Yes, you should obviously be selling Derrick Henry if you can get full price for him.  Yes, you should be selling Julio Jones at age 31 and even probably Travis Kelce at age 30 (even though he arguably has multiple good years left). Trading away great-to-elite players is a lot more difficult because of the psychological attachment that you have to them. If you have owned a player for multiple seasons where they topped their position and you selected them as a rookie, it is natural to generate the endowment effect with them (i.e, you value them more because it is you that “owns” them).

Provided that you do not have a juggernaut team that is set up to ship a title this year, these three players are all set up to get you a younger player at their position + a high-value 2020 rookie pick and maybe even a throw-in younger player that you like that has not yet broken out.

Three Actually Useful Sell Candidates In Dynasty Fantasy Football

Ezekiel Elliot

The overwhelming amount of evidence we have regarding running back aging is that on average, they perform worse for fantasy as they get into their second contracts. Aging, skill erosion, offenses shifting more towards passing, all of this has made it harder to be an NFL running back. It has almost made the truly elite fantasy running back almost evaporate. Elliot had his worst per-touch season in 2019 (though he still scored 14 touchdowns) and was targeted 71 times after being targeted 94 times in 2019.

Is Elliot a screaming SELL candidate? No, he isn’t. He will likely have one or two more truly “elite” seasons before the noticeable signs of wear and tear force Dallas to turn the reigns over to Tony Pollard or some other younger and better player. He is attached to a great offense and you will probably be able to sell him well into the 2020 season if you so desire. I own Zeke in several leagues and the deal I am trying to pull off is Zeke for Jonathan Taylor + good young WR (let us say Courtland Sutton) and, honestly, you could probably ask for even more given the dire situation at running back across the league. I admit there is a bit of “feel game” going on here with Zeke as the Cowboys progress towards being a more pass-heavy offense and with Jason Garrett gone, are less likely to regress back to the “Feed Zeke” mentality.

DeAndre Hopkins

While DeAndre Hopkins has probably five-seven years last as a meaningful fantasy contributor and is still within the core of his athletic prime, we are always wanting to trade up for the bigger and better models. He is about to start his age 28 season, which will be his eighth in the NFL and last season was his second-worst in terms of yards per target. He was used in a different way than in years’ past with his aDOT follow and posted a yards per catch under 12 for the first time. He also scored only seven touchdowns. None of this is condemning Hopkins or saying that he won’t be a great fantasy wide receiver in 2020 but there are some great opportunities to turn Hopkins into almost a younger version of himself.

Ryan McDowell came on the SportsGrid Fantasy Football podcast and talked about the concept of “buying years” with players like Hopkins and I think it makes total sense. Turning Hopkins into D.J Moore, or even CeeDee Lamb/Jerry Jeudy is an appealing transition to me, particularly if you are able to get an upgraded package while also trading for a younger player. Hopkins is still a top 15-20 by early 2020 dynasty fantasy football ADP and I personally would not be selecting him there which indicates that he is a better sell than a long-term hold given our constructs.

Jarvis Landry

I’ll admit to long-term being much lower on Jarvis Landry than I should be and you would definitely be in the red up to this point if you had done nothing but take my positions on Landry. So why, now that Landry is heading into his age 28 season with arguably the best quarterback that he has ever played with? Well, there are a few reasons why I am skeptical that Landry can hold his current value over the next few seasons. The first is that Odell Beckham just had the worst season of his career and has a longer sample of being truly elite at the NFL level than Juice does. If their target roles switch in 2020, you will very much be left holding the bag with Landry.

The central conceit with Landry is that he is a volume-based receiver and has almost his whole career run above expectation on receiving that volume. With a fully healthy (and hopefully more cohesive) Browns team, it seems less likely that Landry will repeat his team-leading 138 and 149 targets of the last two years. I do not own any Landry in dynasty (of course) but if I did, this is perhaps the most opportune selling timeframe that there has ever been.