Fantasy Football Fact or Fluke: Now that dust has settled from 3 big WR trades, who’s winning?

This week we’re drilling down into some of the biases that could impact our ability to evaluate players involved in recent NFL trades. Just when your fantasy team was (is) at a point where you probably knew what you were and where you were headed, a real-life NFL trade can shake things up, giving you new life — or at the least, new hope.

When you roster a player who’s been traded, you’re susceptible to several potentially flawed reactions. The first is simply Novelty Bias. Old player + new situation = potential for greatness. We are drawn to the newness of things, and by we, I mean people, animals, insects — even bacteria exhibit a bias toward the unknown.

On top of novelty effects, we can also be misguided by Primacy and Recency biases. Primacy bias tells us that the first thing we learn about a player is the most important piece of information, while recency tells us that what he did most recently is the most important thing to base a decision upon. When these two forces are at odds, recency usually wins out.

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It gets really interesting when we have a veteran player, who, say, hasn’t been great this year moving to a new team. Does Novelty, combined with memories of previously great stats (Primacy) get us excited enough to start that guy who’s been consistently disappointing? What about the teammates left behind? They’re in a new situation now, too.

Our goal is to make sense of the recent trades of Davante Adams, Amari Cooper and DeAndre Hopkins, with a week or two of data in hand. The three situations are similar in that they all involve a (perceived) QB upgrade for the key player. However, the biggest fantasy impact might be on the guys on their former teams, stepping in to fill the vacated shoes.

Davante Adams to Jets (Fallout for Jakobi Meyers, Brock Bowers)

You have to go back to Adams’ second year in the league (2015) to find a season where he statistically did worse than 2024 on a per-game basis. Adams’ 9.6 FPTS/game (half-PPR scoring) make him fantasy’s WR 37. Since arriving in New York two weeks ago, Adams is 7/84/0 on fifteen targets. That’s good enough to be the Jets’ WR2, but it’s not good (unless you’re a Garrett Wilson manager; he’s still clearly the No. 1).

As far as evaluating our biased expectations, it really looks like the reunification-with-Aaron Rodgers narrative was overblown. The Jets continue to lose games, but it’s not just the fault of the offense. Poor clock management, penalties, missed kicks and some startling defensive lapses led to the meltdown in Week 8. The Jets have a fairly neutral upcoming schedule, and Adams is being targeted at a high enough rate to make fantasy managers happy, but only just over half of those targets can be deemed catchable.

I’m still starting Adams for TNF in Week 9, but my optimism has dimmed considerably. In fact, the novelty and excitement of the Rodgers effect on a team that desperately needed a superhero has been all but extinguished as the Jets are pretty much exactly where they were in 2023.

Turning to Las Vegas, I admit to a personal bias toward Meyers, who has been a PPR savior on many of my rosters. Is he a superstar WR1? No, but he should be rostered and started in all 12-team leagues going forward. He has the best hands among the Raiders’ WR group, boasting a 72.1% catch rate on about seven targets per game.

The Bengals, up next, are above average in terms of points and fantasy points allowed to opponents, but they get really generous to tight ends. Bowers wasn’t one of the standouts on Tight Ends Day, but he should get back to the top very soon. He leads all tight ends in targets and catches, by a fairly wide margin, with find the end zone being the only thing missing from his outstanding rookie season. With Adams gone, the sky is the limit on Bowers’ value for the rest of the year.

DeAndre Hopkins to Chiefs (Fallout for Calvin Ridley, Tyler Boyd, Nick Westbrook-Ikhine?)

The Titans were among the trendiest summer picks for most improved fantasy value. Will Levis was the darling of the best ball and Superflex crowd, me included. Yes, there are always concerns about aging wide receivers — and Hopkins is among the oldest (32) — but he played a full 17-game season last year. He finished as the Titans’ No. 1 receiver in 2023, notching his seventh 1,000-yard campaign and fifth 7+ TD season. In contrast, the ’24 Titans’ lackluster pass offense had targeted Hopkins only 21 times, with two single-target games.

