The halfway point of the NFL season is almost upon us and the midway mark of the fantasy season is just about here. That means the trade deadline is coming up, so which players should you be badgering your leaguemates to acquire and which should you put on the block before it’s too late to trade them away?
It’s been a few weeks since we last checked in with the trade targets, so before I answer that question, let’s revisit the Week 5 targets (though I’m still taking a victory lap from telling managers to trade for Josh Jacobs a month ago).
If you bought into Breece Hall, congratulations and I’m sorry. His success was electric but short-lived. Here’s hoping he comes back better than ever next season. The jury is still out on Isaiah McKenzie, who’s only played one game since I recommended him but it was not pretty: two catches for nine yards. I was a week early on getting rid of Leonard Fournette, who had the game of his life in Week 6 but – like the rest of the Buccaneers – still trending down. And then there’s Darren Waller, who hardly touched the field Week 5, was on a bye in Week 6 and was inactive in Week 7.
Bills running back Devin Singletary has been seeing more action of late.
Mark Konezny/USA Today Sports
Buy Targets
Devin Singletary, Bills
Singletary is quietly the RB25 in PPR points per game. He ranks just ahead of Ezekiel Elliott and Najee Harris in scoring despite only fielding about 70% of the work those early-round picks are getting. And despite his standing as the lead back in the best offense in the NFL, he’s only found the end zone once on the year. His production has been fine—nothing more, nothing less—though there’s reason to believe he’s primed for a big second half of the season coming off Buffalo’s bye.
First off, his job is secure, which is more than what could have been said entering the season with rookie James Cook and Zack Moss as perceived threats. Singletary did not play more than 75% of snaps in any of the first three games and did so twice over the last three. Positive touchdown regression should also be in order as he’s yet to score on any of his seven red-zone carries (Damien Harris has scored three times on the same number of opportunities and Darrell Henderson has done so twice). Josh Allen has almost double the number of high-value carries inside the 20 that Singletary has, which is where he’s scored both of his rushing touchdowns.
Singletary’s involvement as a receiver is also extremely undervalued. His 3.7 catches per game ranks ninth among running backs and he’s also ninth at his position in yards per catch (7.6). Beyond all that, he’s been a downright good runner, albeit on limited opportunities (his 57 carries are tied for 41st-most). Singletary grades out as PFF’s 20th-best running back and he’s running for better than five yards per carry over his last three games.
Remember that Singletary was the RB3 over the final six weeks of the season in 2021. Even coming off his second-best game of the year, he’s still a buy-low target with demonstrated upside and a proven floor.
Tyler Boyd, Bengals
You might think of Boyd as Joe Burrow’s third or even fourth read and you wouldn’t necessarily be wrong about that. Ja’Marr Chase has almost two times as many targets and Tee Higgins and Hayden Hurst both have him beat as well. But Boyd is also tied with Higgins for the second-most receiving yards on the team (455) and is firmly a top-24 receiver after his blowup Week 7.
Boyd was the WR2 last week, behind only his teammate Chase. He went for 155 yards on eight catches, both season-highs, and snagged his third touchdown of the season. Boyd now has two 20-plus-point games on his resume, but also three below 10 and there’s still the matter of his standing in the offense, production aside. This is by no means a buy low coming off his best game of the year, but there’s plenty of signs he could have season-long value on par with what we’ve seen thus far.
The biggest reason Burrow is supporting a trio of top-24 receivers is because Cincinnati is passing at a higher rate this season than last. That rate has risen from 59.5% to 63.1% so far and it’s up to 68.7% over the last three weeks. Boyd is getting a larger piece of the pie because there’s more pie to go around. Also, Boyd’s average depth of target has spiked from 7.7 to 10.1 yards. As such, his yards per reception is up to 15.7, another career mark that also leads a team that employs Chase. Boyd might be an afterthought on someone’s bench in your league and he could instead be a more-than-suitable flex on yours.
Sell Candidates
David Montgomery, Bears
Montgomery is the third-leading rusher in Chicago. Perhaps that’s unfair to say considering he’s missed a game, but Montgomery still has more carries than Justin Fields or Khalil Herbert. He’s just doing less with those carries. Montgomery’s 4.0 yards per carry average ranks behind Fields’s 5.4 and Herbert’s 6.2. He has just one rush of more than 20 yards on the year and he’s never carried the ball less often than he has this season.
In his four-year career, Montgomery has never been mistaken for a wildly efficient runner. His career mark of 3.9 yards per carry is a testament to that, but he’s been valuable for fantasy as a volume play. Montgomery averaged 19 touches per game for the first three years of his career for generally better offenses than the 2022 Bears. He’s down to 14.5 touches per game this season and his involvement as a receiver has been almost halved.
Montgomery’s involvement and production are on the decline and his back-to-back weeks with 15 carries and 60-plus yards could be just what you need to unload him to an RB-needy team. When given the opportunity, Herbert has outplayed Montgomery and the coaching staff may go in the direction of the younger back as the season progresses.
Michael Pittman Jr., Colts
Pittman is at something of a crossroads. Oddly enough, he could actually be a buy-low at the present moment. It just boils down to your opinion of the Colts’ new starting quarterback, Sam Ehlinger. The second-year player out of Texas has never thrown an NFL pass. The guy he is replacing behind center, Matt Ryan, heaved the second-most passes in the league before he was injured and then benched in the same week.
Surely Indianapolis will be throwing less—a lot less—with Ehlinger running the offense. That means fewer targets for everyone–but especially Pittman, who has seen the 10th-most targets in the NFL come his way despite the fact that he missed a game. The season has been a mixed bag for Pittman with a massive number of targets coming his way. His two outings with 100-plus yards coincided with games in which he saw 13 and 16 targets. Odds are that won’t happen with Ehlinger.
The one area of improvement that could buoy Pittman’s standing as a viable fantasy option is an uptick in touchdowns. He only has one on the year. Still, I’m not buying into the unknown in Indy. Pittman was a darling in the offseason but it might be time to unload him before Frank Reich goes back to running Jonathan Taylor 20-plus times a game with what’s essentially a rookie quarterback getting his first snaps at the NFL level.
More fantasy & NFL coverage:
