👋 Welcome back! Hopefully you're entering your fantasy playoff stretch with more certainty than the Indianapolis Colts. If not, we're here to offer some advice to remedy the situation.

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In this edition: We deliver the latest fantasy headlines, offer tips to execute the perfect trade, highlight several players to consider targeting, preview tonight's Commanders-Eagles showdown and more. 

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Today's Get to the Points! is written by Andy Behrens. For the web version, click here. To sign up for free, click here.

🐴 Joe Flacco is out as Colts QB, Anthony Richardson back in. After four Flacco interceptions and seven sacks in back-to-back losses, Indianapolis has recommitted to Richardson. Feel free to fire up AR5 in superflex leagues, but you can leave him alone everywhere else for now. Richardson only completed 10 passes in each of his previous two starts, so it’s tough to spin this news as a positive for Josh Downs or any other Colts receiver. Still, it’s not as if Flacco was playing lights-out. *shrug*  

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🥳 Nico Collins is back in our fantasy lives. It’s looking good for Collins this week, as he’s returning to practice ahead of Monday night’s matchup with Dallas. If you’ve been waiting on Nico, the multi-week nightmare is over. He’s averaging a league-best 113.4 receiving yards per game, so this is no small addition to your lineup. 

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🧐 Raheem Mostert’s modest usage last week was “unique to the game plan.” That’s the word straight from head coach Mike McDaniel. Mostert’s managers were looking for something more than his zero carries, two catches and eight snaps in the Rams game. 

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📈 Brian Robinson Jr., DeVonta Smith and Dallas Goedert are "good to go" for TNF. As long as they don't suffer any setbacks ahead of kickoff, you are definitely starting them. 

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🫣 Trevor Lawrence out this week, may return after the Week 12 bye. With Mac Jones at the controls, Jacksonville should be zillion-point underdogs to the Lions this week, but instead the number is only 14. The two-win Jags are already at the point at which they have greater incentive to lose games than to win them, so let’s not assume a speedy return for Lawrence.

Look, there are plenty of weeks within the fantasy calendar when you can afford to switch to auto-pilot for a few days and not focus obsessively on your team — but this week, right now, isn't one of them. 

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It’s time to lock in, people.

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We are careening toward the Yahoo default trade deadline on Saturday, so there’s work to be done. When you wake up on Sunday morning, one of the essential paths to improving your roster will be closed for the season. Everyone enjoys trading, so let’s get to it. 

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Last week, we listed a few recommended trade targets, with an eye toward second-half schedules. This week, our mission is to give you three key pieces of trade advice:

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1️⃣ If your offer doesn’t address the other team’s needs, it’s going nowhere. Every league has that one manager who approaches trades by thinking only of the players they’d like to dump, not the holes other teams may need to fill. A few times each season, that person will spam the league with Kadarius Toney offers (or similar), then complain that no one is ever willing to trade. 

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The tiniest amount of pre-offer consideration can go such a long way. Take 30 seconds to review the roster of the team you intend to deal with, then propose something to help both parties. If your offer doesn’t include anything that can obviously improve the other manager’s squad, then it’s simply a time-waster, not a conversation starter.  

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2️⃣ It’s a great time to package two players for one, or three for two. A decent guiding principle in fantasy trades is that if you land the best individual player in the deal, you did well. We’ve reached the point in the fantasy season when contending teams need to focus on constructing the best possible starting rosters, sacrificing depth in the process. We should be looking to maximize weekly scoring potential. 

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Roster depth is a funny thing — it’s incredibly valuable in September and not at all in December. Each week, it becomes less important. By the time we hit the money weeks of the playoffs, your starting lineup should be so loaded that it basically sets itself, while your bench should be full of lottery tickets. 

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3️⃣ In order to win the league, sometimes you need to lose a trade. Some of you are simply not wired to follow this advice, which is too bad. At some point down the road, it’s gonna cost you a fantasy title. 

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We should never get so paralyzed by the fear of losing a deal that we forget the real priority, which is to hold the league trophy at the end of the season. If a trade can improve your team’s starting roster, it’s probably worth making. The whole idea is to deal from areas of surplus to address weaknesses. If both sides feel moderately uncomfortable with the deal, then it’s probably a winner.

We are of course aware that you’re looking for something more from your pre-trade deadline newsletter than the abstract advice above. You are no doubt scrolling for a list of gettable names. 

