5 Immediate Trades to Make in Fantasy Football Week 2

Week 1 of the fantasy football season is always a wild one. There are surprise breakouts (just ask anyone who didn't trust Michael Thomas enough to start him) and colossal busts (just ask any manager with Cam Akers).

It can be easy to want to make sweeping changes after such a dramatic week, but it's important to dig a little deeper and find which performances you should be buying, and which were just noise.

Managers' tendency to overreact to a single week makes Week 2 one of the best to pull off some great fantasy football trades that will set you up to dominate your league for the rest of the season.

Here are three players to trade for, and two to trade away in Week 2.

Fantasy Football Week 2 Trades

5. Trade For: Travis Etienne, RB, Jacksonville Jaguars

James Robinson is back from his injury and produced a solid fantasy score in Week 1. That seems to be scaring a lot of fantasy football managers. But a deeper look at the numbers and workloads from the Jaguars' Week 1 game should help put your mind at ease. Etienne actually out-snapped Robinson, played most of the passing downs (including 100% of the two-minute offense) and also was getting short-yardage work. These are high-leverage situations for a running back. In terms of average fantasy points, a target tends to generate anywhere from 1.5 to 2 times as many points as a rush attempt. Considering that weighting, Etienne's volume (4 carries and 4 targets) wasn't much less encouraging than Robinson's (11 carries and 2 targets). And let's not forget that Etienne is also working his way back from a serious injury and was playing his first NFL game. He's still the Jaguars' back to roster in fantasy, and this is a perfect buy-low opportunity.

4. Trade Away: James Robinson, RB, Jacksonville Jaguars

The case to trade away James Robinson goes even beyond just the reverse of what I outlined above for Etienne. Robinson is getting a ton of love for his strong 19.9 PPR fantasy point performance in Week 1, which had him finish as RB11 on the week. But 60% of that production came from his 2 touchdowns. Obviously we don't want to discount how valuable scoring TDs is for fantasy production, but it's also a lot less consistent and predictable than things like rushes and carries. You can't expect consistent two-TD production from any running back, and that's especially true of a guy getting the workload that Robinson is.

3. Trade For: Diontae Johnson, WR, Pittsburgh Steelers

The Pittsburgh Steelers' passing game doesn't exactly excite people with Mitchell Trubisky at the helm, and a win means he's more likely to start deep into the season. And in Game 1 with Trubisky, Diontae Johnson scored only 12.5 PPR fantasy points. Plenty of people are hitting the panic button, which means savvy fantasy managers will take advantage and buy low. Johnson was tied for ninth in the NFL with a 32.4% target share (portion of a team's total targets that went to a given player), and as a raw number his 12 targets ranked sixth among wideouts. Johnson has been playing with bad quarterbacks and a washed up Ben Roethlisberger for years, and he still managed to average 7.5, 6.4 and 6.9 yards per target in his first three NFL seasons. His average of 4.6 from Week 1 is unsustainably low, and he'll start delivering on this workload soon.

2. Trade Away: Ezekiel Elliott, RB, Dallas Cowboys

Remember what happened with Ezekiel Elliott in 2020? Dak Prescott missed most of the season, and Zeke posted his lowest rushing yard total of his career, had fewer receptions than he posted in either of the previous two seasons and scored a career-low 8 touchdowns. You probably won't be able to exactly sell "high" on Zeke, but at this point selling him is totally the right move. And this very well could be the high point on selling him, before managers see just how much his production will fall off with no QB, and while Tony Pollard still hasn't usurped too much of his offensive role.

1. Trade For: CeeDee Lamb, WR, Dallas Cowboys

No viable QB might make Zeke a sell, but that Week 1 disaster actually makes CeeDee Lamb a buy. Lamb was a total bust with 4.9 fantasy points in Week 1, and combining that and the Dak situation has probably triggered panic mode for plenty of managers. But regardless of who plays QB, 2 receptions on 11 targets is a kind of terrible efficiency that will never last. The big takeaway should be that Lamb led the team in targets with a top-12 number among wideouts. Lamb was just fine without Dak as a rookie, and now he's a better player than he was and is also the focal point of the passing game. He's in for another big year, so get him while he's cheap.

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Jason Schandl is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Jason Schandl also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username Jaymun. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.