Well folks, with most leagues’ trade deadlines already past or in their final week, this is the final edition of Buy-Sell for this season. This season has flown by – it’s hard to believe we’re entering Week 12 already with fantasy playoffs on a quickly approaching horizon. Hopefully, your team is contending for a playoff berth, and you’ve had fun along the way, but even top-seeded teams should be considering how to prepare themselves for making a run at the title. There’s some nuance in doing so beyond seeing if your players have difficult matchups in those final weeks: NFL teams that are 9-1 or even 8-2 may consider resting their starters if they lock up their playoff seed, whereas teams fighting for a wild card spot will be pulling out every last ditch effort to make the cut. There are also some high-profile players expecting to return from IR, so the landscape of those teams may change down the stretch. Consider every angle, and be open-minded in making a last-minute adjustment to take you the rest of the way home!
BUY
Trey McBride (TE – ARI)
McBride was one of the more costly TE draft picks for his ADP, and it may seem like it has been a frustrating season that has not returned on the investment. He has yet to log a single receiving touchdown and has only finished above 13 PPR points in 3 weeks this year. He’s coming off two weeks with 4 or fewer receptions and the BYE this past week. Managers may be slightly concerned that his snap share took a dip in Week 10 to its lowest mark of the season.
Despite the meager production, McBride is still the TE4 in PPR due to the lack of production by the TE position this season. Among TEs, he’s logged the 3rd most receptions, 3rd most receiving yards, and the 5th most targets. He also has the 3rd highest snap percentage of any TE in the league. The point here is simple: outside of Brock Bowers and George Kittle, McBride is one of the most utilized TEs in the league.
The other factors in play here are that Arizona is 6-4, only one game up in their division, and has a somewhat inviting rest-of-season schedule. The Cardinals will need to keep fighting through the end of the season for playoff seeding and have appeared to be catching their stride at the right time. They started the year 1-3 and then won 5 of their last 6. McBride leads the team in targets, receptions, and receiving yards despite missing Week 4 with a concussion. McBride very well might be the most reliable TE to have going into the fantasy postseason. Upcoming schedule: SEA, MIN, SEA, NE, CAR.
Josh Jacobs (RB – GB)
Jacobs is the RB15 on the season, with 6 of his 10 games finishing as the RB20 or worse and only two games above a 74% snap rate. This is another high draft capital pick who had been struggling to produce through much of the season, though he did just have his second-best performance this past week. Green Bay was considered to be a Super Bowl contender by some before the season, but their situation is now clouded by question marks entering Week 12. They barely escaped with a win over the Bears this past week after blocking what would have been a game-winning field goal.
I included Jacobs as a Buy in the Week 7 edition of this article, and he has improved since that point, but his trade value is still a reasonable cost. It may sound crazy, but Jacobs has the 3rd most rushing yards in the NFL behind only Derrick Henry and Saquon Barkley. The Packers run the ball at the 8th highest rate, and Jacobs has the 5th most carries among RBs. Henry and Barkley provide the more explosive highlights, but Matt Lafluer creates opportunities for efficient runs as Jacobs faces 8+ defenders in the box at only 17% of his rushes (10th fewest among RBs with 70+ carries). This is why Jacobs has the 5th most rushing yards over expectation per NextGen Stats.
The only thing holding Jacobs back from being a bona fide RB1 though most of the season was touchdowns. He had only scored 1 touchdown through the first 6 weeks. Since that point, though, he’s scored 3 on the ground and 1 through the air over the last four games. It was anomalous for him to have scored so few over the first few weeks as he leads the team in red zone opportunities by a wide margin (30 opportunities compared to 8 for each of Tucker Kraft, Dontayvion Wicks, and Emmanuel Wilson). The NFC North might be the most competitive division in all of football: the Packers are 3rd in the division with a 7-3 record. They’ve gone eight straight games scoring 20+ points and will continue to battle all the way to Week 18. Upcoming schedule: SF, MIA, DET, SEA, NO.
DeVonta Smith (WR – PHI)
DeVonta was on a tear to start the season (WR11 through the first 3 weeks) but has now gone two straight games under 7 fantasy points, and in 3 of his 5 games was the WR54 or worse. The timing is suspicious as A.J. Brown and Dallas Goedert were both battling hamstring issues for much of the season, so speculation says DeVonta will fade into the background when the team is fully healthy.
In the games where both he and A.J. Brown were healthy, Devonta had the most receptions in 2 games, the second most behind AJ in 3 games, and only 1 fewer reception than the active TE in the remaining 2. Sure, there are a lot of mouths to feed on this offense, but DeVonta is still an integral part of the offense. This past week, there were multiple plays that DeVonta could/should have converted into fantasy production but we were simply unlucky to see them come to fruition – a dropped pass, an end zone target broken up, and a mesh concept he ran into AJ but would have been wide open in the paydirt.
