Tuesday Transactions: Week Nine

Eric Hardter Posted On November 10, 2015

dgb

Dynasty football is undoubtedly a marathon, not a sprint. With that said, in-season roster management is still every bit as critical as in a standard re-draft format, and arguably even more so given the potential long-term ramifications. As such, this weekly piece is here to provide you with a dozen moves it might just behoove you to make.

Continuing, these transactions will be broken down into four categories: players you should buy low, sell high, buy high and sell low. The first two are self explanatory and follow the typical stock market analogy, which is that you should pounce when the market fluctuates in your favor – if you can get the most bang for your buck or scoop up the metaphorical penny stocks who have room to grow, it could be in your best interest to do so. Conversely, the latter two categories represent a contradictory stance, and some might even consider them “desperation” moves – however, it’s my belief that buying high beats buying higher, and selling low is preferable to selling even lower.

Before I dispense my advice though, I want to provide one final disclaimer – these opinions are my own. If you’re higher or lower on any of the players mentioned below you should absolutely stick to your guns. With that said, I believe there’s also enough of a sample size thus far in the season where we can begin to diverge from our off-season assessments.

In the interest of transparency, here were my week eight suggestions:

Buy Low: Le’Veon Bell, Brandon LaFell and Chris Givens

Sell High: Jacob Tamme, Heath Miller and Nate Washington

Buy High: Carson Palmer, Michael Floyd and Alshon Jeffery

Sell Low: Marquess Wilson, Branden Oliver and Isaiah Crowell

LaFell (5-102-0) led the Pats in receiving, while Givens was on bye and Bell on IR. Tamme (6-61-0) had another solid game, Miller (3-32-0) fell back down to earth and Washington was on bye. Palmer and Floyd were on bye, and at the time of this writing Jeffery hasn’t yet played. Crowell (10-38-0, 3-26-0) had a middling day, Oliver was surprisingly put on IR and Wilson is in the same boat as Jeffery above.

Onto the fallout from week nine!

Buy Low

Dorial Green-Beckham, WR TEN – I’ve been very outspoken about my fear of DGB. He had a tremendous amount of red flags coming out of college, including illegalities and sitting out his final year. With that said, he’s arguably the biggest physical freak of the 2015 rookie class, with an upside rivaling nearly every other freshman wideout. Will he “get it” off the field? That remains to be seen – but he did some good things on it the past few weeks.
Jay Ajayi, RB MIA – Ajayi leapfrogged Jonas Gray with relative ease, sequestering five carries (to the 12 of Lamar Miller) turning them into 41 yards. While I wouldn’t expect much more than this type of workload on a weekly basis, it’s promising he’s getting run early. With Miller a free agent at the conclusion of the season, Ajayi looking solid could make for some interesting decisions. But if you buy him now, you won’t have any.
DeSean Jackson, WR WSH – The numbers weren’t there, but in his first game action since week one D-Jax accumulated six targets while looking relatively healthy in the process. It might take him another week or two to get himself back into true game shape, but when he does I expect him to function once again as the team’s top asset in the passing game. He was crazily efficient last season, doing some of his best work with Kirk Cousins under center, and I believe the connection will be rekindled. He stand to easily outperform his current cost moving forward.

Sell High

Latavius Murray, RB OAK – Murray has done much to prove my pre-season prognostications wrong, looking like a solid RB2 with an RB1 ceiling. Unfortunately, he just suffered another concussion, which is his second in the last two years. Perhaps it won’t amount to anything, but for a player with Murray’s running style, it’s worrisome to see the pounding he takes. While this is more of a suggestion than a hard recommendation, and any hit could be a player’s last, it’s definitively a data point to account for.
Shane Vereen, RB NYG–I like Vereen as a player, and he’s finally starting to integrate himself into the offense on a relatively consistent basis, especially in the passing game. He’s even managed a pair of scores over the past two weeks. Unfortunately, he’s now one of four Giants running back receiving touches, managing to only obtain an 18% share of the week nine carries. That’s simply not a bankable workload, and it’s tough to see trusting Vereen in anything more than a best-ball setting moving forward.
Owen Daniels, TE DEN – This was the type of effort I was expecting much, much more of this season. Seemingly coach Gary Kubiak’s favorite NFL player (he’s been with him every year of his career, across three teams), it wasn’t a huge leap of faith to see Daniels continue his carry over his surprisingly good 2014 campaign, especially given the defection of Julius Thomas to the Jaguars. Of course, there remains a massive elephant in the room in the form of the newly acquired Vernon Davis, who is slowly but surely getting up to speed in his new offense. If nothing else, he’ll be likely to cut into Daniels’ target share, meaning we likely just saw the high-water mark for the aging tight end.

