Trade Deadline Tips: Players to Trade and Players to Trade For, Part 1

Craig Rondinone takes a look at three fantasy football players who you should consider trading before the trade deadline in your league.

The NFL’s trade deadline came and went without much fanfare, but the trade deadline in your fantasy football league will probably not go by as quietly.

The trade deadline in many fantasy leagues is around the corner, possibly as early as next week, so time is ticking if you are looking to make a blockbuster that will propel your fantasy squad into a playoff position. So which players should you be going after, and which should you be including in your offers because they will net you the greatest cache? Here is a look at three players.

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Jay Ajayi, Miami Dolphins (RB)

I know Ajayi is the greatest thing to come along since parachute pants or the GPS after rushing for 200 yards in back-to-back games. So why would anybody in their right Bill Belichick-like mind trade him now?

Ajayi’s next two games are against the No. 6 and No. 15-ranked run defenses in the NFL (San Diego, and Los Angeles). The tough sledding will make for less running room and fewer yards for Ajayi. To complicate matters, he lost the veteran presence and mentoring of Arian Foster when Foster retired last week, and opposing defenses have now had another week to watch tape on Ajayi and find ways to slow him down.

Expect teams to start stacking the box and daring Ryan Tannehill and his receivers to beat them and not allow Ajayi to be the one who sticks the dagger into them. Ajayi will do alright just because he will probably get 20 touches per game, but his price tag in fantasy trade talks will never be higher than it is right now.

Allen Robinson, Jacksonville Jaguars (WR)

Robinson was viewed by many as a top-10 fantasy receiver entering the season after coming off a 2015 campaign where his 1,400 receiving yards and 14 touchdowns ranked him up with the elite at the position. But the wheels have fallen off for Robinson like a bad mechanic who forgot to tighten his lug nuts.

Blake Bortles has done more damage to fantasy owners than internet outages. Not only has he killed people who drafted him, he has killed the fantasy values of everyone surrounding him on the Jaguars offense. Robinson, Allen Hurns and tight end Julius Thomas are all struggling numbers wise thanks to Bortles’ below-average passing this year. Robinson has yet to record 80 yards in any game this season and has only scored four times in eight contests.

The fact is that either Bortles will work out his mechanical flaws or the Jaguars will turn to backup Chad Henne to right the passing attack. Either way Robinson cannot be any worse (unless Tim Tebow becomes his QB) and will probably improve, so if you wanted to trade for him now you should be able to get him at his cheapest price point with the hope that he returns to being a receiver who can post 100 yards and a touchdown for your team every week down the stretch.

Jordan Reed, Washington Redskins (TE)

When Reed suffered the supposed sixth concussion of his football career a few weeks ago, many fantasy owners and experts must have thought that at best he would miss four-to-six games and at worst his season or career could be over. Reed was likely dropped in many leagues by fantasy owners with itchy trigger fingers who just assumed they had seen the last of him. In the league in which I have Reed, I traded for Seattle’s Jimmy Graham thinking Reed was not coming back anytime soon.

Yet Reed returned after a short two-game absence and looked none the worse for wear when he caught nine passes for 99 yards and a touchdown against Cincinnati last weekend. Fantasy owners have to be overjoyed that this latest noggin knocker was on the minor side and that arguably the second-best tight end in fantasy football is ready to rack up receptions, yards, and touchdowns.

But Reed’s dubious concussion/injury history is a dark cloud hanging over him that is wider than a Dallas Cowboys offensive lineman.  Every time he gets tackled his fantasy owners wince and hope he is not holding his head. Even though he has 26 receptions and three touchdowns over last three games, and even though only Rob Gronkowski is a better fantasy tight end, trading Reed now before his next (and last?) concussion occurs and while his fantasy value is decent would be the prudent thing to do. Trade Reed for help at another position, especially if you have a solid, healthy tight end on your roster (or have designs on acquiring one) that you can plug in for him.