Dynasty Buy Low/Sell High: Wide Receiver Edition (#FantasyFootball)

Dynasty Football Offseason Buy Low & Sell High

This time of year may be the second most exciting time of the year for Dynasty players. That time between the championship game and the NFL Draft is a great time to evaluate your team, make trades and get ready for your Rookie Draft.

Every year there are a handful of players that either grossly underperformed or far exceeded their expectations. If you are a smart dynasty owner (and if you’re reading this blog, then I’ll assume that you are) now is the time to take advantage of some of those players. The following two slides are my Buy Low/Sell High Wide Receivers…

Buy Low

Tyrell Williams (LAC)

Ty Williams was grossly outplayed by fellow WR Mike Williams this season. Tyrell only had two fewer receptions, but Mike had 10 TDs compared to Tyrell’s five. With Keenan Allen clearly the No. 1 option, Mike Williams the preferred red zone option, and Melvin Gordon also soaking up targets, Tyrell’s fantasy potential in this offense took a huge hit in 2018.

Now is the time to buy all stock in Tyrell Williams that you can. He will become a free agent this offseason and it’s unlikely that he re-signs with the Chargers. In this extremely thin class of free agent WRs, Tyrell’s market price of $9.6m-per-year (via Spotrac.com) will be more than the Chargers will be willing to pay, leaving him to sign with any team he wants. In my bold predictions piece on FantasyPros, I predicted he would land in Indy and be the No. 2 next to T.Y. Hilton, but where ever he lands, his fantasy value should rise — buy now before its too late.

Jarvis Landry (CLE)

After starting the season by getting double-digit targets in six of his first eight games, Landry ended the season with eight straight games with single-digit targets and a career-low 81 receptions. That isn’t exactly the encore performance owners were looking for after his league-leading 112 receptions last season. If you do not own Landry in your dynasty leagues, it is the perfect time to buy for 2019. Why?

During the second half of the season, when Landry was getting single-digit targets, he was averaging nearly 14 yards per catch, which would be a career high if he were to maintain that for an entire season. The Browns started to open up the offense more down the stretch as Baker Mayfield started to show signs that he is going to be a great QB in this league. New HC Freddie Kitchens will find a way to get Landry the ball more in this offense and if Landry can keep that 14 yards per catch while increasing his volume, he will have his best season yet.

Doug Baldwin (SEA)

Baldwin dealt with injuries all season and even though he claimed on multiple occasions that he was 100 percent, I don’t think he ever truly was. The Seahawks were the most run-heavy team in the league, so I don’t think he will ever be a 100-plus target player again, but his value is so low right now you could get him for a “low-end WR3” or “flex” price right now.

He has the upside of 7-to-10 TDs if he stays healthy — he had five TDs in 13 games this year and he was severely limited in some of those games. I also think his running mate on the other side will have some regression from the ridiculous efficiency he enjoyed in 2018 — but we will get to him later. Don’t sell the farm for Baldwin, in fact, don’t even sell the cow, but if you can get him for a few chickens, jump on it… Okay, that’s enough farm references.

Antonio Brown (PIT)

Brown’s value has never been lower then it is right now. It is all but guaranteed that he won’t be a Steeler next season and looking at the NFL landscape, there isn’t any situation that he can go to that will improve his fantasy status. The Steelers threw the ball more than any other team in the league, in fact, they threw 45 more passes then the second leading team, the Colts. That’s an entire game’s worth of pass attempts. It would be like if Brown played 17 games and the rest of the league played 16.

Will he go somewhere and be a top fantasy WR? Yes. Will he be a perennial top 3 WR again? No. But that’s fine, because if the owner of AB is worried about where he might land, maybe he will trade him for less than he is actually worth? You will still have to give up a decent amount to get him right now in January, but let’s say he somehow ends up on a pass happy team, his value shoots back up. Get him while it’s still an unknown.

Sell High

Tyler Lockett (SEA)

Lockett had one of the most efficient seasons in the history of the NFL — and that is not hyperbole. Russell Wilson, when targetting Lockett this season, had a perfect passer rating. You read that right. Russell Wilson had a perfect 158.3 passer rating when he targetted Tyler Lockett this season.

That. Is. Insane.

To put that in perspective, the closest any QB/WR combo has come to the perfect passer rating was Philip Rivers and Malcom Floyd in 2008 with a 153.7, but Floyd only had 27 receptions and four TDs, whereas Lockett had 57 catches and 10 TDs. In other words, history says this level of efficiency is unsustainable and if you are an owner of Lockett you should try to sell him high.

James Washington (PIT)

Don’t get me wrong, I love James Washington, and, if Antonio Brown does end up getting traded, I think he steps right in as the No. 2 WR and immediately becomes fantasy relevant. So why sell high? Because people will be expecting him to be what Juju Smith-Schuster was this season in the No. 2 role, and that won’t be the case.

I’m only selling Washington if I can get a good return on him, but his value right now, with all the rumors swirling around Antonio Brown, is as high as it will ever be. I would try making an offer to the Antonio Brown owner who might be nervous that Brown won’t be the Top 3 WR he was used to having on his roster. Or, maybe there is a team in desperate need of a WR, but he has some good assets you might want in return like a stud RB or a couple draft picks.

Again, I’m not saying you have to sell Washington, but if you can get a good trade package that will improve your team in the long and short run, I’d make that move.

Julian Edelman (NE)

This one is an easy one for me. You have an aging WR with an aging QB and may only have one or two seasons left — if that. From Week 5 on, after serving his four-game suspension, Edelman was WR9 in PPR leagues. He had the sixth most targets and eighth most receptions over that span, while also having zero “bust” games. He was one of the most consistent WRs in all of fantasy football, and if you own him you were very happy with his production this season.

But, it’s time for you to move on from him. Your best trade partner would be a title contending team that needs that “one piece” to help him get there…or rather, that’s how you will sell it to him.

Adam Humphries** (TB)

Humphries had a great 2018 season, setting career highs in targets, receptions, yards and TDs. Going into his fifth year, he is someone I would normally suggest buying if you could. However, Humphries is in a unique situation. He plays alongside one of the top WRs in fantasy, Mike Evans. Chris Godwin is likely to take another step forward in his development after a good sophomore season, and, the thing that may hurt him the most, Bruce Arians was named the head coach.

Arians is a “pass the ball down the field” type of coach. His WRs typically lead the NFL in aDOT (average depth of target). Some of the WRs he has coached as either the head coach or coordinator include Antonio Brown, T.Y. Hilton and John Brown — all guys who were near the top in aDOT during his tenure. Adam Humphries doesn’t fit the mold of a WR that will be running deep down the field. He is more of a poor man’s Julian Edelman, running short underneath routes, routes that Arians likes his RBs to run. If you are able to get a good return on trading Humphries now, I would jump at that chance, there are just too many things working against him that will keep him from having an encore season in 2019. **Humphries is a free agent, so his outlook could change in the right situation, but I’m still selling him coming off his career season

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