Fantasy Football Trade Value Chart Week 2: Running Backs

RSJ’s Jackson Barrett created a value-based drafting Excel tool to create the preseason values for this Fantasy Football Trade Value Chart. The tool uses the FantasyPros consensus projections to assign values based on a 12-team, full PPR league.

Each week throughout the season, these values will be altered to reflect the player’s value for the rest of the season. Changes made to player’s value will be based on FantasyPros Rest of Season ECR, results from the season thus far, and The Wolf’s Rest of Season Rankings. But for the most part, the below values should generally reflect consensus rankings. The values provided also allow for comparing player values across positions, not just within one positional group.

For more information on how to make successful deals, check out our strategies for negotiating trades.

Be sure to tune back each week throughout the season. We’ll be adjusting the chart, discussing risers & fallers, and pinpointing trade targets.

The trade value chart for each position is linked below.

Fantasy Football Week 2 Trade Value Chart: Running Backs

Running Back Risers

We were told throughout the offseason that the Titans backfield would be a 50-50 committee between Tyjae Spears and Tony Pollard. Tennessee even went as far as to list the two as co-starters on the depth chart. Well, here’s how things shook out in Week 1.

Tony Pollard:

• 39 snaps
• 16 carries
• 4 targets

Tyjae Spears:

• 29 snaps
• 4 carries
• 4 targets

Not only did Pollard see significantly more work than Spears, but he also looked like the explosive back that we had missed last year in Dallas. He had multiple solid runs and his day was highlighted by a 26-yard touchdown scamper.

Titans’ head coach Brian Callahan has indicated that they would like to get Spears more touches in the future. Even if this is the case, Pollard still clearly seems to be the 1A in this backfield. Will Levis and the Titans’ offense will have to improve if Pollard is going to be a strong fantasy asset, but he is a low-end RB2 for now.

Our next riser is quite clearly J.K. Dobbins. No matter what side of the aisle you fell on during draft analysis, you have to be happy to see Dobbins succeeding after suffering two serious injuries in the last three years.

As expected, Jim Harbaugh and Greg Roman utilized Dobbins and Gus Edwards in a near-even split on Sunday. However, Dobbins by far and away looked to be the superior talent. Dobbins ripped off multiple 40-plus yard runs and even took one 61 yards deep into Raiders’ territory. Dobbins ran out of gas rather quickly on that run, but he reached a top speed of 19.92 MPH which was tied with Saquon Barkley for the highest speed by a running back.

It’s unlikely that Dobbins will be able to fully consolidate touches in the Chargers’ backfield. But after a highly impressive performance, it’s quite clear that he is the 1A.

Running Back Fallers

Our two running back fallers are players who were expected to dominate workloads and *surprise, surprise* are in committees. The “biggest” name of this duo is Raiders’ running back Zamir White.

White, also known as Zeus, was drafted as an RB2 in hopes that he would be a bell cow in the Las Vegas offense. As always, the “who else is going to get touches” argument wasn’t a strong one as players have to be genuinely talented to monopolize the touches in a backfield. Here’s a snapshot of how the work in Las Vegas’s backfield was divvied up.

White was out-snapped by Alexander Mattison and even gave up early-down opportunities to him. White’s only path to being fantasy-relevant was by dominating the backfield opportunities. If he’s not doing that, he’s essentially useless in fantasy football.

Many people tried to utilize Chuba Hubbard as a “bridge RB” in an effort to get production in their running back slot before Jonathon Brooks returns or another young RB begins to produce late in the year.

If this was how you planned to operate, it’s already time to move on to your backup plan. Hubbard played just 55 percent of snaps and handled 30 percent of the carries for Carolina on Sunday. Miles Sanders and even Mike Boone were mixing in to steal away touches.

In an offense as poor as Carolina’s, operating in a high-volume role is essential for a running back to be fantasy-relevant. It doesn’t seem that Chuba Hubbard has this sort of role in store for him and can be cut if this three-way split continues into Week 2.

Running Back Trade Target

It may sound strange, but do what it takes to acquire Bijan Robinson. He may have only scored 16.1 PPR points, but he was used in a capacity that will allow him to produce fantasy points in droves. People had hoped for CMC-like usage and they got it.

This is a classic case of being able to catch someone box score watching. If they see the 16.1 points and aren’t too pleased, take this opportunity to buy one of the league’s most talented running back who is now playing a role that is highly coveted in fantasy football.