Can you believe we’re already in week 9 of the NFL season? This year has gone by at breakneck speed! Be sure to check the league settings for your trade deadline. I have Sleeper leagues ending this week. Most appear to be week 11 (Yahoo and CBS) or week 13 (ESPN). Don’t miss your last chance to trade. I’ll be back in week 10 and week 11 for the final push!
Note 1: Chart trends are relative to week 7 values. As such, they will be a bit larger than the typical week-to-week movement.
Adjusted Reddit Business Value Charts with a twist
As PeakedInHighSkool, I’ve been producing commercial value graphics on Reddit and my Patreon for several years now, and I’m thrilled to collaborate with the amazing team here at Athleticism to make an exclusive bi-weekly edition.
I started the process of modeling fantasy football business values in 2017 based on some negative complaints on Reddit (shocking, I know). Linear positional rankings looked solid, but relationships between positions had some bias, especially at the top and bottom of traditional charts. So I embarked on the daunting task of trying to fix these observed issues using data from the Reddit crowd. If you’re unfamiliar with Reddit, there’s a weekly thread where users can post individual players, and other users will reply with your mom is joking“reasonable” trades they have seen or think might be accepted. There are often hundreds or thousands of responses of varying quality.
What I did (and still do) is go through this and look for crossover points between positions. Where people make a one-for-one trade of a running back for a wide receiver/tight end/quarterback and use those deals to adjust the lineal ranks relative to each other. I used these inputs to build an empirical model that defines positional value in terms of return value. I feed seed data weekly (expert consensus ranks) and generate updated weekly trade value charts.
I’m super excited to work with the expert binders here at Athleticism, and using their exclusive ranks as seed data for my model. You can’t find them anywhere else!
How to use these charts
My goal was to make them as user-friendly as possible. I did this by creating two different formats. First, embedded images that are intended for specific formats. The second is an exclusive CSV file that I created and that everything Athleticism users can download and play with.
The leftmost column is the player’s trade value. All players in that particular line have the same trade value. This is the best way to look for even one-for-one positional swap trades (i.e. a rollback for a wide receiver). When considering larger trades like a two-for-one, be sure to sum the trade values on each side to find equity. Typically, the team that sells the most players has to overpay for the right to consolidate and open up a roster spot. Not all trades need to be perfectly equal, but they should be relatively close. The goal is to seek win-win exchanges and keep the league happy and healthy!
Come back
That chasm between Tier 4 and Tier 5 looks even bigger now than it did in Week 7. It looks like the Packers figured out how to move forward with Aaron Jones, which saved his crush value. Now is the time of year where I really look to consolidate and step up a level or two. Filling with fliers like Kyren Williams, Rachaad White or Isiah Pacheco. I’m looking for running backs who throw darts with the chance to be part of your lineup.
wide receiver
It’s good to see DeAndre Hopkins back on the court and crushing him as usual. He pushed the trade values chart up! The first two tiers of wide receivers feel much safer than Tier 3+, but there are still plenty of advantages in Tiers 4-6. DJ Moore and Terry McLaurin turn it on at the right time of year. Which means we may have missed their low buy window. I would look to combine any level 7+ wide receiver with a player to upgrade this player. The position seems really flat after level 6.
tight end
Only Travis Kelce and Mark Andrews are in the top 3. We need to scroll down to level 5 (Kittle) to find another tight end on the trade chart. Level 7 guys might have a shot at rising above the streaming conversation, but haven’t proven it yet. Guys in levels 9-11 are all heads or tails. Move them if you can get value.
Week 9 Charts
Excel file
If you have any trading questions, drop them in the comments and we’ll try to answer them!
(Top photo: Jeffrey Becker – USA TODAY Sports)
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