Eagles (

25.25) at
WFT (

19.25)

Game Overview ::

By HILOW >>

• The Eagles currently have five players on the COVID list, most notably left guard Landon Dickerson and defensive end Derek Barnett.
• Washington are down to just one player (depth cornerback Darryl Roberts) on the league’s COVID list after being one of the most affected teams over the previous two weeks.
• Washington has stated that they intend to give Kyle Allen some run at quarterback in an attempt to evaluate future plans at the position.
• Philadelphia currently sit in the seventh and final playoff spot in the NFC and can ensure a playoff berth by winning their final two games.
• Washington has not been mathematically eliminated yet but would need to win out and receive a ton of help to make the playoffs.

How PHILADELPHIA Will Try To Win ::

Philadelphia leads the league in rush rate over the second half of the season by a massive margin. Their rush rate since Week 8 stands at a whopping 60%, a full 5% more than the Colts, the next closest team. They have gone 6-2 over that same time, with their only losses coming by six points against the Giants and by three points against the Chargers. Furthermore, the Eagles have scored 24 or more points in all but one of those games. The problem for us is that the heavy rushing load has been split by no fewer than four players during that stretch – quarterback Jalen Hurts and running backs Miles Sanders, Jordan Howard, and one of Boston Scott or Kenneth Gainwell. Philadelphia ranks in the top half of the league in points allowed per game, play at a top five situation-neutral pace of play, and are a net-neutral in turnover differential this season.

As alluded to above, the emphasis of this offense is on the rush, and it’s been that way since this team started 2-5. Their offensive line ranks second in adjusted line yards, first in stuffed rate, fourth in second level yards generated, and seventh in open field yards generated. The matchup yields a well above average 4.565 net-adjusted line yards metric against a Washington defense allowing a moderate 22.7 fantasy points per game to opposing backfields, primarily due to a below average 3.95 yards allowed per carry to opposing backs. Even with the elevated pace of play, the Eagles run 62.9 plays per game this season, which ranks 16^th in the league. That gives us a solid baseline expectation of 32-36 total rush attempts here, with room for more should game flow allow. Of those 32-36 rush attempts, expect eight to 12 from Hurts, 12-15 from Sanders (UPDATE: Sanders has been ruled out for Week 17 with a broken hand suffered in Week 16, meaning Jordan Howard should step into his vacated lead role, backed up by some combination of Boston Scott and Kenneth Gainwell. It is likeliest we see Howard and Scott split early down work at a 60-40 clip, with Gainwell the most likely to be utilized in the obvious passing down role. It is also possible we see Hurts utilized more heavily out of the backfield.), eight to 10 for Howard, and a possibility for a handful of touches for Boston Scott or Kenneth Gainwell. One final consideration is the fact that Washington has ceded the third-most quarterback rushing yards and most quarterback rushing scores this season.

You have to go all the way back to Week 7 to find a game where Jalen Hurts attempted more than just 31 pass attempts, and there were only two games over that stretch where he attempted more than 26 pass attempts. Of the 164 pass attempts in the seven games since Week 8 (Hurts missed Week 13), Devonta Smith has been targeted at a 22.6% rate and Dallas Goedert has been targeted at a 23.8% rate, leaving a modest 10.9 targets per game to be split between Quez Watkins, Jalen Reagor, Greg Ward, JJ Arcega-Whiteside, backup tight ends Jack Stoll and Tyree Jackson, and the running backs. In my best Yoda voice, a condensed offense this is not.

How Washington Will Try to win ::

Although not mathematically eliminated from the postseason just yet, Washington has apparently conceded that they will not be representing the NFC with three teams from the NFC East in the playoffs (Dallas has clinched a playoff spot while Philadelphia currently sits in the seventh spot). As such, it isn’t entirely apparent that Washington wants to try to win this game, evidenced by the reports out of Washington stating that the team is likely to utilize multiple quarterbacks this week as they look towards the future. Expect an inefficient and conservative Kyle Allen to see snaps in direct backup of an inefficient and conservative Taylor Heinicke. A whole lot of meh here. The one saving grace for this offense is the fact that the same conservative nature of the offense overall leads to the areas of the field that the Eagles “allow” production to (short-to-intermediate). That said, Washington ranks just 18^th in drive success rate on offense while the Eagles rank 19^th, so that isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement. Finally, Washington ranks seventh in the league in overall rush rates during the second half of the season and Philadelphia ranks 12^th in DVOA against the run while 21^st against the pass (primarily short-area work allowed).

Antonio Gibson played just 37% of the offensive snaps last week after aggravating his turf toe injury, and that is in addition to his hip and shin ailments that he has been playing through for most of the season. That introduces a good deal of uncertainty surrounding the likely snap and opportunity split of this backfield. With JD McKissic on IR, we should expect Jaret Patterson and Jonathan Williams to soak up any backfield work vacated by Gibson, who was downgraded from a limited participant on Wednesday to a “DNP” on Thursday. The matchup yields a modest 4.165 net-adjusted line yards metric against an Eagles defense allowing 25.0 fantasy points per game to opposing backfields.

Taylor Heinicke averages 7.8 intended air yards per pass attempt this season, while Kyle Allen is all the way down at 7.1, indicating how conservative this offense has been forced to be this year behind highly inefficient quarterback play. Terry McLaurin is now the only pass-catcher that plays in a near every-down role, as Ricky Seals-Jones and Jonathan Bates have split snaps over the previous three weeks, Adam Humphries has an established role as the slot wide receiver but plays 55-65% of the offensive snaps on a weekly basis, and the “WR2” role has been a mishmash of both production and opportunity. All of DeAndre Carter, Dyami Brown, Cam Sims, Max Milne, and Curtis Samuel have rotated through that final wide receiver spot, but none of them have taken a strong portion of the opportunity. It’s basically “McLaurin or bust” if targeting a member of this pass-catching corps. The matchup against the Eagles should be considered net-neutral, as they allow an above-average catch rate but the lowest yards per reception in the league. Expect McLaurin to see a good bit of lockdown corner Darius Slay, who has seen a career resurgence this season (low 47.3% completion rate allowed in coverage, with more interceptions than touchdowns allowed). 

Likeliest Game flow ::

It is likeliest we see the Eagles succeed on the offensive side of the ball, in one way or another (have scored 24 or more points in all but one game since Week 8, and 27 or more points in all but two games since Week 8), but that production is highly likely to be spread out enough to render all players from the Eagles borderline useless to us from a fantasy perspective. We’ll cover more of this below, but MME shots can be taken on Jalen Hurts, Jordan Howard, Devonta Smith, or Dallas Goedert, but the remainder of this offense should largely be left alone. Because we can be fairly certain that the Eagles will achieve some level of success offensively, we can also be fairly certain that Washington will be forced into increased pass rates as the game plays out. The problem here is that the Eagles allow the lowest yards per completion in the league at just 9.0 while allowing a greater-than-league-average completion rate of 68.57% (28^th in the league), meaning Washington will likely be forced to march the field through sustained drives (18^th-ranked drive success rate) and actually score when they enter the red zone (54.55% red zone touchdown rate – 25^th in the league), two areas they have largely struggled with this season. On top of that, we’re expecting multiple quarterbacks to be used from Washington this week as they look towards the future. This all comes together to form a likeliest game flow and game environment that the Eagles control throughout, bringing their elevated rush rates to the forefront of consideration when breaking down this game. In turn, this game has very little chance of opening up into something required to ship GPPs this week.

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