Philly is 8-2 and seems to have a grip on the NFC East, but they’ll continue to be playing their hardest to compete with Detroit for the 1 seed in the NFC. Their remaining schedule is also very favorable to WRs, and the Eagles’ offense is beginning to catch their stride. DeVonta should be seen as nothing short of a high-end WR for the rest of the season that can be acquired at a discount given the previous few poor performances. Upcoming schedule: LAR, BAL, CAR, PIT, WAS.
SELL
Jameson Williams (WR – DET)
The speedy Alabama alum is coming off his second-best performance of the season after putting up 124 yards and a touchdown against the Jaguars this past week. Detroit is the highest-scoring offense in the league, and Jamo provides the team with the big-play-making ability. He has 11 receptions for 20+ yards (tied for 9th most among WRs) and 4 receptions for 40+ yards (tied for 4th most).
Typically, in fantasy, you’d want to have a piece of the best offenses to provide you with more reliable chances at getting production. The issue with Jamo is his consistency – he’s as boom or bust as they come. In the 8 games he played, he finished 4 games above 15 fantasy points, with 2 of the remaining 4 for less than 2 points. He had 5 receptions in each of the first two games but has yet to hit that mark since.
The Lions are also 9-1, and their upcoming schedule is almost entirely positive EPA matchups for rushing. Detroit already runs the ball at the 4th highest rate in the NFL and 3rd most over the last 3 games. The combination of a boom/bust receiver on a run-heavy team that’s leading their division with the matchups lending their hand to keeping things on the ground makes Jamo a very risky asset to take down the stretch. Sure, the Lions have shown a willingness to run up the score whenever they want, but there’s no guarantee they will continue to do so with playoffs on the horizon. I would be looking to flip Jamo for a similarly valued RB whose touches are more guaranteed to ensure a goose egg doesn’t land in any playoff matchups. Upcoming schedule: IND, CHI, GB, BUF, CHI.
Isiah Pacheco (RB – KC)
Pacheco was seemingly the bell cow for the top team in the league entering the season, so why wouldn’t he be seen as anything short of an RB1? He put up 15.8 and 16.1 fantasy points in his first two weeks before suffering a fractured fibula, which he is expected to return from this week. If you have Pacheco, I hope your team has scrapped together enough wins with him in your IR – but you may want to consider cashing out on him returning to action before the trade deadline.
The next two weeks are extremely favorable matchups against the Raiders and Panthers, but with Kansas City sitting pretty at 9-1, they may refrain from throwing Pacheco back into high usage. Kareem Hunt has been a sufficient replacement, as their offensive line is one of the best in the league. They won’t need to rely upon Pacheco’s play-making abilities to win those games, so a timeshare to ease him back up to speed would be very likely. Looking further ahead into the weeks of fantasy playoffs, the matchups get much, much harder. Weeks 15-18 are against Cleveland, Houston, Pittsburgh, and Denver.
The Chiefs have shown their ability to win close games despite not being 100%, and they still lead the AFC for the 1 seed. Selling him now is not because he’s expected to bust through the remainder of the season, but his perceived value is likely higher than he will return. If you’ve been able to acquire reliable RBs during his time on IR, you can sell him for a high-end player at another position. Or, you can consider a package deal including him and another player to get an RB with a better end-of-season schedule to give you that low-end RB1-level production. Upcoming schedule: CAR, LV, LAC, CLE, HOU.
Jayden Reed (WR – GB)
Before the season, we were all wondering who would emerge as the lead WR in the Packers’ crowded receiving room. There was no doubt that Reed took that role with a firm grip, looking amazing on the field while posting two top-2 WR finishes in the first 4 weeks. The Packers are in a tight spot in their division and are winning games, so Reed would seem to be a valuable asset at a high level.
His touchdown this past week against the Bears saved him from what was almost a terrible bust game: 2 catches for 23 yards. This was his 3rd time in his last four games with only 2 receptions. An important takeaway from this most recent contest was the emergence of Christian Watson, who was far from involved through most of the season but brought in 4 huge catches for 150 yards. Per NextGen Stats, Jordan Love’s aggressiveness rate is the 6th highest in the NFL. I included Love as a sell candidate back in the Week 9 edition of this article due to his lack of mobility, lower completion percentage, and high rate of interceptions. Love has continued to throw an interception in every game and has only eclipsed 300 passing yards once this season. Love is averaging only 20 completions per game on the season. With this low level of volume, Reed’s 17% target share simply isn’t enough to hinge your fantasy season on. In addition to Watson stretching the field vertically, Josh Jacobs also saw a large chunk of check-down targets.
The Packers’ remaining strength of schedule is middle of the pack, but they do have some tough matchups in Week 14 against Detroit (which may be the last week of the fantasy regular season) and divisional games in Weeks 17 and 18 against the Vikings and Bears. The Packers may be winning games, but they aren’t a very efficient offense for fantasy production – consider looking elsewhere for your WR2 if you’re eyeing a championship run. Upcoming schedule: SF, MIA, DET, SEA, NO.
Photos by Icon Sportswire | Feature Image by Justin Redler (@reldernitsuj on Twitter)