Don’t look now fantasy football managers, but the NFL season is already three weeks old. Time sure does fly when you are having fun, and no time of year zooms by quite like football season. With three weeks of play in the books, you are likely getting a pretty good sense of your roster. No matter where you stand after three weeks, optimizing your value when making fantasy football trades remains important. Week 3 of the season provided a fair share of notable top fantasy performances as well as several disappointments. This week’s buy low, sell high candidates offer savvy managers the opportunity to capitalize on overreactions at both ends of the spectrum.
Read on for this week’s fantasy football buy low, sell high candidates, including Miles Sanders, Mike Davis, Michael Pittman and James Robinson. The following breakdowns and analyses can be used to help guide your trade discussions and weigh fantasy football player values heading into Week 4.
Fantasy Football Buy Low Players | Week 4
Miles Sanders | RB, Philadelphia Eagles
Game script was not a friend to Miles Sanders and his fantasy football owners in the Eagles’ Monday night loss to the Dallas Cowboys. Thanks to a big early deficit, Philadelphia was forced to largely abandon the run game for the entire second half. Sanders saw only two carries the entire game as a result. His three receptions saw him finish with 55 total yards on just five touches. His 8.5 PPR fantasy points saw him finish as the RB35 on the week.
Considering his preseason fantasy football ADP, several managers are bound to be frustrated with Sanders’ Week 3 performance. Considering that he still played 60% of the snaps in the loss, he is a prime buy-low candidate this week. In fact, Sanders has been underwhelming in each of the last two weeks. He was bottled up quite well by a tough San Francisco 49ers run D in Week 2. Sanders is bound to finish higher than his current RB27 ranking through three games. He has a commanding hold on the lead role over rookie Kenneth Gainwell and also brings added upside in PPR leagues as a receiver. With a potential shootout on deck against the Kansas City Chiefs this week, don’t wait to make the move.
Mike Davis | RB, Atlanta Falcons
Given how the Falcons offense has performed over the first three weeks, the difficulty of getting behind Mike Davis as a fantasy football buy-low candidate is completely understandable. Davis finished as the RB27 in Atlanta’s Week 3 win over the New York Giants. He had 50 yards rushing on 12 attempts and caught all four of his targets for an additional 20 yards. The Falcons have deployed a number of two-RB formations, but Davis still held roughly a 60-40 edge in percentage of offensive snaps played over Cordarrelle Patterson on Sunday.
We won’t get into the fact that Patterson is a top-10 running back through three weeks here. What we will note is that, despite three underwhelming performances, Davis is still sitting as the RB23 on the season. It should also be said that he has yet to score a single touchdown. While the Falcons offense may not provide him with many scoring opportunities this year, he’ll undoubtedly find paydirt eventually. Davis isn’t the sexiest buy-low candidate in terms of upside, but he should provide fantasy managers a stable floor over the course of the full season.
Michael Pittman Jr. | WR, Indianapolis Colts
For the second straight week, Michael Pittman Jr. recorded double-digit PPR fantasy points, finishing with 68 yards receiving on six catches. Fantasy football managers are to be reminded that volume and opportunity are more predictive of future success than the box score itself. Through three weeks, Pittman has seen 28 targets come his way. That’s ten more than any other Colts pass-catcher. He was on the field for over 90% of the team’s offensive snaps in Week 3. It marked the second straight game in which he saw a dozen targets. He’ll undoubtedly catch more than 50% of those going forward. Finally, consider that Pittman is the WR33 in fantasy on the season despite a Week 1 dud and the fact that he is yet to reach the end zone. With a more favorable schedule on tap for Indianapolis, time is running out to buy low on the second-year wideout.
Fantasy Football Sell High Players | Week 4
James Robinson | RB, Jacksonville Jaguars
To be fully transparent with readers, this one hurts a little. As a self-proclaimed James Robinson fanboy, including him as a fantasy football sell-high candidate isn’t exactly something that I’ve been chomping at the bit to do. However, in the name of winning fantasy championships and maximizing value in trades, this is the week to do it. Robinson finished as the RB4 in PPR leagues in Week 3, rushing for 81 yards and a score while adding 74 yards receiving on six receptions. It was easily his best game of the season to date. It was also a stat line that won’t be easy to replicate when one dives deeper into the numbers.
While he managed to finish with 25.4 fantasy points, Robinson did so while playing just 59% of the Jaguars’ offensive snaps in Week 3. He has had an advantage in carries over Carlos Hyde in each of the last two weeks. However, it is far from the true bell-cow role Robinson had as a rookie last season. Hyde’s continued involvement remains a concern, but it pales in comparison to the horrendous offensive line that Robinson is running behind. With an extremely difficult matchup against the Cincinnati Bengals this week, owners are wise to move quickly on selling the reigning “Blue Collar ROTY”.
Jaylen Waddle | WR, Miami Dolphins
Just three games into his NFL career, Dolphins rookie wideout Jaylen Waddle is already making an impact on the fantasy football scene. He led the team with a whopping 12 receptions on Sunday, accumulating double-digit PPR points on catches alone. Look no further than the 58 yards he totaled on all of those receptions for proof that he was largely a check-down outlet for backup QB Jacoby Brissett. While there is actually a real case to be made that Miami will be better off offensively with Brissett under center filling in for the injured Tua Tagovailoa, it’s really hard to trust that Waddle will sustain this level of fantasy production. The return and ramp-up of veteran Will Fuller will eat into Waddle’s target share going forward.
Chase Edmonds | RB, Arizona Cardinals
To round out this week’s fantasy football buy low, sell high column, let’s discuss Cardinals running back Chase Edmonds. To do so, we also must mention fellow Arizona RB James Conner. The offseason free-agent acquisition continues to see an even split when it comes to carries. It was Conner who found the end zone twice in Week 3 to finish as the RB14. While Edmonds’ upside as a receiver still allowed him to finish as RB24 on the week, it’s pretty tough to get excited about his long-term fantasy prospects. There is no shortage of pass-catchers in Arizona, to say the least.
One could also make the argument that Conner will eventually see the majority of carries, further limiting Edmonds’ volume. The schedule also gets tougher for the Cardinals in the coming weeks, adding to the urgency to sell Edmonds high after three solid weeks to begin the season.
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