fantasy Football Waiver Wire Pickups. And check out the video below to hear about some key situations.

Alex Korff, Product Manager

Alex is an engineer by trade and focuses a lot on the game theory and the “value” of players. He spends most of his time in spreadsheets and building new fantasy football tools.