Fantasy Football Trade Targets: Malik Nabers, Rome Odunze, and More
The NFL trade deadline may be behind us, but Jonathan Fuller is here with his top fantasy football trade targets ahead of the weekend:
It's hard to believe we're already heading into Week 10, but here we are. With just five weeks left before the fantasy playoffs start for most leagues, we need to be realistic about what our teams need. If you're fighting for one of the last playoff spots you need to be making trades and waiver moves that are focused on winning one week at a time.
Fantasy Football Trade Strategy Entering Week 10
For those who are safely in the playoff picture, now is the time to be looking ahead and acquiring players with great playoff schedules or growing roles on their team.
The goal is to have your team getting stronger through the fantasy playoffs rather than plateauing or falling off. For me, this means prioritizing emerging young players and making sure I have handcuffs for my elite RBs if there are clear backups who will step into big roles. Players like Zach Charbonnet, Blake Corum, Trey Benson, and Raheem Mostert/Jaylen Wright could be critical to winning a fantasy championship if the guy ahead of them misses time.
Some of those guys are waiver targets though so they aren't the main focus of this article. Below I'll outline my favorite trade targets as we look ahead to the rest of the season. I can only cover so many trade scenarios though so be sure to use the Fantasy Life rest of season rankings and our fantasy football trade analyzer to identify moves that will help you win your league.
Most Traded Players In Fantasy Football - Week 10
Let’s start this week over at CBS, where Davante Adams was the most traded player in their leagues. The players being traded most often in CBS leagues this week are:
The one thing missing from their “most traded” page is there’s no “market” function, where we can see who these players were being traded for. You can use Yahoo for that, but with the caveat that we don’t know the formats—a lot of trades that look lopsided on the surface come from dynasty leagues.
Now, let's get into players who I think you should target, or trade away this week in fantasy football.
Fantasy Football Trade Targets Entering Week 10
Malik Nabers - WR, Giants
This is probably as much of a buy-low opportunity as we are going to get for Malik Nabers in 2024. He's now gone four consecutive games without a receiving TD and has averaged just 57 receiving yards in his last three games. While the production hasn't been elite recently, the usage has been. Nabers has had double-digit targets in five of his last six games and currently leads all WRs in target share and air yard share for the season.
Nobody is doubting that Nabers is a great player, but his fantasy managers may have some doubt creeping in on whether or not he can overcome his situation. This makes it the perfect time to make some offers to upgrade at the WR spot.
I would try to make a straight WR for WR swap, especially if I have a good but not elite player coming off of a good game or two. A prime example could be Garrett Wilson who has had two good games in a row but still plays in a slower-paced offense and has to compete with Davante Adams for targets.
The Nabers manager might feel like Wilson is a safer bet catching passes from Aaron Rodgers, but I would rather have Nabers, and the Fantasy Life rest of season rankings agree.
Not only does Nabers have a great matchup against the Panthers this week, but he also has a very favorable fantasy playoff schedule with three below-average passing defenses. He's going to continue to see a huge number of targets and has proven he can dominate on an NFL field. Nabers has a good chance as anyone to carry fantasy managers to a championship and I expect it to be more difficult to trade for him next week.
Kenneth Walker - RB, Seahawks
I don't normally recommend trying to trade for players on their bye week but this seems like a perfect opportunity to make a move if your team is safely in playoff position. Walker has been excellent this year and has carved out a bigger role than I expected, relegating Zach Charbonnet to true backup duties.
Walker's 8.8 Utilization Score ranks second among all RBs this season thanks to a larger role in the passing game than expected. However, he's coming off two games in which he didn't deliver in a big way for fantasy managers, and will now have to weather a week without him. If that team is on the playoff bubble and you have a solid starting RB to offer for Week 10 you have a decent shot to get a favorable trade done. Names like D'Andre Swift, J.K. Dobbins, or James Conner could be enough to land Walker despite having worse outlooks for the rest of the season.
