Fantasy Football Trades You Need To Make Before Week 7
Week 7 Fantasy Football Trades: Top Buys & Sells
If you’re going to win a fantasy football championship, you have to be trying to find ways to make your team better week in and week out. One of the best ways to do that is to shop the trade market. Be active with making trade offers, updating your trade block, and engaging in conversation with your league mates. It’s also important that you make quality trades. The best way to make sure you don’t get taken advantage of by your league mates and that you are offering fair deals is to utilize our fully customizable redraft fantasy football trade calculator. Now here are a few buys and sells to consider building your trades around in Week 7.
More: Fantasy Notebook: Snaps, Targets, Air Yards, & Routes Data From Week 6
Buy Brandon Aiyuk
Brandon Aiyuk has clearly established himself as the clear No. 1 wide receiver in San Francisco. He has out-targeted Deebo Samuel in all but one game and has 37 targets for the season compared to Deebo’s 32. That includes Samuel leaving early in Week 6 and Aiyuk missing Week 3 altogether. Aiyuk currently sits top-5 in target share and top-10 in targets per route. He also leads all NFL wide receivers in team air yards share and is top-3 in yards per route.
While the box score showed a pedestrian four catches for 76 yards in Week 6, it could have been so much better. Quarterback Brock Purdy had a rare poor performance against a tough Browns defense. Aiyuk still managed to command 10 targets on the day. No other 49ers pass catcher had more than four. He was also second on the week to Marquise Brown with 158 air yards which accounted for more than 65% of the team’s total air yards.
The point is, better days are coming for Aiyuk. That will be especially true if either (or both) Christian McCaffrey or Deebo Samuel are forced to miss games with their respective injuries. Even when those guys are on the field, Aiyuk has had no trouble commanding targets and making plays. He currently sits as WR15 in fantasy points per game despite not having scored a touchdown since Week 1. Those will come. This is a top-tier offensive unit and will provide plenty of opportunities for Aiyuk to make plays and score fantasy points.
Buy Jaxon Smith-Njigba
It has been a slow start to the career of Jaxon Smith-Njigba. Many had high hopes for a rookie season breakout considering how impressive of a prospect JSN was coming out of Ohio State. However, it can’t be all too surprising that it’s taking some time. JSN barely played football in 2022, missing most of his junior season with injury. He’s also in a wide receiver room that includes DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett on a team that has historically played very little 11-personnel. However, that appears to be changing. In the first four weeks, the Seahawks ran 11-personnel (3 WRs) just 53.2% of the time. That ranked 23rd in the NFL. Coming out of the Week 5 bye, that rate spiked to 71.4%, which was 10th (@Corbin_Young21 on Twitter).
The #Seahawks ran more three-receiver sets, evidenced by the 10th-most 11-personnel at 71.4% in Week 6.
In Weeks 1-5, the Seahawks ranked 23rd in 11-personnel at 53.2%.
Acquire Jaxon Smith-Njigba since they project to have a top-5 schedule for receivers for ROS. pic.twitter.com/69ba92KRUr
— Corbin (@corbin_young21) October 16, 2023
Even before the bye, Smith-Njigba’s role was expanding. His route participation spiked from 63.2% in Week 3 (was about the same in Weeks 1-2) to 75% in Week 4. Then out of the bye, it jumped up again to 89.1%. What is even more encouraging about that is both DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett also ran 89.1% of the routes. All three wide receivers ran 39 routes. JSN was still a distant third in targets but he had his highest yardage total and best fantasy output of the season.
Let me also add that prior to the bye, the Seahawks were using Smith-Njigba very close to the line of scrimmage. He was seeing no downfield looks. In fact, his longest reception in Week 4 was three yards. His longest of the season was 16. His average target depth was 3.2. But like his route participation, JSN’s average target distance shot up in Week 6. It actually more than doubled to 7.6. That got him a long reception of 18 yards. This is just another sign that bigger weeks are coming because he’s not just getting more opportunity, he’s also getting more valuable opportunities.
