Zach Owen

Tools of the Trade

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Tools of the Trade

By Zach Owen

This week, I wanted to take a moment to talk about Cam Akers and a general trading strategy. First, the trade I found on Reddit was Cam Akers for a projected late 22 1st.

Obviously Cam Akers has been injured since the preseason and might not play at all this year. There are some rumblings that he might be back for the NFL playoffs but nothing certain yet. For the sake of fantasy though, it’s safe to assume he will not score you any points this year which is the key factor here.

Contending

So while I think Akers is definitely worth the 1st, that’s not a great use of your draft picks if you’re contending. Buying young players is okay and sometimes beneficial as a contending team. The important thing though is you want young players that you think will eventually go up in value during the season. If you’re trading for young players as a contender, you obviously want players that you think will eventually score points (think Justin Jefferson or Ceedee Lamb from last year). Even if they don’t end up being starters for you, as long as they go up in value, you should be able to trade them for better starters than what you would have originally gotten.

The problem here though is that you really can’t do that with Akers. He’s not going to go up in value between now and the trade deadline because he’s not playing. No amount of hype posts on Instagram are going to increase his value enough at this point in the year. You might get lucky and be able to time it right, but with trade deadlines coming up, you’re better off trading for the player you actually want now. 

Rebuilding

Now rebuilding is a different situation because you have something very important on your side: time. You don’t need to score points. Akers is the perfect type of player to buy with a late first right now. He’s in this weird situation where his value could go up specifically between the fantasy playoffs and the NFL playoffs. Normally picks are around their lowest value this time of year, so I recommend holding onto them. Normally, if I am trading picks for players, I do it around the NFL draft or right before/during my fantasy rookie draft. Akers is just a very unique case where I think his value will go up more than the value of the pick over the next couple months. Even if you don’t trust his health situation and think he’s going to flop when he comes back. Once he gets the greenlight to play, you should be able to sell him then for more than just a late 1st. Someone is bound to get mixed up in the hype.

 

 

Thanks for reading and I hope this helped. Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter @NeutralZoneFF if you have any Fantasy related questions.

Tools of the Trade

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Tools of the Trade

By Zach Owen

This week, I found a trade poll on Twitter which made me want to highlight my thoughts on a  couple players. The trade (below) is James Conner + a 3rd for Jakobi Meyers + an early 2nd. The person didn’t say so I’m going to assume these are 2022 picks.


So obviously the two players I wanted to talk about are Conner and Meyers. First I’ll talk about Conner. Bottom line, this is as valuable as he will probably ever be again. He’s coming off a MASSIVE 3 TD game and should be the lead back in ARI for a few weeks with Edmonds gone. So if you are a rebuilder, sell Conner now. If you can get an early-mid 2nd or an underperforming young player (think Brandon Aiyuk) I’d do it. This is how you rebuild in Dynasty leagues. You have to try and sell players when the hype is there. 

 

Now for contenders, I would be hesitant to buy into the Conner hype. He’s been a TD machine this year, even without Kyler Murray, but it’s risky to bank on that type of production. Conner also hasn’t played a full year of football since he entered the league. Mad props to him and what all he went through with cancer and bouncing back from it, but from a football perspective you have to be careful. I’m just not convinced he can stay healthy being the lead back for multiple games. Then even if he can keep going, Chase Edmonds is only expected to be out a few weeks and I expect he’ll be back Week 13 after the Cardinals’ bye. Still, if you are contending and desperate for a starting RB, you could do worse than Conner. Just don’t go overboard buying him. 

 

Next, Jakobi Meyers. Opposite of Conner, Meyers is a buy low right now for me. His fantasy points aren’t great but he’s still getting tons of opportunities. He’s averaging 8 targets a game. Most players with that many targets are also averaging 15 or more fantasy points a game. It’s not like he’s bad and the Patriots are going to move on from him. It’s been 9 weeks. If they were going to move on from him they would have by now. The biggest thing Meyers is missing is TDs. He literally broke the NFL record for the most receiving yards without a TD this past week. I’m not saying he’s going to jump into WR1 scoring each week, but I like having guys that get targets and Meyers definitely does that.

 

I will toss out that you might want to wait a little bit before pulling the trigger though. As of writing this, Odell Beckham Jr. has been released from the Browns, cleared waivers, and has not chosen a new team. One of the rumored teams for OBJ is the Patriots which would throw a wrench into the “buy Meyers” advice. I don’t expect OBJ to go to the Patriots, based on OBJ wanting to go to a contending team with a veteran QB, so I wouldn’t panic if you have him. Just wait a day or two, once OBJ chooses a team, if you want to buy him. When you do, I would see if you can get him for a late 2nd/early 3rd or a middle of the road older player like Melvin Gordon. Especially coming off a down game, I’m guessing some managers are tired of Meyers not putting up points. Once Meyers gets that first TD, his value will rise back to where it should be (around an early-mid 2nd).

