The average fantasy football manager will greatly overreact to new information, especially after week one. This series will highlight players each week that could help you capitalize on these overreactions. If you find a lane to "buy low" or "sell high" on any of these guys, my advice would be to engage in talks with other owners around the league to take these chances on making your team that much more competitive.
Buys:
DeAndre Hopkins:
Suspended for five more games, DHop can be a sneaky value to teams with a strong projected outlook until then; especially those who started 1-0. Without Hopkins on the field last week, Kyler Murray's most targeted receiver was Greg Dortch, who had only 3 prior career catches. It's clear that this Cardinals' offense has a massive hole in that alpha receiver spot, and that means there is a clear lane for Deandre Hopkins to earn himself a massive target share upon his return. If you can convince the owner that sticking out the next 5 weeks is something they shouldn't do, you may be able to find yourself a sweet deal here.
Trey Lance:
Considering all the hype surrounding Lance coming into his week one matchup against the lowly Bears, his performance was an extreme disappointment. However, there are both uncontrollable external factors and some hidden upside that need to be taken into consideration with the Niners' new signal caller. Firstly, I must discuss his ugly week one effort. In monsoon levels of wind and rain, Trey Lance struggled mightily to get any sort of offense going. This is hardly the ideal weather to start the season in, especially as a player who will play most of his games in the Bay Area.
It's safe to say that the weather at least played a role in Lance's woes in the 19-10 defeat. Additionally, in his three career starts to this point, Lance has amassed 37 rushing attempts, both by design and simply improvisation on broken plays. The confidence from Kyle Shanahan to give Lance designed runs added to Lance's tendency to leave the pocket himself creates an incredibly high rushing floor that most other quarterbacks cannot claim to have.
Pair this with the amount of short screens, pop passes, and other gimmick plays this team is bound to run upon the return of tight end George Kittle - and the pure physical upside Lance possesses to become a top thrower of the football in the league - and Trey Lance has both the elite floor and high upside you look for in a fantasy quarterback.
Rhamondre Stevenson:
With Ty Montgomery sidelined, Rhamondre is bound to earn at least a 50/50 split in this backfield with Damien Harris. He is seemingly the leading candidate for the passing down role, with Harris doing a lot of the early down grinding. This gives Stevenson weekly upside as a FLEX start, and could potentially turn him into a very reliable RB2 for your teams. He is definitely the cheapest of these three options, and is an acquisition worth at least testing the waters on before next week.
Sells:
Devin Duvernay:
Even though Duvernay was the Ravens' fantasy breadwinner in week one, it's still clear that former first round pick Rashod Bateman is the WR1 for this team, as he saw more targets and had receiving yards than any other Baltimore wideout. Between Bateman, Mark Andrews, and Lamar Jackson's rushing ability, there is very little room for Duvernay to consistently score this many points.
Clyde Edwards-Helaire:
CEH benefitted from a 44 point Chiefs outburst, an incredibly positive game script, and 2 touchdowns in week 1. None of these things are guaranteed - or even likely - to happen every week. This alone makes him a sell high candidate. Now let's take into account that he was only on the field for 39% of the Chiefs' offensive snaps, identical to the amount that Jerick McKinnon was on the field for.
Rookie Isiah Pacheco also earned almost a quarter of the snaps on top of this. This backfield is certainly bound to be a 3-way split, which will muddy this fantasy situation immediately. This is also not a run heavy offense, nor does it particularly call for a lot of RB dump offs with Patrick Mahomes' innate ability to improvise. Clyde's future prospects are muddied at best, and a complete disaster at worst. Sell now while his value is sky high.
O.J. Howard:
If anyone is biting on O.J., sell him. He scored two fairly outlier touchdowns from pretty far out, meaning he isn't necessarily the go-to red zone target in Houston. On top of this, his two TD snags were not only his lone two catches, but his lone two targets as well. There's no chance Howard scores 100% of the Texans' touchdowns, and this is not a very high powered offense to begin with. He could be a useful piece to trade for some good upside or depth.
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