Dynasty Fantasy Football Trading Post: Malik Nabers

Malik Nabers | © Lucas Boland-USA TODAY Sports

Russ Fisher Posted On August 8, 2024

We are so close to real football. We have already had our first preseason game and today is the real first week of preseason. But as I wrote this article, it was still prime preseason practice hype time! Rookies, players coming off of a disappointing season, or recovering from injury are getting puff pieces from the media making us all believe that these players are in for all-star seasons. Knee injury? Watch this ten-second video of him doing a ladder drill! Rough season full of drops last year? Watch him make a one-handed catch, practically unguarded, in the end zone! Rookie? Here are 19 clips of diving, contested, and wide open catches! If there is a player you are already a fan of and these things start coming across your social media timelines it is hard to hold back the excitement.

The question then becomes: what do we do with this excitement that we clearly can’t hold back? Do we try to take advantage of the inflated value and trade him away? Do we lean into the hype and try to get him on as many rosters as possible? Do we just smile and enjoy the warm and fuzzies we feel when we see his name on the rosters we have?

One highly drafted, rookie wide receiver who has been getting the practice highlight reel treatment a lot over the past few weeks is…

Malik Nabers, WR NYG

Rookie ADP put Nabers as the WR2 in this rookie class. July ADP has him all the way up at WR9 and 12th overall in 1QB leagues. I was a fan of Nabers from the beginning and have to admit that seeing the practice highlights is getting me pretty psyched for his debut in the NFL. But let’s go back to the questions above, what does all of this mean for his dynasty value? The DLF Trade Finder and Trade Analyzer will give us some insight and then we can try and see which of the above questions we feel is the right move.

I don’t normally do multiple trades at once but these were back-to-back and extremely similar. The first trade is 12-team, superflex, start ten and the second trade is 16-team, superflex, start eight. Either way, in either league I make this move to get the better prospect. The picks involved are rather inconsequential when talking about the value of Marvin Harrison Jr and Malik Nabers. If the pick was a first-rounder then maybe the conversation would be different. With a first in there, even if everything plays out as expected and Harrison Jr is better than Nabers it would still work out that you would most likely get 80ish% production and a first on top. That is the perfect tier-down situation, except of course when you get the pick and your player ends up being better, but let’s try and stay in the real world.

12 team, superflex, PPR, TE premium, start 10.

This is the second trade in a row that makes it look like the community is valuing Nabers well above his Trade Analyzer value. Even in a rebuild I would take Bijan Robinson here. I know we are getting the “Tyler Allgeier will be involved” sound clips from the coach but we need to remember that no human, except for Christian McCaffrey (I have not seen proof that he is human), can take 99% of the backfield touches. We have seen how talented Robinson is and with all of the improvements to the offense, in both play calling and quarterback, the sky’s the limit for his value. As I said before, even if I am rebuilding I would take Robinson here and then move him a few weeks into the season after the Falcons’ offense shows what they can do.

12 team, superflex, PPR, start 11, devy.

When taking into account that this is a devy league, which comes with a diminished draft pool, we need to lower the value of that second-round pick a little bit. If we are doing that then it pretty much stands to reason that we can cross out Aidan O’Connell for Parker Washington and the second. So this trade pretty much comes down to Malik Nabers for Brock Purdy. Both the Trade Analyzer and ADP have them as practically even. In a superflex league, when all other things are even, I usually side with the quarterback, and that is what I would do here. I really like Nabers and there is a chance he can produce like a top-ten wide receiver – as he is ranked – but getting a top-12 quarterback feels much more important for my team. At least Nabers’ value here doesn’t feel as strong as it did in the prior trades.

We are almost at the start of the NFL season and I hope we get to see Malik Nabers crush it as the New York Giants WR1. Revisiting the questions asked at the beginning of this article, after looking through the DLF Trade Finder and Trade Analyzer, I think I am still stuck between trading him away on the hyped-up value and feeling the warm and fuzzies when I see his name on my rosters. There were very few trades that made me feel like it is a good time now to go and get more Nabers shares.

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Russ Fisher

Contributor at Dynasty League Football

Russ likes to trade and Russ likes to talk. He pulls them both together into many dynasty/trade related podcasts. He has been playing fantasy football for 16 years and dynasty for 5. He spends too much time on Twitter and is always around to talk trades whenever you need!