What To Do If Your Fantasy Football Team Is 1-4: Is Trading Your Best Player On The Table?

So your fantasy season is off to a rough start.

You badly needed a win last week, but went up against the top-scoring team in the league, rendering your impressive lineup useless. Now entering Week 6, you’re staring at a 1-4 record with all hope slipping away.

What do you do?

RELATED: Waiver Wire Pickups For Week 6

How To Turn Your Fantasy Football Team Around After A 1-4 Start

Well, you sure as hell don’t throw in the towel. A lot can still happen, and there’s too much season left. Plus, no one likes the team that gives up halfway through the year and abandons setting their lineup. Don’t be that team. Yes, a 1-4 start obviously lowers your chances of making the fantasy playoffs. In fact, you are honestly looking at about a 10% likelihood of making the dance. You know, the more I think about it, the less I like your chances. “Well, better luck next year.”

Kidding, of course.

Set Realistic Expectations

Here’s the thing. If you’re playing in a 12-team league, you only have about an 8% chance of winning a title to begin with, so don’t let the low playoff probability discourage you. The very first thing I’d recommend, even before making a single move, is to diagnose your roster. Is your team truly just not working out? Or are you scoring points each week but just happen to face the league’s highest scorer? There’s obviously an element of luck involved with fantasy football, and sometimes that luck just doesn’t go our way.

Evaluate Other Teams In Your League

You should also take a good look at the rest of your league. How truly out of contention is a 1-4 record? And if you are in a league with divisions, if you’re in a weak group, 1-4 really might not be too deep a hole to climb out of. If that’s the case, smaller, less drastic moves could suffice.

Injuries can obviously play a massive role in the success of a fantasy team. And if you have been missing multiple key players due to injury, that can tell the story of how your season has gone. It does, however, make your next move tricky.

Fantasy Football Trade Strategy If You Are 1-4

At 1-4, the wins need to start, which means you can afford to wait on players to come back much less than the rest of your league. If Week 6 starts and you’re still missing players, now might be the time to trade players like A.J. Brown, Breece Hall or DeVonta Smith in exchange for usable players for both the short and long term. Don’t just give them away, obviously, as they still carry tremendous value and upside when on the field. But as good as they are, you simply don’t have much more time to wait for them to return.

RELATED: Players to trade for in fantasy football for Week 6

Odds are, unless you have just been incredibly unlucky and your 1-4 team is still very strong, you are going to have to make some type of move. And as much as you may not want to, trading an elite player for a handful of starters might be in your best interest. I’d imagine there aren’t many 1-4 Jahmyr Gibbs teams out there, but a 1-4 team with Puka Nacua is very possible.

I know seeing him get 24 targets on Monday makes the idea of trading him away seem absurd, but if you can get two top-30 fantasy players in return to help the overall structure of your team, it might be in your best interest. And, as always, consult our fantasy football trade rater to make sure it makes sense for your team.

I know it may seem like the sky is falling and the season is lost. Believe me, I get it. But the outlook of a fantasy team can change in the blink of an eye. And although we want to envision the end goal, we have to remember this is truly a week-to-week game. The fantasy season is a marathon, not a sprint.

So keep walking.

Join Our Newsletter

Trusted by 400,000+ fantasy football players. Get access to Fantasy Life's free award winning newsletter and tools, all in one step.

Email Address

Subscribe

By registering or logging in, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.