Fantasy Football 2014: Buy-Low Candidates Worth Targeting in Standard Leagues

The best advice any fantasy analyst can ever give is to avoid panic. Football, by nature of its high injury rate and 16-game schedule, is subject to high variance. Stars are going to get banged up or start slow every season; it's just the nature of the beast. The best course of action is always to ride it out and hope he turns it around.

Then again, some owners are not privy to the patience preached advice. Maybe they're sitting at 0-3, have one of their lone performing players on bye and need to make a splash. Maybe their roster has an obvious need and there are no suitable spot starts on the wire. Maybe they have the patience of an untrained puppy on Adderall. 

Whatever the case, these are the owners worth spending a couple hours text-messaging or conversing with at your local watering hole. Their players are ripe for the picking, and there's a chance you can flip an over-performing player for someone taken in a high-priority round. Subtle trades are often just as important as the moves made in waivers and sometimes even on draft night.

Ask anyone who targeted DeMarco Murray after Week 2 how their lives worked out last season. In that spirit, let's take a look at a few buy-low candidates who might be worth targeting in standard formats.

Matthew Stafford (QB, Detroit Lions)

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Rightfully selected as a fourth-round pick and fifth quarterback off the board, Stafford got off to an auspicious start with a 346-yard, two-touchdown performance against the Giants. And then he fell off a cliff. Stafford has put up only 16 fantasy points combined the last two weeks, including a dreadful three-point outing in last week's win over the Packers. He has as many touchdowns as games played and four turnovers, all coming in said disappointing outings.

It's getting to the point where I've gotten emails and Twitter questions asking for Stafford's value against the likes of Kirk Cousins, Jay Cutler and even Andy Dalton. The advice has always been the same: Keep riding with Stafford until he or Calvin Johnson go down with an injury.

Despite his relative lack of counting stats, he's still tied for 10th in fantasy points among quarterbacks and has been a better real-life quarterback than the counting stats indicate. He was very good minus one stare-down of Johnson against one of the league's best pass defenses in Carolina. The Lions racked up a good number of yards and controlled the entire game against Green Bay before constantly shooting themselves in the foot in Packers territory.

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We already knew Stafford was prone to interceptions. But we should also be using our past data sample to feel comfort in that he's going to bounce back in a big way. In his three healthy NFL seasons, Stafford has averaged 4,885 yards and 30 touchdowns against 17.3 interceptions (I'll get back to you once I figure out what one-third of an interception is.).

His on-pace numbers for 2014: 4,709 yards, 16 touchdowns and 16 interceptions. The only outlier number here is the touchdowns. Based on his surrounding talent and the way the offense has moved the ball—Stafford is averaging a career-high 7.75 yards per attempt—it's near-impossible to see him not at least matching his 20-touchdown total of 2012.

The Jets defense is not without leaks. If you find a way to finagle a trade by Sunday, you might be in for Stafford's re-emergence as an elite option.

Eddie Lacy (RB, Green Bay Packers)

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Even if we acknowledge the Packers offense as a whole has been inconsistent this season, it's hard to justify Lacy's performance. He has more fumbles lost than touchdowns, which is a fancier way of saying he's gone scoreless. Never much of a burner, he's looked downright plodding at points, with his longest run of the season (17 yards) coming against Detroit in garbage time last week.

Remember all the snickering about Fat Eddie Lacy in 2013? Those criticisms aren't going to return in his second season—Lacy's body type is the same as ever—but this is exactly how you'd expect him to run if he were making one too many stops at the drive thru. (Note: There are never too many stops at the drive thru.)

Football Outsiders' DYAR metric has Lacy ranked 37th among the 41 running backs with at least 25 attempts so far. He's in the same sentence as Toby Gerhart, Donald Brown and Trent Richardson. Even head coach Mike McCarthy was blunt in saying his second-year back "needs to play better" before stopping himself.

"I'm not going to do this anymore; I don't correct individuals in the media," McCarthy told reporters. "We've seen the film. Corrections have been made. Our running game wasn't nearly what it needed to be. Not even close." 