 

So with all that, back to the original trade. Given that I am in the “sell Conner” and “buy Meyers” camp, I went with the Meyers side. I’d take the early 2nd over Conner and Meyers over the 3rd so it was an easy choice for me. Now again, if you’re a contender and really need a RB, this isn’t a bad trade. I’d try to trade someone other than Meyers but you gotta do what you gotta do when you’re contending.

 

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Thanks for reading and I hope this helped. Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter @NeutralZoneFF if you have any Fantasy related questions.

Tools of the Trade

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Tools of the Trade

By Zach Owen

First thing’s first… Go Braves! 

I won’t talk too much about it but I’ve been a Braves fan (and general Atlanta sports fan) all my life so this was a big win. Now with that out of the way, let’s talk about fantasy football. 

 

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I’ve got another trade that I responded to on Twitter but wanted to flesh it out a bit more in an article. In this trade, the poster is trading Dalvin Cook for Kareem Hunt, Josh Jacobs, Damien Harris, and Marquez Callaway. The trade seems pretty fair on the surface and I would be fine with either side. The Hunt and Jacobs injuries are definitely a bit worrisome but they should definitely play again this year so they still have value. You also typically lose player value when trading one for many but it really depends on the team setup. So as always, I asked for more information from the poster. They shared their current starters/team makeup (below).

First, they are definitely a contending team with players like Woods, Jones, and Stafford. The RBs are also getting up there, though they are definitely still in their prime. This is also a fairly standard team set up: 1 QB, 1 SuperFlex, 1 TE, and 7 positions for RBs/WRs/TEs. So their depth pieces aren’t being stretched any more than normal. That being said, they have a pretty steep drop off in starter quality after their stars. I wouldn’t be too confident if Alie-Cox, Booker, and Ahmed were my regular starters on a contending team. They are fine players to have but they are definitely Bench stashes. The exception being Booker for as long as Saquon Barkley is not playing but who knows how long that will be.

 

Still, the moral of the story here is that this manager definitely needs some help in the depth department. So initially I was fine with either side of the trade but probably leaning the Dalvin Cook side without the extra info. Given the lack of depth though and that this is a contending team, I’ve definitely switched to the bunde side. This bundle should definitely be able to outscore their current starters which is the key takeaway here. The general term for this is “points above replacement”. Players like Marquez Callaway aren’t very exciting but he should pretty consistently outscore Salvon Ahmed each week. 

 

Scoring points is very valuable when you’re competing. So as long as you aren’t losing too much age value (since it’s dynasty) you should definitely take trades that help you score more points. I know this seems obvious but it’s often something we overlook, especially when trading star players like Dalvin Cook. Cook might be able to score you 20+ points each week, but getting 3 or more real starters should more than be able to make up for it. If you are starting players that average 5 points a week, it might be time to try and find a bundle to trade for.

 

One other quick note for trades like this is to be cognizant over who you’ll have to drop to make room for the extra players you are getting. This person will have to drop 3 other players which all count towards your losses in the trade. This person was fine but there are situations, usually when trading for smaller value players, that you might be stuck dropping a player of equal or greater value which is not great. So for trades like these, I always try to see if I can move some of my other players for picks to get that space back. Don’t trade your real starters, but if I could add on Salvon Ahmed for a 3rd to this trade, it makes my life easier. 

 

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Thanks for reading and I hope this helped. Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter @NeutralZoneFF if you have any Fantasy related questions.

Tools of the Trade

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Tools of the Trade

By Zach Owen

Hello everyone. I only have one trade for you this week. This person reached out to the Twitter void for some information but hadn’t gotten any feedback (after an hour of posting). Basically they’ve been offered a pretty even trade but it’s always these close ones that are hardest to pick a side on.

"@KyleYNFL what is the best way to analyze a trade? I have an offer for Barkley and receive Adams. I've run this through every analyzer and it shows this as relatively equal. I've already got Elliott, Ekeler, and Henderson, but my best WRs are Evans and Woods. Dynasty Lg. Thoughts"

I gave them some quick advice but Twitter is not the platform for answering this type of question. So I wanted to take this week’s article to talk about it in more depth.

