XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT
Week 11 starts off with a bang as the Commanders visit the Eagles for a 48.5 total game with Philly favored by 3.5. If you had told me before the season that Washington would be a top-3 offense, there’s no way I would have believed it, but here we are. They’re scoring 29 points per game and Jayden Daniels has been nothing short of awesome, while Philly has kept chugging along doing what they’ve been doing for a few years now. Both teams have excellent offenses. Both teams also have above-average defenses (weird to say for WASH but they’re 12th in the league allowing 21.7 points per game, while Philly is 5th at 17.9 points per game – the same as the Chiefs). These are two very, very good offenses, but the defensive side of things may be a bit underrated. Another way to phrase this is that it’s a high total game and it should be, but there are perhaps more paths to the game coming in under its total than the field is going to realize.
Philadelphia
On the Eagles side, Saquon Barkley is one of the highest ceiling running backs in the league on this offense but his floor is also very, very low. He’s playing 70%+ of the snaps in competitive games as well as seeing the vast majority of the RB work. In seven non-blowout games, RB2 Kenneth Gainwell has a grand total of 18 carries and 8 targets (~3.6 touches/game) while RB3 Will Shipley has only played in garbage time. Otherwise, it’s Saquon. There are two risks with Saquon. The first is touchdown equity, where he has 15 touches inside the 10-yard line but Gainwell somehow has 6 (lol) and Jalen Hurts has 14 carries of his own (it gets even worse inside the 5 where Saquon has 10 touches to Hurts’ 12). The second risk is that while Saquon has the snap share of a 3-down back, this is a low passing volume offense, and that has led to him having just 26 targets through nine games (~3/game). What this means is that Saquon is basically a 2-down running back on a great and run-heavy offense but with a shaky goal-line role. Is he a good play? Well, the Eagles are home favorites and the matchup is fine. His ceiling is outstanding – just be aware that there’s more risk here than you might realize at first glance. Gainwell’s a very low-floor RB2 play, while Shipley has only played in garbage time to this point and thus only really belongs on 5-1 onslaught builds.
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In the passing game, the Eagles are low volume (and especially so lately) with just 26 dropbacks per game, generally needing to get by on efficiency or be pushed by their opponent to generate more volume. Washington’s offense is certainly capable of doing some pushing, but just be sensitive to game script in your builds when considering how to deploy Eagles pass catchers. The primary wide receiver duo of A.J. Brown and Devonta Smith are expensive but high upside. I will note, as I have before, that the 1A/1B role for the two of them really started separating last year and AJB is pretty clearly the 1 with no “A” after it. Any guy in this offense can hit for big plays, but Brown is the one averaging almost 20 yards per catch and if we think the Eagles aren’t going to throw much, I’d have Brown as the significant favorite to outscore Smith. Smith is an elite player in his own right but his upside is capped as long as Brown is on the field. He’s very good, he just needs more volume in order to really hit because he’s only getting around ⅔ of the yardage per catch that Brown is. This makes Brown a strong play in any scenario while Smith is a bit more game script sensitive. The WR3 role has primarily been Jahan Dotson though we’ve seen Johnny Wilson and Ainias Smith playing a bit as well. None of these guys are playing a lot, though. Dotson has 15 targets on the season, Wilson has 7, and Smith has 3, and keep in mind that AJB and Devonta have both missed games this year. These guys are all shaky MME punt options.
At tight end, Dallas Goedert returned from a three-game absence last week to play 63% of the snaps and catch 2 balls (including a touchdown). Goedert’s role this season when playing alongside AJB and Devonta has been extremely modest – it’s a small sample due to all three missing games but we’ve seen 5, 4, and 3 targets in those scenarios. Goedert’s a good player but his 6.3 aDOT limits his upside due to how run-heavy the Eagles are, and he doesn’t get as much red zone volume as you might expect from a good pass-catching tight end. He’s fine but I’m not especially excited to play him. Goedert’s return sends Grant Calcaterra back to TE2 punt category. Finally, I’ll just note that Devonta and Goedert both currently have questionable tags as I write this early Wednesday morning, but given that they both got in limited practices on Tuesday I’m not worried and assuming they will both play.
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