There's reason to believe McCarthy will get his wish in the coming weeks. First, we have to note how difficult Green Bay's schedule has been. The Packers played on the road in Seattle and Detroit, each currently looking like they're among the league's best defenses, and at home against the Jets, who employ Sheldon Richardson, Muhammad Wilkerson and Rex Ryan.

All three teams are ranked in the top six of run defense DVOA. It's fair to say Lacy has had the worst matchups of any running back in football.

It's also fair to say he hasn't had much help from Aaron Rodgers. Save for a spectacular second half against the Jets, Green Bay's passing offense has been equally...offensive. Rodgers has thrown under 200 yards twice in a three-game span for the first time in six years.

Just going to throw this out there: The Packers are not built around their running game. Lacy's excellent rookie season was (at least somewhat) a byproduct of Rodgers and the passing game forcing defenses to play back safeties. The Packers, and by proxy Lacy, have too much talent for this to go on much longer.

Vincent Jackson (WR, Tampa Bay Buccaneers)

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Jackson is a player who has been subject to high variance throughout his career. Last season, there was a three-week stretch wherein he scored a combined 10 fantasy points. Though he had a couple solid yardage games, Jackson went the first four weeks in 2013 without scoring. His time in San Diego was rife with jaw-dropping and weep-inducing performances for his fantasy owners.

This is nothing new. And it appears the biggest thing that is new is about to change. Mike Glennon will officially replace Josh McCown as the Bucs starter Sunday in New Orleans. Tampa Bay ranks dead last in passing yards through the first three weeks and is tied with a bunch of teams for the fewest aerial scores.

Glennon, mind you, isn't exactly a world-beater. He was passable as a rookie, completing a bunch of garbage-time stuff underneath on a team that quit on its coach. It's hard to say whether Lovie Smith is doing a better job than predecessor Greg Schiano, but it's safe to assume the locker room isn't ready to throw water balloons at his face yet.

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There's room for improvement here—especially because Glennon cannot possibly be worse than McCown. He and Jackson had a fine connection last season; three of Jackson's four 100-yard games came with Glennon at quarterback, and all seven of his touchdowns came from the former North Carolina State star.

While his numbers at the end of the season might not justify where he was drafted, Jackson should produce close to his WR2 status the rest of the way. Or, at the very least, he should torch a Saints secondary that's looked dreadful for most of the season.

Quick Hits

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Aaron Rodgers (QB, Green Bay Packers): If anyone is dumb enough to give up on their first-round pick after three weeks, well, I'd like to know why you're playing in a league with children. Unless you are a child. In which case good on you for doing research. Trade for Rodgers. Because duh.

Montee Ball (RB, Denver Broncos): He's probably closer to an RB2 than the RB1 he was drafted as, but he averaged 4.7 yards per carry as a rookie and is a member of the Denver Broncos offense. With C.J. Anderson clearly behind him on the depth chart, Ball is still the top option on a unit that's going to score a ton. Only make a deal if you're giving up someone on the Steve Smith level of over-performers, though.

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Demaryius Thomas (WR, Denver Broncos): Same basic premise as Ball with a higher upside. Not all the Thomas Touchdowns are going to head Julius' way the entire season.

Keenan Allen (WR, San Diego Chargers): I'm closer to buying Allen's slow start than anyone else on this list. I was low on him in the preseason for a number of reasons, most of them related to his skill-set. He's not the typical second-year guy who was going to take a major leap from his rookie season; Allen was basically a ready-made product coming out of college. That limits his upside but should also make him due for a bounce back to semi-reliability. He'll probably finish 2014 as the 25th-best fantasy wideout rather than the 18th (where he went off the board), but that still has value.

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Rob Gronkowski (TE, New England Patriots): Gronkowski saw a season-high 44 offensive snaps last week, per Football Outsiders, and should see a continued buildup as the year progresses. A slow start was expected—and Gronk's "slow start" has featured two touchdowns. Given the Patriots have struggled offensively this season, Gronkowski might begin seeing more snaps even before he's ready. They need him. Bad.

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