Keep Trade Cut Dynasty Fantasy Football (Week 14)

As we head into this Week 14 edition of Keep Trade Cut at the Faceoff Sports Network, many managers may be right against their trade deadline and staring down a missed playoff appearance. Others may have already set themselves up for the 2024 season and are in the final stages of selling off old assets. In this series, we look at three similarly ranked players for dynasty purposes. This week, we look at a group of young wide receivers to consider in a trade for your valued or older assets.

In dynasty fantasy football, players’ week-to-week viability factors into their value across the season. That can lead to volatile valuations from managers and trades with the assets trending up and down. Weekly during the 2023 NFL season, we’ll look at a trio of players who are valued back to back to back. Week to week we’ll look at a different source. From those rankings, we’ll discuss the three similar players that should be considered worth keeping, trading, or “cutting”, them. No, you won’t be cutting these players in most dynasty leagues at this time, but that’s not the purpose of this scenario. Here’s how it works.

Keep Trade Cut

For this exercise, the keeper is a player who can sustain their current value in this season and beyond. In other words, the player who should be valued most by managers or potential managers. The player worth trading is a player whose value may be buoyed by unsustainable volume. That, or they are holding a level of value who may be more useful to move along from your team’s makeup. Finally, the “cut” in this scenario is a player who is trending down or has a rapidly changing outlook, therefore being seen as the least valuable asset in the trio.

For Week 14, we’ll take a look at dynasty rankings from ProFootballNetwork.com and discuss their current WR38, WR39, and WR40.

Keep: WR40 Josh Downs

Our keep of the week is the Indianapolis Colts wide receiver Josh Downs, a player who is surprisingly valued the lowest in these rankings. Downs has the most yards and overall catches of this trio, coming into Week 14 with 580 and 51, respectively. Downs hasn’t been as productive the last few weeks as he was earlier in the season, but he has still seen a combined 18 targets over the last two weeks. With Jonathan Taylor still out and this team emphasizing the pass, it is fair to expect Downs to again turn these targets into production. He’s only scored two touchdowns this season, but he has found himself a role in the offense for the near future.

Downs has been featured in this series, earlier as a candidate for managers to trade. Downs has battled through the season and been present for every game, the only game he’s caught less than two balls was a game he could not finish due to injury in Week 9.

The Colts and coach Shane Steichen have dealt with some offensive adversity this season, but Downs has proved himself as a dynamic playmaker with speed. He may not ever be the top option in this offense, but he likely has the best opportunity in the trio to become a top two or three threat for their team. If Anthony Richardson comes back and they show a similar trust in Downs in the offense, this will be a rising asset in the dynasty space.

Trade: WR38 Jayden Reed

The Green Bay Packers offense has woken up the last few weeks and the rise of Jayden Reed has been a significant piece in that. Reed has six touchdowns on the season, with five coming through the air and one on the ground. Reed is the only player of the trio to see rushing carries this season, a welcome sight for his managers. The reasoning for trepidation with Reed is simply down to a cluster of similar-level talents around him, and the combination of injuries in this offense all season.

With players like Luke Musgrave, Christian Watson, and Aaron Jones all seeing missed time for various reasons, consistency with health is the one thing we haven’t seen from the Packers. This has been fortunate for Reed and to a lesser degree, fellow wide receiver Dontayvion Wicks.

This isn’t to say Reed’s production all comes down to injuries around him. Reed is productive from the red zone, with an output of four touchdowns within the 20 this season. Managers will see that as a positive and a clear trust in Reed as a target, but we’ll see just how much he can turn that into consistent production long term. The Packers have used Jones and AJ Dillon when healthy, and have a clear emphasis on setting the tone in the short passing game. Reed thrives in short areas, but so do players like Musgrave and the recently productive Tucker Kraft.

With a team that’s fought injuries this year, and may have reason to invest in the rushing game this next offseason, it may be a good idea to sell Reed high now or at some point in the offseason. He’s a good NFL wide receiver, but a fair amount of turnover in the offense would have to happen quickly for him to reach top receiver status.

Cut: WR39 Jahan Dotson

This week’s cut is Washington Commanders receiver Jahan Dotson, who is talented but also not an emphasis in this Commander’s offense. This season Dotson has been out-produced and outshined by fellow wide receiver Curtis Samuel, and this offense has also seen a productive emergence from Brian Robinson in the backfield. The question marks surrounding this offense and the organization as a whole are obvious. The team isn’t gonna be a playoff threat, and they may find themselves under new coaching leadership going into next season. While players like Terry McLaurin or Robinson may be kept as focal points in the offense, a player like Dotson may find himself in a bit of limbo for the team.

Dotson will still be under contract for at least two more seasons after 2023, but his production this season will have him under the microscope right away this offseason, and his managers will need to be ready for value fluctuation. If the team keeps the big players in the offense, a player like Dotson may find it hard to find production as he has this year.

If the team makes wholesale offensive changes, that could lead to Dotson himself moving or a change in offensive philosophy, which will again lead to variation in how Dotson is viewed. He’s turned himself into a value dart not dissimilar to Gabriel Davis in Buffalo. Yes, he’s the second most talented wide receiver in the offense, but knowing when production is gonna show up is hard to manage. Dotson isn’t and won’t likely be the target hog in the offense any time soon, and his production may give the next regime pause as to how necessary he is to the team’s long-term makeup.

We all want to believe in the young wide receivers that we’re holding. By this list, it’s quite clear the 2023 draft class had a few talented ones, as two are rookies this season. However, everything needs to align for these players to become fantasy contributors, and that’s why this ranking shows some caution when ranking these youthful wide receivers. These teams are all in different positions, with the Colts seemingly honing in an offensive scheme that fits a player like Downs.

Reed and Dotson are also talented players, but they find themselves in crowded offenses and two offenses that may need to further improve in the future. These players may become productive WR2s and WR3s for their respective NFL teams, but long term may offer more value as a luxury flex or injury replacement level player for fantasy purposes. These are the types of wide receivers you want to pay a reasonable price for as a rebuilder because their value can improve immensely due to their youth. When you make that move, just be confident that you’re getting one of the players with an offensive role when doing so.

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