If your team can afford to have him on the bench this week, acquiring Walker will be a great move for the rest of the season. Coming out of the bye he should be fresh for the stretch run and only faces a middle-of-the-road schedule when it comes to rush defenses. The one downside is that his toughest matchup comes in Week 16 against the Vikings, but he should still be a good start in that game.
Rome Odunze - WR, Bears
In the two games since Chicago's Week 7 bye Odunze seems to have earned a more valuable role. He's logged his second- and fourth-best weekly Utilization Scores of the season and been above a 30% air yard share in both of those games. He also had his second 100 yard receiving game of the season.
The main thing that has been holding Odunze back is the fact that Caleb Williams has been inaccurate when throwing downfield while Odunze is running a lot of deep routes. If they can start connecting on some of those plays we will see more big games ahead for Odunze. Unfortunately, his fantasy playoff schedule isn't as easy as we would ideally like, but it does feature some high-powered offenses that could force the Bears to throw to keep up.
I do want to be careful not to value Odunze too highly because this Chicago offense has some serious design issues, but it's worth checking to see what the Odunze manager would want for him. I would be happy to trade other FLEX level WRs like Courtland Sutton, Jordan Addison, and Romeo Doubs to get him. Additionally, someone with name value like Michael Pittman could be a good piece to offer, although his recent performances may make that a more difficult sell.
If you have plenty of RB depth and are trading across positions, I would be willing to move pretty much everyone from RB31 (Rico Dowdle) and lower in our rest of season rankings to get Odunze on my team.
Players To Trade Away In Fantasy Football Entering Week 10
Quentin Johnston - WR, Chargers
It's nice to see that the Chargers didn't totally give up on Johnston after his disastrous rookie campaign, and he has repaid them with some good games this season. That being said, it's still only been two games where you would be happy to have started him. The reason I'm writing about him is because one of those good weeks was Week 9 which makes this an opportunity to flip him for a player you may actually feel confident starting.
Against the Browns this past week Johnston was able to rack up 118 yards and a score on just four receptions. As we saw after his last spike week in Week 2, he is unlikely to put up valuable weeks on a consistent basis in his role as a low-volume deep target. It is difficult to imagine a scenario where you will feel comfortable starting Johnston which makes him an easy player to trade away.
You will need to be realistic, nobody is trading a stud player at any position for Johnston, but as I said in the intro, now is the time to be locking down RB handcuffs for the fantasy playoffs. I would be happy to turn Johnston into any of those players if I have the starter ahead of them. Those RBs shouldn't be valued highly by the fantasy manager that has them if the starter is healthy and they don't roster that player. If they have a need at WR then this could be a blueprint for a trade that benefits both teams.
Tony Pollard, RB - Titans
It was pretty crazy that Tony Pollard didn't practice at all last week and then got 31 touches in the Titans overtime win against the Patriots. Pollard was productive on those touches too, accounting for 154 yards of offense. Despite his great play, there are several reasons to be skeptical about his ability to be a league winner down the stretch.
The first is just the fact that he is playing through injury which could get worse at any time.
Second, Tyjae Spears should be back soon and the Titans will want to involve both RBs. Pollard will almost certainly see his snaps and touches decline when Spears is back.
Looking at the bigger picture, the Titans are a 2-6 team and their next four games all come against opponents that currently have a winning record. I would not be surprised if Tennessee is still a two win team by the time the playoffs arrive. If that's the case, their season is effectively over and they may choose to scale back Pollard's workload or rest him altogether if he's still banged up in order to protect the multi-year investment they made when they signed him.
I would love to try to flip Pollard for an RB on a better team, even if they aren't the clear lead back. Someone like David Montgomery should be an upgrade for the rest of the season. If you can't get Montgomery other names I would target include James Cook, Chase Brown, Brian Robinson, and Tyrone Tracy. Just be aware that all of those targets haven't had their bye week yet, so if your team is fighting to get into the playoffs you may want to try for a player who has already had theirs.