Enter the Chiefs, a WR-needy team still looking to fill the hole Tyreek Hill left three years ago. I’m not sure anyone calls a 7-0 team needy outside of fantasy circles, but there was still a lot of excitement around this landing spot for Hopkins. In his debut game with the Chiefs, just days after being traded, Hopkins saw three targets, catching two for 29 yards. Xavier Worthy (8) and Travis Kelce (12) led the team in receiving by a wide margin in the Week 8 win over the Raiders. My prediction going forward is that the Chiefs continue to exist on the lower end of pass production, which doesn’t bode well for Hopkins’ value as a fantasy asset. He’ll probably have a good game or two in matchups where the Chiefs are forced to keep their foot on the offensive gas, but he’s not an every-week starter in 12-team leagues.

The impact of Hopkins’ departure on Ridley was kind of expected, and yet still surprising. Ridley was the beneficiary of 15 (!) Mason Rudolph targets, of which he caught 10 for 143 yards. Westbook-Ikhine caught the lone passing touchdown for Tennessee, but he is going to be more fluky than trustworthy for fantasy. Boyd caught three of six short targets for 14 receiving yards and isn’t a fantasy consideration going forward.

The Titans’ offense, with the second-fewest passing yards and fourth-fewest passing touchdowns per game, can’t really support multiple relevant pass-catchers. Ridley is the only player to trust aside from Tony Pollard and he definitely won’t be this good every week. There are favorable WR matchups coming in Weeks 10, 11, 13 and 14 though.

Amari Cooper to Bills (Fallout for Cedric Tillman, David Njoku, Elijah Moore?)

After a relatively slow start to the season, the Bills are passing increasingly more effectively. They average 1.8 passing touchdowns and 214.3 passing yards per game, with an average of 300 passing yards for Josh Allen in the last two games. The Amari Cooper effect? Possibly …

Cooper made a big impact in his Week 7 Buffalo debut, going 4/66/1 against the Titans. Cooper’s arrival also coincided with the breakout for rookie Keon Coleman (4/125 in Week 7, 5/70/1 in Week 8). Defenses have been forced to spread a little thinner with a fourth receiving threat on the field and everyone has benefitted. Khalil Shakir continues to be effective, posting double-digit fantasy points in the last two games, while Dalton Kincaid is barely clinging to fantasy relevance. He scored his second touchdown of the year in Week 8 but hasn’t surpassed 52 receiving yards or six catches all season. Most 12-team leagues are starting Coleman, Cooper, Shakir and Kincaid, knowing that it won’t always be sunshine and rainbows, but that the potential for the big game is too great to leave on the bench.

In Cleveland, Cooper’s trade opened the door for Cedric Tillman and David Njoku to get the star treatment. The way it’s paid off arguably has more to do with the replacement of Deshaun Watson with Jameis Winston than the trade. After seeing 12 targets in Week 7, Tillman was a hot waiver wire pickup, but with no teams on bye in Week 8 and several receivers back from injury, he was started in only 5-6% of leagues. He exceeded our novelty-and-recency-biased expectations against the league’s worst pass defense, going 7/99/2 vs. Baltimore.

Njoku, who has been a reliable if not spectacular tight end this season, had five catches for 61 yards and a score while Elijah Moore saw 12 targets, catching 8/85. The increased passing volume, depth and accuracy that Winston brings to Cleveland’s receivers is more of a factor than Cooper’s departure. I’m surprised that the Browns won the Week 8 game but I can’t say I doubted the ability of Tillman or Njoku to become fantasy assets. Even Moore figures to be a desperation start when bye weeks get tough.

Overall, these trades of veteran receivers have made their real-life NFL teams better equipped to win games, but the most positive fantasy impact is to the guys left behind in Cleveland, Tennessee and Las Vegas.