 

Trade Analyzers

 

First, I’ve talked about my opinions before on trade analyzers but I’ll repeat it here again since they specifically mentioned them. Trade analyzers can be helpful but also can be dangerous if you put too much weight into them. They are often based on one analyst’s or a small group of analysts’ opinions on players. From a data perspective, a small sample size like this can be very misleading since outliers are harder to spot. 

 

This is even more harmful considering all this data is opinion based. As much as analysts like to “have a process” (I do too), rankings are just opinions at the end of the day. Some opinions are based on stats, others are based on film, others are based on gut feeling, and most are based on some combination of these. At the end of the day though, they’re still opinions. If they weren’t we’d all have the same lists and fantasy wouldn’t be as fun.

 

The one trade analyzer that avoids the small sample size issue (that I know of) is KeepTradeCut. If you aren’t familiar, it crowdsources player values by polling people when they visit the site. This has its pros and cons but, in my opinion, it has one major issue in common with most other analyzers. 

 

Trades require context but trade analyzers operate in a vacuum. They’ll usually give you some decent options to pick from (1QB vs SuperFlex “SF” vs 2QB, various levels of points per reception, etc.) but they don’t cover everything. They often don’t account for rebuilding teams vs contending teams, player scarcity (How many WRs do you have to start? How many flexes? How many teams in the league?, etc.), or what your current team makeup is (WR needy, deep at RB, etc.). All of these are pertinent to trade decisions which most trade analyzers don’t account for.

 

All that being said, trade analyzers are great for one thing and that’s being a sanity check. They are a quick and convenient way to get feedback on any trade. You need to make sure you look at multiple, reliable trade analyzers though. Then you can know pretty quickly if the trade is at least in the ballpark or not. But that’s it! Then comes the next step: adding context.

 

Context Matters

 

Again, the original poster went through a bunch of trade analyzers and they all told them trading Saquon Barkley for Davante Adams is a pretty fair trade (which I agree with). So if both sides are pretty equal, what side do I take? This is where you add context. Basically, which side of the trade actually makes my team better? This is often NOT an easy question though. Since this is Dynasty, adding in picks (aka Mystery Boxes) makes everything even more difficult. I find that approaching trades and “what my team needs” piece by piece helps me. 

 

First, are you rebuilding or contending? Obviously you want to aim for younger players in a rebuild. You should specifically be trying to acquire young QBs and WRs since they will be in the league for longer. Contenders on the other hand need players that are scoring points this year no matter what position. If you can get a couple more years out of them, great. Even better if you have the young stars like CeeDee Lamb, D’andre Swift, Josh Allen, etc. that are young but also scoring tons of points. Obviously these are going to be the most expensive players for that exact reason.

 

Next, how many of each position do you start? How many managers are in the league? Position scarcity can definitely affect player values the more of a position you need and the more managers need them. 1QB vs SF is the most common example of this value difference. QBs in SF are much more valuable than in 1QB leagues. I’d say easily twice as valuable in some cases. For example, in a 12-team SF league which is pretty standard, each team is not going to have 3 starting QBs (36 total) since there’s only 32 starting QBs in the NFL. This goes for all the positions though. Eventually there is a cap on the available starters which affects values. Starting QBs and TEs are very scarce. In leagues where you need to start multiple, the prices of the best players are going to shoot up. Starting RBs are pretty scarce too but not to the same degree. WRs won’t be affected as much since there are so many startable WRs in the league but it still does matter to some degree.

 

The last bit of context I’m going to cover is team need, particularly for contenders. Rebuilding teams have plenty of time to fix holes (typically RBs), so just focus on getting the best players you can. Contenders need as many of their players to score as many points as possible right now. Contending teams should always be trying to address positions on their team where they are lacking, as long as it doesn’t hurt your team overall. That means that getting a 3rd startable RB is not going to be as important as your 1st startable WR. Address your immediate needs first, then start looking for depth. Now this shouldn’t heavily affect your values of players. Just because you need a WR, that doesn’t mean you should sell the farm for any old WR. The goal at the end of the day is to make your team better. Never forget that.

 

Final Thoughts

 

So given all that, I finally want to give an opinion on the trade from the original Tweet. They don’t give much information about their team but I can make some decent assumptions. First, their team seems like a contending team. Most of the players listed were older (Elliott, Ekeler, Evans, Woods) and are in their prime to score points. They each should have a couple years left to play but they aren’t the super young players you rebuild around. 