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Here are five early-season underperformers who are A) strong candidates for positive regression, B) endlessly frustrating to the manager who drafted them, and C) obtainable via trade at a discount relative to their draft prices:

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Tee Higgins. He’s apparently dealing with one of the worst quadriceps injuries in the history of quads, because it’s already cost him three games. While he’s making progress, he's no lock to face the Chargers on Sunday. Let’s just please remember that when healthy this year, he’s been his usual self, averaging 9.0 targets and 68.2 receiving yards per game. If he’s good-to-go in December, he’s an obvious potential difference-maker.

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Diontae Johnson. Pretty gross, right? Yeah, we know. But again, the idea here is to flag good players who can actually be acquired via trade. 

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Johnson is actually gonna hit a few waiver wires this week after back-to-back dud performances for Baltimore. He was never a great bet to put up numbers in his first game for the Ravens following a mid-season trade, however — and then his second game was a Thursday nighter, which left little time for his role to expand. He’s a proven multi-year producer and one of the best separators in the game, so we don’t have to worry about his ability to leapfrog guys like Nelson Agholor in this team’s receiving hierarchy. 

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Isiah Pacheco. We are nearing the end of the original recovery timeline from the fractured leg Pacheco suffered back in September. He should not have much difficulty reclaiming the primary rushing role for KC. Kareem Hunt has been a terrific waiver find this season, but he hasn’t exactly delivered a convincing impersonation of a healthy Pacheco. Hunt is averaging just 3.6 YPC and the underlying numbers are somehow less impressive. Only five of his 125 carries have gained 10 or more yards and he’s averaging just 2.36 yards after contact per attempt. 

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Josh Jacobs. Few players are as chronically disrespected as Jacobs. He’s pretty much always available via trade, despite being one of the NFL’s most elusive runners. According to PFF, Jacobs currently ranks among the leaders in missed tackles forced (33) and yards after contact (3.73 per carry). He’s tied to an upper-tier offense, yet he’s only reached the end zone four times this season. Jacobs is the RB17 on the season at the moment, but he’s a clear candidate to enjoy a post-bye surge. 

Patrick Mahomes. Earth’s best quarterback is still outside the position’s top-12 in terms of year-to-date fantasy scoring, plus he’s headed into a dicey matchup at Buffalo. It’s an excellent time to buy. He’s thrown six touchdown passes over his last three games while averaging 273 passing YPG, so it’s already apparent that his weekly upside has returned with DeAndre Hopkins now in the mix.

Last Thursday, we were treated to one of the more entertaining regular season games you are ever gonna see. Just in case you thought Cincinnati at Baltimore was an isolated exception and TNF would soon return to its true nature … well, we have great news. The next month-and-a-half of games on Prime Video all look like winners, beginning with tonight’s tilt between Washington and Philly. 

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Let’s dive in…

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Jayden Daniels vs. Jalen Hurts, chapter one. Here’s hoping we get to see this pair face each other in divisional matchups twice a year (plus playoffs) over the next decade. Right now, these guys are the overall fantasy QB6 and QB4 on the season. They rank second and third among all quarterbacks in rushing yards — trailing only Lamar Jackson — and both have been outrageously efficient as passers, averaging 8.2 and 8.4 yards per attempt, respectively. Hurts is tied for second in the league in rushing TDs (10), behind only Derrick Henry. Daniels has simply been one of the most valuable picks in fantasy, considering where you took him.

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Basically, if you have either of these QBs on your roster, take a victory lap.

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Terry McLaurin is a superstar. For the first time in McLaurin’s NFL career, he’s attached to a passer capable of maximizing his talent. He’s on pace to produce his first season with 1,200 receiving yards and double-digit touchdowns. McLaurin is also catching 71.2% of his targets, an outrageous rate for a player with an ADOT of 15.2. 

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As good as the surface-level fantasy stats look, the underlying numbers are even better. McLaurin’s averaging 2.42 yards per route run, among the highest rates in the league, and he leads all receivers in contested catches. He has managed to haul in 17 of 23 contested balls (73.9%), which is just stupid. He’s been unreasonably good. His passer-rating when targeted is 130.3, and that honestly undersells his season. 

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Philadelphia’s top-two receivers aren’t too shabby, either. A.J. Brown currently leads all players this season in yards per route run with an obnoxious 3.50, and he’s exceeded 80 receiving yards in five of his six games. DeVonta Smith, meanwhile, is catching 74.0% of his opportunities and averaging a career-best 9.7 yards per target. Smith is expected to play through a hamstring issue and is coming off a relatively quiet week in a lopsided win, but he’d been fantastically consistent prior to Week 10.

Also, the man delivered a catch of the year candidate only 11 days ago, further cementing his rest-of-season WR2 status.