Fantasy Football Trade Machine: D’Andre Swift for Najee Harris?

There’s plenty of positivity regarding D’Andre Swift as a fantasy football commodity, but is a 1-for-1 trade for Najee Harris a stretch?

After a promising 2021 derailed by a shoulder injury, there’s plenty of positive buzz around Lions running back D’Andre Swift looking to next season. In regard to fantasy, the ceiling for him is massive if he can stay healthy. That is of course the big ‘if”, and invites a wide range of outcomes for fantasy managers who are willing to take a risk (scared money don’t get paid, after all–or however the saying goes).

As part of his “Dynasty Price Check” series Ellis Johnson of Rotoballer has taken a look at Swift. The whole article is worth a read, but here’s the punch line.

"Dynasty OutlookSo how can you value Swift in dynasty leagues?….Personally, I would do a one-for-one swap of Najee Harris for Swift. This may seem like a hot take, but Swift is actually younger than Harris and I like the direction the Lions are going more than the Steelers (who thought we’d ever be saying that). With the potential upside, his usage, and age, I think an argument can be made for Swift to be the dynasty RB2 overall."

Projection can be a slippery slope, but Johnson wrote Swift would have been on pace for 306 opportunities last year over 17 games (204 carries, 102 targets; fourth-most in the league). Upon further review, Swift’s 17-game pace was 299 opportunities (197 carries) and 278 touches.

Harris played all 17 games as a rookie last season, and led the league with 381 touches. So there’s no projecting to do there, we saw Harris over 17 games last season.

Fantasy Football trade: D’Andre Swift for Najee Harris?

Any talk of a running back’s stock in fantasy football (dynasty or otherwise) has to include his age. Harris just turned 24 in March, and Swift turned 23 just after the 2021 season ended in January. So it’s not a huge conversation for either in fantasy terms yet, unless you’d like to note that Swift has one more year in the league and is nearly a year younger.

Luckily, courtesy of KeepTradeCut.com, there’s dynasty trade calculator. So I plugged Swift and Harris in to see what happened. Based on “Total Absolute Value” points exchanged (Superflex, 0.5-point PPR), the trade favors the Harris side by 207 points (6,454 vs. 6,247). Remove Superflex, and the gap narrows to 92 in favor of Harris’ side and the calculator considers it a fair trade.

It might feel aggressive, but for dynasty fantasy a 1-for-1 trade of Swift for Harris is not a huge reach. The question is, mostly for you Harris dynasty managers out there, would you do it?