Fantasy Football 2014: 4 Players You Should Trade for Right Now

The buy-low/sell-high philosophy is not only successful in real estate, the stock market and at swap meets. This is one of the strategies employed by the smartest fantasy football minds.

You should trade a player when his fantasy value is at its highest point and get a valuable player or players in return. Even better, you can trade for a player when his value is at its lowest point for a bargain basement price that Walmart shoppers would love and then bask in the envy of fantasy owners when that player turns his season around and racks up the yards and touchdowns.

Several stars have gotten off to slow starts this season. Their fantasy owners in your leagues might be willing to trade them for a little less than they would have two weeks ago. So here are four players that fantasy owners should trade for right now.

Tom Brady, New England Patriots (QB)

Start writing up the retirement papers! Brady’s future as a fantasy football demigod is in jeopardy!

Through two weeks of the season he has fewer passing yards than such stalwarts as Cleveland’s Brian Hoyer, Tennessee’s Jake Locker and Kansas City’s Alex Smith. Heck, he only has one more passing yard than New York’s Geno Smith, who throws his best passes when timeouts are called.

There were whispers last season that Brady should no longer be in the upper echelon of fantasy quarterbacks with Denver’s Peyton Manning, New Orleans’ Drew Brees and Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers after he threw a paltry 25 touchdown passes, the lowest he chucked in a full season since 2006. The 300-yard games were few and far between, and the three-touchdown games were scarce.

Nothing has changed this season.

But Brady has more things going against him than Roger Goodell. Rob Gronkowski is not himself yet as he returns from his torn ACL (9.0 yards per reception). Danny Amendola has been a free-agent bust. The Patriots still do not have a deep threat Brady can throw 40-yard passes to, and they traded their best offensive lineman, Logan Mankins, right before the season started.

While Brady may not put up the gaudy numbers of Manning, Brees and Rodgers in 2014, he is worth as much as, if not more than, any other quarterback in fantasy football. It would be shocking for him not to finish with 4,200 passing yards and 27-30 total touchdowns.

Arguments could be made that Indianapolis’ Andrew Luck, Atlanta’s Matt Ryan and other gunslingers will have better fantasy seasons than Brady, but no one has definitively emerged as more valuable than Brady from the second tier of fantasy quarterbacks.

So if you own Detroit’s Matthew Stafford and a fantasy owner offers you Brady and a decent running back or receiver for him, why not jump on it? Pounce on the person who thinks Brady has lost a couple of mph off his fastball and ride him to the fantasy playoffs.

Gronkowski will get better as he gets healthier. The revamped offensive line will jell after a few more games together, and the young receiving corps should improve with more experience. Brady should not be forced to be a one-man offense for much longer, and his weekly stats should bump up a level once that occurs.

Torrey Smith, Baltimore Ravens (WR)

Joe Flacco and Steve Smith are acting like they have been teammates for the past 10 years. Is Smith confusing Flacco with Jake Delhomme?

Flacco has targeted Steve Smith 15 more times than his usual favorite, Torrey Smith. But it is not like Flacco is ignoring Torrey for one other new, shiny teammate. No. 2 tight end Owen Daniels has one more target than T. Smith, and second-string running back Justin Dorsett has been aimed at just as often as Torrey has.

Torrey is 25 years old and coming off a 65-reception, 1,128-yard season, the best of his short career. He is a feast-or-famine fantasy receiver. He will have as many 25-yard games as 100-yard games. While he does catch the short passes that move the chains, he also catches the long bombs that make fantasy owners in leagues with distance bonuses happier than Sean Payton after he designs a new play.

The 50-yard touchdowns and 100-yard outings are coming for Smith. Fantasy owners just have to be patient. And if the Smith owner in your league is impatient, feel free to send a trade offer his or her way.

Jeremy Hill, Cincinnati Bengals (RB)

Many fantasy owners and experts assumed that Hill and Giovani Bernard would split the carries in Cincinnati, and if it was not a 50-50 split, then at worst Hill would get 35-40 percent of the touches. 

Cincinnati’s opening contest of the season scared Hill’s fantasy owners, though. He had four touches compared to Bernard’s 20, which made Hill look as valuable to fantasy owners as a backup middle linebacker or punter.

The touches did not even out in Cincinnati’s second game, but at least Hill had 15 rushing attempts and two receptions that led to 96 total yards and a touchdown. This was a nice precursor of possible things to come from Hill this season.

Bernard is 5’9” and is not going to be asked by Cincinnati to take the pounding a workhorse who gets 25-30 touches per game gets. The Bengals do not want him worn down and tired out at the end of the season, especially since they're in early contention for the playoffs.

Hill is the perfect complement to Bernard. He is the stocky bulldozer to Bernard’s speedy greyhound. Cincinnati will give Hill 12-20 touches every week, so if there is a fantasy owner in your league who is ready to give him up on the cheap, grab him for a bargain price.

Riley Cooper, Philadelphia Eagles (WR)

With DeSean Jackson and his fly-and-go routes in Washington, Cooper was primed to become Nick Foles’ top target this season. But a funny thing happened on the way to Cooper becoming as popular in Philadelphia as the cheesesteak and Liberty Bell.

Quarterback Nick Foles stopped throwing to him.

Blame Jeremy Maclin for not getting hurt already, Zach Ertz for improving or Darren Sproles for jumping into a fountain of youth and getting the spring back into his hamstrings. Cooper has been targeted 11 times and has only successfully hooked up with Foles for five catches and 37 yards.

Fantasy owners cannot give up on Cooper just yet. He had 835 yards and eight touchdowns last season and is part of one of the highest-scoring offenses in the NFL. The target-to-reception ratio will improve over time, and with Maclin being as prone to suffering injuries as Eli Manning is prone to throwing interceptions, Cooper’s role in Philly’s passing attack could expand at any moment.