Fantasy Football Trades and Flex Rankings Week 7

Week seven is here in fantasy football and in the NFL. So are the injuries. Five significant players went down this week with season ending injuries. Victor Cruz, Knowshon Moreno, Stevan Ridley and  Jerod Mayo all suffered knee injuries. Marvin Jones has been suffering from foot and ankle problems and the Bengals finally just shelved him until next year. All of this is leaving glaring holes in many of your line ups out there.

How do we fill these holes? Well, there’s free agency/ waivers. You can try to pick up a players back up or take a flier on a guy somewhere else in the league. Of course, many of the “back ups” or “hand cuffs” are already taken in your league. I’d take a bet that many of you lost your chance at Mohamed Sanu last week. I also bet Lamar Miller was drafted by someone.. Maybe not the Knowshon owner. So what do you do now?

Trade.

Yes. Trade. This is where champions can be made in fantasy football. You had a solid receiving core when Victor Cruz played well. Now he’s gone and Markus Wheaton who you have stashed on your bench is not looking as good as you thought. Take a look around your league. There is another owner who is struggling with injuries. You are not alone. I promise. Give him a call. The first step towards a good trade is communication.

Don’t be that guy who just sends out a dozen trades across the league hoping one of them will bite. None will. I also promise that. The basic trade has to work in two ways. It must work for you and it must work for the guy you’re trading with. He has needs as do you. For example:

More from NFL Spin Zone

• Dallas Cowboys made the trade everyone else should have made
• Pittsburgh Steelers rookie sleeper everyone should be talking about
• Anthony Richardson putting jaw-dropping talent on display immediately
• Denver Broncos’ stud wide receiver might be out for a while
• Washington Commanders: Three takeaways from win over Ravens

In my Super Big Time League one of my league-mates drafted running backs Adrian Peterson, Ray Rice, Mark Ingram, Joique Bell and C.J. Spiller. On draft day he knew he was taking a chance on Rice but thought the rest of his team would relish at least two solid guys. Between injuries, arrests and general ineffectiveness they have not. He needs to find a trade somewhere.

He owns some pretty good wide receivers so he’s going to have to find the right team to trade with who has a need at receiver and can give up a running back. Since this could be a pretty common scenario I might as well give you some WR/RB trades that could be worked out in your league.

1.) Trade: Ahmad Bradshaw for Kelvin Benjamin
Or the other way around. There is a good chance both these players were drafted in the middle rounds in your leagues draft. We are assuming this fills the needs for both teams. Benjamin has become the most targeted receiver in Carolina. Bradshaw is slowly but surely getting the majority of the touches out of the backfield in Indianapolis. Whether by rushing or receiving. Personally, I would love having both of these guys as my third option at each position respectively. If I need help in either area both of these players will help.

2.) Trade: Alshon Jeffrey for Giovani Bernard
Both of these players were probably drafted as a number 2 for their position respectively. In that case they both become really expendable. Bernard and Jeffrey have scored in the same realm of fantasy points. Depending on your leagues scoring system they are both probably between 70 and 85 points. You were smart and grabbed some pretty good running backs off of waivers. You can send Bernard to the other team who needed a back desperately. Now, you have moved those 75 or so points from your backs position to your receivers. This leaves you room now to play Brandon Oliver or someone else in your RB or Flex spots.

3.) Trade: Zac Stacy for Andre Johnson
You need a WR. Stacy is your number two or three back. He’s under-performed much of the season. He is still a starting running back in this league and that still leaves him value. The guy who owns Johnson doesn’t even play him every week. You will be OK at RB because you’ve been up on the waiver wire. Hey, it can’t get any worse. At least it’ll give you a reason to watch Texans games now.

4.) Trade: Michael Crabtree for Jeremy Hill
 I don’t know about you but some players are just so frustrating to watch. It could be them or maybe the guy throwing them the ball or their offensive line but your simply sick of watching them do little to nothing for your team. You have two decent backs but your flex is weak. You have Anquan Boldin or Rueben Randle and your OK with them in your WR3 spot going forward. He’s been keeping Hill on his bench and he’s not even the Giiovani Bernard owner. If you are able to obtain Hill and Bernard goes down for some reason then who knows, you can trade Hill for more than you spent on him or keep him and win a championship.

I hope these trades help to inspire you to work something out in your league. As always, leave your comments below. Here are your flex rankings for week 7!
[table id=25 /]