 

Next is the team makeup. Unfortunately they didn’t give any specifics on how many of each position they have to start or how many managers are in this league. So I will assume a normal team setup and normal sized league which won’t really affect the decision at hand. Hypothetically if they needed to start 3RBs or if it was a point per carry league, it might change things.

 

Finally, what does their team need? If they were to trade Barkley, they’d be left with 3 startable RBs this year. That’s usually the number I aim for in a 2RB league. It gives me two weekly starters and a flex/bye week fill in. So they are pretty set at RB as far as I’m concerned. Their WRs on the other hand could definitely use some help. I’d at least want 3 starting WRs but I’d often be aiming for 4 or 5, especially in any sort of point per reception league. 

 

So if it wasn’t obvious by now, I’d want the Adams side of this trade 100%. Adams is definitely a player for a contending team and this manager needs WR help so Adams is the perfect fit. I’d also consider trading for some cheaper contending WRs too like Brandin Cooks or Adam Thielen to help push them over the edge.

 

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Thanks for reading and I hope this helped. Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter @NeutralZoneFF if you have any Fantasy related questions.

Tools of the Trade

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Tools of the Trade

By Zach Owen

We’re a third of the way through the season already. It’s been a rough year so far with injuries and some surprise underperformers. Though there’s still plenty of football left to play, some of you might be ready to start rebuilding. That could be trading off your older stars or trying to acquire some younger players. Fortunately I’ve found a couple trades here that cover just that! Convenient, I know. 

Trade #1 - DeAndre Hopkins for a 22 1st Round Pick

First, trading away your older players. This poll here that I found on Twitter is from someone looking to move on from DeAndre Hopkins. Hopkins is 29, which isn’t incredibly old but definitely on the later end of things. He’s probably got a few years left of production but if you’re rebuilding, I’d try to move him this year while he’s still performing. That being said, don’t be desperate! Don’t just trade players to trade them. Definitely offer them up but make sure you get the right value for them. 

So for this poll, it’s Hopkins for a 22 mid-1st. I still think it’s probably too soon to determine whether the pick is early/mid/late but that’s a topic for another article. So for now we can assume it will be a mid-1st which I do not think is nearly enough for Hopkins. Especially so given it didn’t specify whether it was a 2QB or SuperFlex league, so I assume it is not. (Note: This is one of many examples of why you need to be pretty specific when asking for trade advice). 

Most people agree with me here but it was much closer than I thought. I don’t know for certain but I think the issue here is that people are putting too much emphasis on being in a rebuild. Just because Hopkins isn’t important to a rebuild, that doesn’t mean he’s not still a valuable player. If a mid-1st was all I was getting, I’d just hold. Hopkins might only be worth a 1st to them now, but that will change. Eventually someone is going to really need a starting WR and will be willing to pay up for him. I’d try to see if I could get a couple 1sts from a WR needy team at the trade deadline.

 

Trade #2 - Travis Etienne for a 22 1st and 23 2nd

Now here we have a similar but different trade. The manager, who has said they are RB needy, is looking to pick up Travis Etienne for a 22 1st and a 23 2nd. The 23 2nd, especially in a 1QB league, is not worth a whole lot in my opinion no matter where the pick is (early/mid/late). Regardless, I still want the picks over Etienne for two reasons.


First, I think Etienne has a lot going against him for next year. Assuming he comes back okay from his injury, which is a big ask by itself, it’s not going to be a great RB situation. I have been a staunch James Robinson truther and he hasn’t disappointed in year 2. He’s the real deal and I don’t see him taking a full back seat to Etienne unless Robinson gets traded. So if Robinson stays, I think it’s going to be a full RB by committee. While this doesn’t help anyone for fantasy, this just seems like the better NFL move given Etienne’s injury and Robinsons extremely cheap contract. Add on Jacksonville’s dysfunctional coaching situation, and Etienne has a lot to overcome to be the star he was drafted to be. 

 

Second, I really don’t think this manager is as RB needed as they say. Gibson and Dobbins are a pretty good RB pair to have in a rebuild. They are both young and have shown flashes of talent if they can get healthy. More importantly though in my opinion, if you’re rebuilding, you really can’t be RB needy. RBs are not the cornerstone of a rebuilding dynasty team. You need WRs and QBs that will keep playing 5-10 years over RBs that will be lucky if they get to 5. A lucky rebuild should only take about a year or two, but that’s halfway through a RBs productive years. Wait to get your RBs until you’re really ready to compete. 

