As you are reading this, I may be stranded in an airport as Hurricane Florence bares down on the Carolinas. If all goes well, I will not be able to comment on your posts this week, as I’ll be celebrating our first anniversary with my wife on the beaches of Curacao (and reluctantly missing week 2 and a huge Packers-Vikings matchup). Hopefully she doesn’t read this. Anyway, I’ll be back next week answer any questions!
In this week’s dive, let’s take a look at some players that are on the tail-end of their careers. They shouldn’t cost much to acquire from a team in re-build. Knowing when to trade future assets for players that will help you now is crucial. Similar to the trade deadlines in Keeper leagues, you have to know when to go all in, or when to sell off your studs. Here are few guys that are worth giving up future assets for.
A Shady Situation
RB – Lesean McCoy
I just got done watching the condensed version of the Bills game. This was 40 minutes that I won’t get back from my life. Hopefully, none of you suffered through this game in its entirety. I had to go back and watch after I saw McCoy’s final line. At age 30, McCoy’s value is rapidly falling in dynasty circles. After week 1, his stock fell even further. The price for McCoy is the lowest it will ever be and savvy owners should take advantage. If you check Rudy’s ROS projections, the robot has him at 16 for RB’s overall in PPR. You can confidently fill out your RB2 slot, or Flex with him. While he is a slight injury risk, he is worth making an offer on. With the Bills making a change at quarterback for week 2, the offense should look a bit different. McCoy’s line would have looked much better if it wasn’t for the multiple holding penalties that negated his runs. McCoy is still a stud and should be treated as such. There was some fear in the off-season that the addition of Ivory would cut into McCoy’s workload, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. There wasn’t an Ivory sighting until Buffalo was down 40, and while Ivory may vulture a few goal line touches, it shouldn’t be anything to worry about. You may be able to steal McCoy for almost nothing.
WR – AJ Green
I wish I got this blurb about Green posted before Thursday’s game. I had it written up in the preseason but chose to cover impact rookies first. After Green’s performance last night, it may be difficult to land him. It will take a larger haul and a unique situation to acquire Green. Green is coming off of a down year. His ADP has steadily been on the decline since entering the league and is currently the lowest it’s ever been at 22. Andy Dalton spent most of the 2017 season running for his life, as the Bengals O-line could have arguably been the worst in the league. Cincinnati invested in their O-line this season and it should result in a bounce back year for Green. Dalton will have the time to get him the ball this year. If he is sitting on a roster that is in re-build it may still be possible. A 1st round pick and some younger talent may be able to make another owner believe that the grass is greener on the other.
A Sorry Receiver Like Crabtree?!
WR – Michael Crabtree
Crabtree is a sneaky acquisition to target for competing teams. You don’t have to give up much to get him. He is going to be an extremely high volume, WR 2 and could get your team over the hump. With 16 targets through 2 weeks you can expect more of the same. If you aren’t willing to sell-out on AJ Green, Crabtree is a nice pivot off of him. He is a low risk acquisition and will not leave you hung out to dry in your 2019 draft.
I originally had a nice paragraph here about how Delanie Walker would win leagues this year. He then went on to suffer a gruesome ankle injury. He is droppable in all re-draft leagues and should be put on IR in Dynasty. It’s possible that at his age he may have played his last snap, but we’ll hope for a full recovery. After I found out about the injury I quickly put together something on another ageing TE that was a lock to produce all year. Greg Olsen also went down with a foot injury on Sunday. At this point, I stopped writing about TE’s out of fear of jinxing the few that are left.
Just kidding, a guy that you may be able to trade for instead is Jared Cook. I was curious to see where Cook was ranked after the injuries to two of the premier TE’s in the league. Our 17 Week Player Rater has Cook ranked as the rest of season TE 5. Cook, Age 31 had an ADP of 200+ this summer. In 2017 he was just shy of 800 snaps and had 50+ receptions. He is a must own in all formats. Although it is a small sample size, Gruden seems to like Cook and he should be a focal point in a lackluster Raiders offense.