Buy High

Randall Cobb, WR GB – He’s back, folks. In what looks to be the last of his slate of monstrously tough matchups, Cobb nearly cracked the century mark while notching a score in a blockbuster affair versus the Panthers. His reward? Upcoming contests with Detroit (twice), Minnesota, Chicago, Dallas, Oakland and Arizona. The Vikes and Cardinals should present challenges, but this is quite the comedown from Denver and Carolina. Easily remaining Aaron Rodgers’ No. 1 target, it’s not hard to see a big second half for Cobb.
LeGarrette Blount, RB NE – Yes, I know I recommended Blount as a “sell high” only a few weeks ago, and I try not to repeat players in this space – but things change. Dion Lewis was lost for the year, meaning Blount appears likely to receive the lion’s share of the work. Things can change in the blink of an eye, especially when injuries come into play, and we’re now looking at the top ball carrier on the league’s best offense – buy now.
Allen Hurns, WR JAX – While he’s not even the best Allen on his own offense, Hurns has eviscerated pre-season expectations to the tune of a current standing as the PPR WR13 through half the season. Regardless, many view this as a transient affair, despite Blake Bortles’ ability to sustain multiple fantasy pass catchers. Yes, Hurns is now more expensive than he was even a few weeks ago, but there’s no way you’re paying WR13 prices. Whenever the output exceeds the (still increasing) cost, it’s time to strike.

Sell Low

Jeremy Hill, RB CIN – I understand this is contradictory to my “buy low” advice on Eddie Lacy from a few weeks ago, but considering I’m beginning to reverse course on that one I’d be remiss if I didn’t lump Hill in here. You can read this excellent piece from Jeff Miller and Nick Whalen to effectively prove the following point, but the bottom line is he just hasn’t looked good. In fact, apart from Lacy he’s probably the year’s biggest draft bust. Now remember, the goal here isn’t to sell him for peanuts, as there remain many proponents of the Bengals’ sophomore running back. With that said, you don’t want to fall down the Trent Richardson rabbit hole, especially given how much better Gio Bernard has looked. He doesn’t fit the traditional mold of a sell, but it’s easy to see his value falling precipitously.
Jarius Wright, WR MIN–Look, I like Wright as a player. But the fact is he signed a four-year pact with the Vikings this off-season only to see Stefon Diggs emerge as the offense’s go-to threat. Perhaps Minnesota will move on from Mike Wallace and clear up some space, but this isn’t a high volume offense regardless. I liked him a lot more when I thought the light at the end of the tunnel was a lot closer than it appears now.
Roddy White, WR ATL – This one remains mystifying to me. Yes, White missed some time last year and started the season off glacially slow, but he finished strong down the stretch, ultimately concluding the season as the PPR WR21. Whatever momentum he had, however, hasn’t carried over into 2015, as White has fallen behind the likes of Tamme, Leonard Hankerson and even rookie Justin Hardy in the pecking order. Though stranger things have happened, it’s tough to see him re-emerging in his age-34 season.

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Eric Hardter

Contributor at Dynasty League Football

Eric is a Boston College chemistry grad school survivor with a minor in dynasty football. He prefers to utilize both statistics and sarcasm whenever possible, believes in process over results and thinks "Hot Takes" are the scourge of the fantasy landscape.