The manager in your league who drafted him has likely gotten impatient and frustrated with his lack of useful fantasy weeks. They’re probably even to the point of considering dropping him. But they’re not looking beyond the box score to see the role expanding and the encouraging data points that we are seeing. Take advantage of that and throw out an offer or get him tossed into a bigger trade. He might not become a “must-start” unless there’s a Lockett or Metcalf injury, but he will absolutely give you usable weeks as a WR3/flex play moving forward. And if one of those guys do miss time, it’s on.
Buy Devonta Smith
Devonta Smith has been frustrating to roster in fantasy football this season. His managers are losing patience and are ready to rid him from their rosters. That’s where we jump in and make an offer. While his Week 6 outing was as disappointing as any, it was also encouraging. Smith led the Eagles with 11 targets and a 25% target share. He was also top-5 in the NFL in air yards. He has now gone over 100 air yards in four of six games. Air yards and target share are two of the most predictive metrics for future performance. His route participation, average target distance, and catch rate are all in line with what he did last season.
We already know he’s a streaky receiver as far as fantasy production, we have to accept and embrace the volatility. He has shown us in the past, he is more than capable of week-winning performances. With upcoming games against the Dolphins, Commanders, and Cowboys, Smith is in a good spot for his first boom game of 2023. Buy low now before it happens.
Sell Dameon Pierce
Something is happening in Houston and we need to talk about it. Things have been trending poorly for starter Dameon Pierce all season. While the role has been there and the offense has exceeded expectations, Pierce has yet to do much of anything. He has been wildly inefficient as a runner, averaging fewer than three yards per carry through six weeks. He has scored outside the top-20 fantasy running backs in all but two games and has scored fewer than 10 fantasy points four times.
In Week 6, the Texans essentially said they’ve seen enough. For the first time, Devin Singletary led the backfield in snaps. He played 54% while Pierce was relegated to 33%. His previous season low was 45% and he hadn’t been under 50% since Week 2. Singletary also got more involved in the passing game, running a route on 50% of CJ Stroud’s drop backs.
It appears the team has lost faith in its young running back and is going to give Singletary a shot to be the guy. In a surprisingly good offense and with an offensive line that is getting healthier, Singletary could become the more viable Texans running back for us in fantasy football if this trend continues. Singletary is a small and slow running back—a combination that is very undesirable for fantasy purposes—so his ceiling isn’t all that high, but he’s worth an add. As for Pierce, it may be time to just cut your losses and sell low.
Sell Jameson Williams
What we saw from Jameson Williams in Week 6, is exactly what he is. He’s a one-dimensional deep threat who is going to catch the occasional long touchdown. However, outside of that, he’s not going to give you much. That makes him impossible to play in fantasy football because there’s no way of knowing when he’s going to give you 12 points vs when he’s going to give you zero.
While fantasy gamers want him to be so much more, Williams has shown us no signs that he is anywhere near ready for an expanded role. In Week 5, he ran just 15 routes. Then saw his role pulled back when Amon-Ra St. Brown returned in Week 6, down to 9 routes. If we look back at last season, it was much of the same. Williams was active for six games (Weeks 13-18) in 2022, it was the most important stretch of the season for the Lions as they were vying for a playoff spot. Yet, Williams could barely crack the lineup. Over those six weeks, Williams never topped a 25% snap share, was targeted nine times, and caught just one pass. He never ran more than nine routes in a game and scored zero fantasy points in four of the six outings.
Fantasy gamers used his injury recovery as an excuse for that. But what now? He has no excuse for why he’s playing such a small role. A first rounder can’t get ahead of Josh Reynolds or Kalif Raymond? Come on. The Lions used a top-12 pick on a “change-up” running back in 2023 and they did it with a one-dimensional field-stretcher the year prior. He’s not ready for a full workload and I see no signs of that changing anytime soon. Take advantage of the long touchdown and sell him to someone in your league who believes that will happen every week.
More: Dynasty Risers & Fallers: Week 7 Update
Bonus Buys
- Michael Mayer
- Jonathan Taylor
- Tee Higgins
Bonus Sells
- Zach Ertz
Do you have trade questions? Jump in our Discord and join the discussion!
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