 

It’s also kind of an awkward situation when trading picks for young players. Especially for someone like Etienne with so many question marks and who hasn’t even played yet. They’re both dart throws so you’re not really making the transition to or from a rebuild like this. Again, if you’re getting a really good deal, go for it. I just think you’ll be hard pressed to find someone who recently drafted a player that is willing to move them already for more draft picks. 

 

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Thanks for reading and I hope this helped. Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter @NeutralZoneFF if you have any Fantasy related questions.

Trade Explorer Week 4

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Trade Explorer: Week 4

by Zach Owen

Trying to trade a player by itself can be a grind sometimes. Even worse are trades involving multiple players/picks on both sides with varying values. Trade calculators can be helpful for these types of trades but you become dependent on the calculator’s rankings/values of players. What if you’re much higher or lower on a player but still aren’t sure how they compare to the other pieces of the trade? I’ve got a couple of those kinds of trades that I wanted to take a look at today and I’ll show you an easy trick I use to help me out.

 

Trade #1 - Stefon Diggs, Odell Beckham Jr., & 22 1st for DJ Moore, Allen Robinson, 22 2nd

The first trade we have involves a lot of mid-to-high valued WRs. The only thing we know about the league is that it’s SuperFlex. Since all the players are WRs, the scoring and league construction shouldn’t really affect the player values (unless there is some sort of weird rule but we’ll assume there’s not). 

 

So how do you approach a trade like this? We’ve got a 2 WR for 2 WR swap with some picks to try to even it out. Diggs is the most valuable player here but it obviously isn’t a clear cut 2-for-1 trade. Does the 1st round pick for 2nd round pick fill in the value difference between the WR swaps? I’m sure some people see a trade like this and can take it all in but looking at these trades as a whole for me just doesn’t work. My simple trick to handling bigger trades is just breaking them down into smaller pieces. I find pieces on one side that add up to one (or more) on the other side and keep doing that until I have my answer. It’s a pretty simple idea but I’ll show my thought process with this trade. 

 

Note: These are my player evaluations and your opinions on players might affect how you feel about this trade. The process itself will work for you but just switch the pieces around as needed.

 

  • First I would say that Beckham + a 22 1st is worth slightly less than Moore. Moore is a young player and finally seems to be hitting his stride with Sam Darnold in town. Beckham also seems to be on track to do well the rest of the year. They both have questions and I’d still favor Moore in this piece of the trade but it’s fairly close.
  • Now that leaves us with Diggs for Robinson and a 2nd which is where the trade breaks down. I value Diggs much more than Robinson and a 2nd fills the gap a bit but not enough. So for this piece I would take Diggs no question.

 

So given those two smaller trades within the bigger trade, I would take the Diggs/Beckham/1st side. I gave Moore the edge in the first piece, but Diggs had a much bigger edge in the second piece. Really it’s the extra picks that are swaying it towards the Diggs side for me. Ignore the picks and it’s a pretty fair trade.

 

Trade #2 - Jonathan Taylor and 22 1st for Stefon Diggs, Allen Robinson, & Kareem Hunt

Here’s another trade where using my trick helps me out. Again, the only thing we know about this league is that it’s SuperFlex. It’d be nice to know if it’s a point per reception (PPR) league or not but I generally assume at least .5 PPR if I don’t know. 

 

  • So to start, I think Diggs is about equal to Taylor. I’m sure this is where some amount of people will differ from me but my dislike of Taylor is a topic for another article. If you like Taylor a lot, this trade might look different for you but you can still use my trick. Maybe you’d need Diggs + Hunt to move Taylor and that’s okay. For me in this example though, I’m going to say Diggs and Taylor are the same.
  • With that, we’re left with Robinson and Hunt for a 22 1st. I’m definitely taking the Robinson/Hunt side of this. Robinson by himself is worth a 1st and Hunt is almost close to being a 1st. 
    • If you think Taylor is the same as Diggs + Hunt from the first piece, that leaves Robinson vs a 1st which is much closer. The different player evaluations obviously change whether you like a trade or not but the process is still the same.

 

Summary

 

Like I said, looking at large trades as a whole just doesn’t work for me. Something just doesn’t click when comparing so many pieces and that’s just with these easy 3 for 3 trades. I’ve seen, and been involved in, trades with 5 or more pieces on each side which I don’t even think about evaluating without breaking it down. 

 

So hopefully this helps with any trades like this you come across but you can use this advice in other places you might struggle in. Got a big work or school project that just seems like too much? Break it down into bite size chunks and take it a step at a time. You don’t get bonus points in life for stressing yourself out. 

 

Thanks for reading and I hope this helped. Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter @NeutralZoneFF if you have any Fantasy related questions.