If you recall in past fantasy football seasons here at The Athletic, the rest-of-season Big Board rankings and trade value chart were separate entities. Well, we’re doing something different this year, combining Brandon Funston’s rankings with Austin Mock’s trade value chart, essentially killing two birds with one stone. And we added a downloadable version of the chart at the bottom of this column.
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This chart (board?) is meant to be used as a general player valuation guide for the basis of fantasy football trade negotiations in 1QB, half-PPR formats. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and certainly readers will find disagreements with some of the valuations here. That’s fine — again, this is just another tool at your disposal as you try to determine a deal that might work for you in your league. That said, before we get to the chart, here are Funston’s explanations for some of the biggest value differences on this board compared to the industry consensus (ECR of experts who updated ranks this week).
Ranked Considerably Higher by Funston
Aaron Jones, RB, GB — I’m a whopping 20 overall spots ahead of the industry on Jones, who is my RB16 compared to an ECR of 22. Since when is a healthy Jones RB22? He’s lived in or around RB1 territory since he became a regular in the Packers backfield. He was the No. 1 fantasy RB in Week 1 despite suffering a hamstring injury in the third quarter. He’s amassed just 6 touches since then (all in Week 4 vs. DET), but the Packers made the smart move to sit him in Week 5 ahead of this week’s bye. No doubt Green Bay will welcome his healthy return as AJ Dillon has averaged just 3.4 yards a carry on 51 carries, and has a lone TD and catch over the past four games with Jones (mostly) out.
Jaleel McLaughlin, RB, DEN — At 10 spots higher at the RB position than the industry (RB37 vs. RB47), I’d definitely be a McLaughlin buyer at current market rates. Production and efficiency seem to follow him around. As a senior at Youngstown St., he rushed for 1,588 yards at a 7.0 clip per carry, and he also averaged 15.8 yards per catch on 19 receptions. Among RBs with as many touches (29), McLaughlin currently ranks second in half-PPR Fantasy Points per Touch (1.45), behind only De’Von Achane. On that same list, Samaje Perine (0.80) ranks 17th and Javonte Williams (0.50) ranks 40th. Yes, McLaughlin has made most of his hay with Williams out the past two weeks, but it’s going to be hard to keep the best thing going in this Denver offense under wraps even when Williams returns. And we shouldn’t assume when Williams returns that his health injuries just become water under the bridge — that won’t likely be until 2024.
Curtis Samuel, WR, WAS — In his past four full seasons (he only played 5 games in 2021), Samuel has half-PPR PPG finishes of WR42 (2022), WR26 (2020), WR46 (2019), WR35 (2018). Through five weeks of 2023, Samuel ranks WR36. I’m not even saying he should be ranked as a WR3 — I have him as a back-end WR4 (my No. 48 WR) — but he sure as hell should be deemed a Top 50 WR commodity at this point, right? He’s at least earned that, yet the industry clocks in at WR66.
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Ranked Considerably Lower by Funston
Jared Goff, QB, DET — Goff currently ranks as QB11 in FAN PPG, and he’s QB12 in the industry rankings — I’m at QB17. My reasoning for being so much lower is that Goff has 2 rushing touchdowns. If you take those away, his PPG ranking drops to… you guessed it, QB17. Before his rushing TD in Week 3, he had gone 35 straight games without a rushing TD. To say that his two rushing TDs to this point aren’t bankable is an understatement. His passing numbers are serviceable in a solid backup QB in a 12-team league kind of way, which is how I have him ranked.
Luke Musgrave, GB, TE — You won’t find Musgrave on the chart — I only have 11 tight ends on this list, and Musgrave is not in my Top 15 TEs. But he’s No. 10 according to the industry even though he’s No. 19 at the TE position in total half-PPR fantasy points to this point. He’s 13th in catches at the position and 18th in yards, and has been drug down even further because of his lack of a TD. He’s bound to score eventually, but don’t expect flood gates for someone who has yet to be targeted inside the 10-yard line and has only two catches in the red zone — which is a range where even guys like Lil’Jordan Humphrey pop up.
Final note: This week you’ll notice I tweaked the chart to incorporate the “top shelf” tax for Christian McCaffrey and to a lesser extent Tyreek Hill. As the chart currently stands, a deal of CMC and Tank Dell for CeeDee Lamb/Puka Nacua/DJ Moore (pick you favorite of the three) and James Cook nets out as essentially even. On paper, that seems reasonable. But I’ll maintain that a CMC manager has the right to want to be compelled to deal the best player in fantasy. He’s in rare “name your price” type air right now.
Also, I did my best to guesstimate where the Week 5 mash unit — Justin Jefferson, De’Von Achane, James Conner, Khalil Herbert — should be currently valued, but obviously these are fluid situations. And if you are flush with depth to deal, you might want to value someone like Jefferson more, as he could be a rocket ship ride through the playoffs upon his return, and that is probably more than you can say about Michael Pittman, who Jefferson clocks in behind on this chart because of the minimum four-game IR absence.
Speaking of the chart, let’s get to it!
The Week 6 Chart
(Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)