After a long offseason and over a month of hype out of training camp and the preseason slate, Week 1 of the 2026 NFL regular season has arrived. It’s about at this time that dynasty leagues really pick up steam as fantasy managers make last-minute moves to perfect their lineups before the full schedule kicks off on Sunday.
If you’ve been playing the format for a while, you know the drill. Whether buying, selling, or just playing the market, there are always transactions to be made in dynasty fantasy football. Without further ado, here are the best sell candidates to trade away at the running back position in dynasty fantasy football as the new season begins.
Best running back sells to trade away in dynasty fantasy football
TreVeyeon Henderson, New England Patriots (RB18)
The first name on this list is one who the dynasty community arguably got way too high on, way too fast at that. Last year, the Patriots drafted TreVeyon Henderson in the early second round, providing a very solid landing spot for the former Ohio State standout. What followed was one of the most frustrating situations for fantasy managers in recent memory.
Henderson was clearly extremely talented coming out of college. He posted a minimum of 1,155 scrimmage yards in three of his four seasons with the Buckeyes, led the Big Ten in rushing efficiency twice with a career average of 6.4 yards per carry and displayed some passing chops as well. His electric ability to flip the field made NFL fans believe he’d become an instant league-winner in New England, but that isn’t the reality we got. Instead, Henderson worked his way into a split backfield behind veteran Rhamondre Stevenson, who Mike Vrabel and his coaching staff seem to love. Of course, it’s tough for a rookie to get significant volume sometimes, but it’s clear there’s something in his profile that the team just doesn’t appear to trust. From most reports, those flaws appear to be his vision as a runner and his pass-blocking ability.
Granted, Henderson put forth a pretty nice rookie season in which he racked up 911 rushing yards at an average of 5.1 yards per attempt, also catching 35 passes for another 221 yards. With over 1,100 scrimmage yards and 10 total touchdowns, he finished with an average of 12.1 FPPG, good for a spot as the overall RB21 and per-game RB25 – you can’t complain too much about that for a first-year player. When he did get opportunities as the lead option, Henderson showed what he could do with an average of 21.02 FPPG across four games with a 60% snap share or better. Again, though, he appears to be cemented as the second back on the depth chart behind Stevenson, who’s not a flashy name but does the little things that Vrabel values quite well.
What you get with Henderson is something of a boom-or-bust RB2 who relies on hitting big gains to really make a splash in fantasy. He’s clearly one of the best in the NFL at hitting those home runs, given that he broke a league-best four runs of 50+ yards as a rookie. Still, Stevenson out-snapped him by a wide margin down the stretch last season and in the playoffs, so given the backfield picture, there’s an argument to sell high on him as the dynasty RB18 in KeepTradeCut’s rankings if you aren’t depending on him in weekly lineups and can fetch a haul from his name value.
Cam Skattebo, New York Giants (RB19)
It sounds odd to say out loud, but sometimes, a big personality can help inflate the fantasy value of a player. Cam Skattebo’s persona feels like a perfect example of this concept at work – if you’ve many of the viral clips of him on social media from around the time he entered the NFL, you know that he seems like the very definition of a stereotypical football guy.
To be clear, that’s not the reason I’m suggesting he’s a sell in dynasty. I do, however, think it played a little bit of a role in his meteoric rise up the rankings as a rookie when combined with the larger factor of his on-field production. The fourth-round pick out of Arizona State became an instant contributor with 16.0 FPPG as a member of the Giants, an output that slotted him in as the RB9 on a per-game basis. He ran for 410 yards with an additional 207 receiving yards on 24 receptions, tallying seven total touchdowns across just eight games. Really, he did all that in an even smaller sample if you take into account that he saw just four touches in his debut as a rookie. With a bell-cow’s workload, Skattebo became a fast favorite for many managers who took him in the middle of rookie drafts.
It was all sunshine and rainbows until a gruesome ankle injury in Week 8 ended his season prematurely. He dislocated his right ankle with fibula fracture and a torn deltoid ligament at the same time. He underwent immediate surgery and rehabbed over the offseason – which to his credit, seems to have taken a toll on him since he spoke in an interview about how he briefly considered retiring due to the severity of the injury – and is expected to be back at full force this year. I just don’t love his profile, though, especially coming off the ankle. Skattebo ran a 4.65 40-yard dash during the pre-draft process and isn’t a top-tier athlete at the position, so it’s tough for me to buy in on many long gains given the severity of the injury he suffered. Of course, he sounds like he’s ready for a major role in the first year of the John Harbaugh era in New York, but there are valid concerns about how his body will hold up, especially given his extremely physical style as a runner.
Was Skattebo’s rise to a valuation as an RB1 in dynasty fun to follow last year? It sure was, and given the possibility of him serving as a workhorse, I may be striking out since I have zero shares of him across my leagues. I just don’t buy in on his long-term prospects as a team’s top backfield option, especially if/when the Giants are set to start winning games again in another year or so. His passing-downs role is crucial, but if his athleticism takes a hit off the injury or he doesn’t score as many touchdowns now that Najee Harris is in town, Skattebo’s value could easily drop considerably. I’d personally rather get out now and get something nice in return for trading the dynasty RB19, if I rostered him.
MarShawn Lloyd, Green Bay Packers (RB35)
There’s a very fluid situation in Green Bay heading into Week 1. Incumbent halfback Josh Jacobs is facing an off-field legal battle which it’s probably best not to get into here – but what we do know is that he’s currently on the Commissioner’s Exempt list and pleaded no contest to charges of battery and criminal damage to property. The details surrounding his possible return to the field are murky at the moment, which catapulted backup MarShawn Lloyd way up the dynasty rankings over the last few weeks.
Lloyd currently comes in at a position of RB35 in the dynasty rankings, which has dropped from a peak at RB28 seen at the start of September. Is the price tag falling now that there’s slightly more clarity than before surrounding Jacobs’ future? It has, but there’s still time to get value back. For the record, it’s not that Lloyd is a provably bad player; moreso that he’s shown very little in his brief NFL career and can fetch a significant asset in return at the moment.
The USC product was a high-quality prospect in the 2024 NFL Draft. In his sophomore and junior seasons prior to declaring, Lloyd amassed 1,393 rushing yards and 18 touchdowns in the ground game with South Carolina and USC, also bringing intrigue as a receiver with 31 catches for 408 yards and two more scores. He was a highly efficient runner with an average of 6.1 yards per tote and displayed great long speed with a 4.46 40-yard dash. There’s a reason the Packers used a third-round selection on him. The problem is just that he hasn’t been able to stay healthy. He tore an ACL as a freshman in college, then suffered an ankle sprain as a rookie that landed him on IR for a long stretch. Heading into year two in Green Bay, he went down in the preseason with a hamstring strain that he later reaggravated upon returning to practice, missing the entire regular season in the end. Woof.
It’s true that players are injury prone until they aren’t, and sometimes, freak accidents do happen. Lloyd has the talent to produce and will get a chance to do so through the early weeks – but each passing game means Jacobs may be another step closer to a return to play. In a fluid situation like this one, the range of outcomes is wide, so it’s understandable if you’ve held Lloyd for this long and want to ride it out while you can. However, pivoting off a backup running back with an injury history and just seven total touches across two years in the NFL isn’t exactly a bad idea, especially if you can get a future second-round pick or more in return. Pick your own adventure, but he lands on the trade list here if the goal is to accumulate dynasty value.
