Fantasy Football Trades You Need To Make Before Week 5
Week 5 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 5.
More: Fantasy Notebook: Snaps, Targets, Air Yards, & Routes Data From Week 4
Buy Austin Ekeler
Austin Ekeler hasn’t played since injuring his ankle in Week 1. However, signs point towards a Week 6 return. Ekeler returned to practice on a limited basis heading into Week 4 and the Chargers are on a bye in Week 5. That gives Ekeler over a month of rest and rehab to get his ankle back to health. He will likely return to a significant role despite a somewhat difficult schedule over the next eight weeks with matchups against the Cowboys, Jets, Lions, Packers, Ravens, and Patriots. However, he gets the Bears in Week 8, a shootout with the Chiefs in Week 7, and the Broncos joke of a defense in Week 14. Then in the fantasy playoffs he will get the Raiders in Week 15, a shootout with the Bills in Week 16, and the Broncos again in the fantasy championship.
Ekeler will benefit from the absence of Mike Williams as the team is sure to lean on their versatile running back for more targets. We saw that last year when Keenan Allen and Williams were missing games. We can assume Ekeler will see more red zone work as well without the big bodied Williams available for end zone jump balls.
The Chargers have been one of the highest scoring offenses in the NFL through the first month of the season. That will only be better with a healthy Ekeler. He should be one of the most productive running backs in fantasy football through the rest of the season.
Buy Isiah Pacheco
In case you haven’t noticed, Isiah Pacheco is the RB1 in Kansas City. He’s dominating the snaps and averaging nearly 100 scrimmage yards per game. The only concern with Pacheco coming into the season was the presence of Jerick McKinnon, particularly in the passing game. Yet, Pacheco is even out-targeting McKinnon. Pacheco has scored as an RB1 in fantasy football in each of the last two weeks as the team has shown no hesitancy to lean on him to salt away wins. He has taken 35 carries over those two games with six targets.
Looking at the upcoming schedule, the next five weeks should be very productive for Pacheco and the Chiefs offense. In Week 5, they head to Minnesota to play a Vikings defense that has basically been swiss cheese against every opponent other than the struggling Panthers. Then it’s the Broncos, a shootout with the Chargers, and then the Broncos again. They also have two games against the Raiders, including one in the fantasy playoffs, the Bengals, and shootouts with the Dolphins, Eagles, and Bills.
On an offense that is struggling to find someone to step up in the passing game outside of Travis Kelce, they seem to be more willing to lean on the running game than in years past. That will help Pacheco make the most out of his opportunities and to take advantage of a favorable schedule.
Buy Chris Olave
Chris Olave hasn’t quite met expectations to start the season. Yet, he scored 19.2, 14.6, and 18.4 fantasy points over the first three weeks. He did that without scoring a touchdown, but more on that in a minute. After double-digit targets and a target share of 31% or better in each of the first three games, Olave was a massive disappointment in Week 4 with just one catch on six targets. We can chalk that up to a clearly injured Derek Carr.
The peripheral numbers have been mostly excellent for Olave this season, including that brutal Week 4 performance. His target share was the lowest of the season but he was fourth in air yards, though most were unrealized. For the season, his target share is still at about 25%. He still hasn’t scored a touchdown, yet those will come. He is second to Ja’Marr Chase in most targets without a touchdown.
Another week of recovery for Derek Carr should help him get healthy and back to being able to hit Olave down the field. The Saints will play the Patriots, who just lost their No. 1 cornerback and their top pass rusher, in Week 5 and the Texans in Week 6. Looking ahead to the end-of-season schedule, Olave will have favorable matchups against the Giants, Rams, and Bucs in the fantasy playoffs. Assuming things normalize, Olave will be a high-end WR2 when it’s all said and done.
Sell Jahan Dotson
The 2023 season has not been what Jahan Dotson enthusiasts had thought it would be. But maybe they should have known better. Dotson’s advanced receiving metrics were largely pedestrian during his rookie season, outside of touchdown rate. He was outside the top-60 wide receivers in both targets per route and yards per route, while commanding just 16% of the targets. Those numbers have only gotten worse in 2023, and now the touchdowns haven’t been there to save the day. That is until Week 4. Dotson had his third game with fewer than 30 receiving yards, but his late-game touchdown salvaged the day to give him 12.7 fantasy points.
That touchdown opened up the opportunity to sell Dotson to any sucker in your league who is still hanging on last year’s unsustainable rate. Take advantage. As the third wide receiver in the Sam Howell offense, Dotson cannot be trusted for many more double-digit fantasy performances. If you hold him, I guarantee you will end up dropping him by Week 8. Don’t be the sucker. Sell now.
Sell Quentin Johnston
Remember when Quentin Johnston declared himself the Chargers WR3 ahead of Josh Palmer way back in the spring? Not only was that not true at the time, we’re sitting in Week 5 and it’s still not the case. I mean, I guess he’s technically the No. 3 now by default with the Mike Williams injury, but he’s still well behind Palmer. And it’s not like Palmer is this super talented wide receiver. He’s a replacement-level wide receiver. Johnston is a first round pick.
But Johnston was an overrated prospect coming out of TCU. I told you this back in the summer. He fell short on a number of the things that we look for analytically for wide receiver prospects. But even the eye test tells you this guy is going to struggle in the NFL. First are the drops. He had bad drop issues in college and those have carried over to the NFL already. He runs a very limited route tree, mostly consisting of vertical patterns. Yet, he doesn’t quite have the speed to dominate those types of routes like he did at the college level.
Everyone wants him to be the one-for-one replacement for Mike Williams, given his 6-3 frame, but that is just not his game. For one, he’s 10-pounds lighter than Williams. His play style doesn’t make sense for that comp either. Williams is a contested catch machine. That’s what he does, that’s his game. Johnston, though, very clearly struggles in contested situations. Rather than high-pointing the football, he lets the ball come to him which often results in a pass breakup especially against NFL caliber cornerbacks.
I don’t know if we can call him a bust yet, but it’s clear Johnston is just not ready to play a significant part in an NFL offense right now. We can make the excuse that he was behind Keenan Allen and Mike Williams (and Josh Palmer) for the first couple weeks, but he’s now had five quarters since the Williams injury to step up and he’s yet to do it. In Week 4, Johnston was running as the distant third wide receiver to Allen and Palmer. He ran nine fewer routes and saw just a 12.5% target share. He caught one pass for (a career-high) 18 yards. Like I said, maybe it’s too soon to declare him a bust, but things are certainly trending that way already.
There are some leagues where you won’t be able to sell Johnston for anything at this time. But there are plenty of Johnston stans who believe in him and think he’s the next Mike Williams and are chalking up the slow start to him being a rookie. They believe and they will pay up to get him. If one of those people are in your league, you should be listening to their offers.
Bonus Buys
- Patrick Mahomes
- Ja’Marr Chase
Bonus Sells
- Derrick Henry
- Khalil Herbert
Do you have trade questions? Jump in our Discord and join the discussion!
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