The default fantasy football trade deadline on most sites is just a week away. Don’t waste these previous final seven days of deal-making freedom. Get out there and send some offers.
Specifically, this is the time to make deals with an eye toward the playoffs. If you’re already in (or on your way), buy low on an injured star. If you’re on the bubble, it might be time to move your own currently absent stud for someone scoring points.
Alternatively, while it’s never a bad idea, now is the perfect time to condense a deep roster into a stacked starting lineup — with fewer weeks remaining to risk injuries and shifting situations, depth is less important. Keeping these general rules in mind, here are three deals to propose as we head into Week 12.
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3 Fantasy Football Trades to Propose Week 12 (2025)
Whatever You Can Get for Ja’Marr Chase (WR – CIN)
According to FantasyCalc.com, Ja’Marr Chase is currently the most-traded player in the country, on the move in nearly 5% of fantasy leagues. This makes sense. The superstar receiver is currently going through not one but two major changes in value.
Chase is out this week — a crucial one for those fighting for playoff seeding — thanks to a spitting-related suspension. When he comes back, there’s a real chance Chase will be catching passes again from his old friend Joe Burrow, who has practiced in full each of the last two days. Joe Flacco has already revitalized Chase’s fantasy value, but the return of Burrow could take it to another level.
With this in mind, I recommend taking advantage of this buy-low opportunity if the Chase manager in your league is nervous about entering Week 12 without their first-round pick. Obviously, this move makes the most sense for managers who are already feeling good about their playoff chances and don’t care too much about this week. But, honestly, I’d make this move anyway.
Yes, if you deal for Chase now, you’ll have to give up tons of value in exchange for literally nothing in your Week 12 lineup. But fantasy football is so high-variance on a week-to-week basis that you probably won’t actually be changing your win probability by more than a few percentage points. Chase should be able to make up that difference — and then some — if he does indeed have Burrow back for the fantasy football stretch run and playoffs.
Saquon Barkley (RB – PHI) for Trey McBride (TE – ARI)
Next up after Ja’mARR Chase on this week’s list of most-traded players is his fellow top fantasy performer from 2024, Saquon Barkley. Unfortunately, unlike with Chase, I lean toward selling Barkley rather than trying to add him to your roster. With Joe Burrow back, Chase could return to his 2024 league-winning form; I don’t see a path for Barkley to join him in turning back the clock in the next month.
And if we look at what Barkley has actually done this season, the results are fairly mediocre (by the standards of someone who just ran for 2,000 yards, anyway). Barkley is just the RB11 with 13.7 half-PPR points per game. He’s still seeing elite usage, but both his volume and efficiency are massively down compared to last year. The problems are both individual (Barkley isn’t breaking big runs at anywhere near his absurd rate from last year) and systemic (the Eagles’ offense sucks).
On the other side of this trade, we have what might be the first time I’ve featured a tight end in this column all season. Tight ends are normally tough to trade in fantasy football, as most managers will just have one startable option to fill their one starting roster spot. This leads to lots of trades with a tight end going each way, where the manager getting the upgrade at tight end makes up for it elsewhere in the deal.
However, while you can definitely build around this one-for-one swap to give your current starting tight end back to the current Trey McBride manager, that isn’t necessary in this case. McBride is the rare tight end so good that he is also a viable Flex play. In fact, McBride is straight-up outsourcing Barkley so far this season, 14.9 to 13.7 points per game.
If anything, that number might undersell what we can expect from McBride going forward. Since Jacoby Brissett took over as Arizona’s starting quarterback, he has averaged a truly absurd 20.3 points per game. The only Flex-eligible players to have averaged at least 20 points for the whole season are Jonathan Taylor and Christian McCaffrey. That’s it.
If anything, this deal might be tough to get done, as McBride managers likely aren’t in any rush to sell their absolute stud. But, according to FantasyCalc’s rankings based entirely on real trades, McBride is one spot behind Barkley at 13th overall. If those rankings are accurate and this deal is doable as a one-for-one, it’s an absolute smash… I’d even do it if you have to throw in your current starting tight ends (assuming they are a mid-range or backend option).
TreVeyon Henderson (RB – NE) for Bucky Irving (RB – TB)
Technically, the third-hottest trade asset this week is another massive name — Justin Jefferson. But I covered him last week, so let’s slide down to No. 4: TreVeyon Henderson. I hate to say it, but this is an obvious sell-high spot for the rookie running back, who has risen all the way to 30th overall in FantasyCalc’s rankings.
Yes, Henderson is coming off back-to-back massive games, including a 30-point domination of the Jets last Thursday night. But we have to acknowledge that those games came without Rhamondre Stevenson, who seems to be tracking to return this week. Before Stevenson’s injury, Henderson averaged a measly 5.7 half-PPR points per game as the Patriots’ No. 2 RB (or even No. 3 RB before Antonio Gibson‘s injury).
I don’t expect Henderson to return all the way to his clear backup role when Stevenson returns. But this backfield will definitely be a split, even if the rookie is the top dog. And the dirty secret of Henderson’s back-to-back breakout games is that — aside from two huge runs against Tampa — he really wasn’t that good.
I know, the “take away all his good plays and he’s bad” argument is rarely a convincing one. I’m slightly more willing to buy it in this case because Henderson has been inefficient all season. Even against the Jets, although he scored three touchdowns, he averaged just 3.3 yards per carry. In Week 10, even with those two massive runs, he ranked third-lowest on the week in success rate, per NFL Next Gen Stats.
For the season, Henderson ranks 42nd out of 53 running backs in success rate, per SumerSports, and 50th out of 56 backs in Pro Football Focus (PFF) rush grade. If his role does get reduced when Stevenson returns (which is essentially inevitable) and he stops racking up touchdowns (also essentially inevitable), Henderson could turn into a mediocre fantasy option pretty quickly.
As for the other side of this trade, I like Bucky Irving (who is right behind Henderson in value) for a few reasons. One, Sean Tucker‘s breakout game likely has a few managers a bit worried about Irving’s workload when he returns. Two, playoff-bound teams can make a good argument (assuming he misses this week) that swapping these backs is a win/win, as Henderson provides value now and upside later while Irving is a backloaded bet.
But I’m not worried about Tucker, who had a similarly massive game last season before fading back into irrelevance. Irving’s workload before his injury was pristine, and the Buccaneers have a tempting schedule for the rest of the way. Making this deal now could look genius in a couple of weeks when Irving is back to his No. 1 RB role and Henderson is a mediocre Flex play in a committee with Stevenson.
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Ted Chmyz is a fantasy football contributor for FantasyPros.com. Find him on Twitter and Bluesky @Tchmyz for more fantasy content or to ask questions.
