Falcons (

20.5) at
Eagles (

26)

XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT

Week 2 closes out with the Falcons visiting the Eagles for a 46.5 total game with Philly favored by 6. The big news we’re waiting on is on A.J. Brown, who picked up a hamstring injury during practice on Friday and then sat on Saturday. It’s not yet known if the Eagles are just being cautious with their star wide receiver or if he’s in real danger of missing the game, so we’ll just have to wait and see, but I’ll write this up both ways. 

INJURY UPDATE: AJ Brown has been ruled out – more on this below

Update (4 pm Monday): Parris Campbell activated

So, there’s an important consideration for Showdown tonight that I didn’t think of until Pulse mentioned it which is that we have a potentially impactful practice squad callup for the Eagles. That is Parris Campbell. Campbell was in the running for the WR3 job in camp until they signed Dotson – then they cut Campbell but immediately resigned him to the practice squad. He was resting with the starters in the preseason. The reason he matters is that Britain Covey and Johnny Wilson are, to put it kindly, not really NFL-caliber wide receivers – Campbell really makes the most sense as a guy they would call up to actually run routes. Dotson doesn’t have a strong history as a target earner, so Campbell could get some actual, legitimate run at min salary and (probably) modest ownership. The Eagles can only call up 2 guys and they need to call up a center, so 1 other pass catcher is all they can go for. If it’s Campbell, we can expect him to run out of the slot, which kicks Devonta outside…that’s a worse matchup for him, which could result in extra work for Campbell. All of this is a long way to say “if Parris Campbell is active, he’s a very interesting min salary play.” I wouldn’t personally lock him but I think he’ll be very lightly owned as nobody around the industry is writing him up (though I do see him being projected for very modest points in a couple of spots) – somebody I’ll want to be overweight on, for sure.

Atlanta

On the Atlanta side of things, Bijan Robinson finally got the bell cow role he deserves, playing 89% of the snaps (significantly higher than any game in 2023 in which he maxed out at 81%). The Falcons played horribly in Week 1, only scoring a single offensive touchdown against the Steelers while turning the ball over three times and running just 48 offensive plays but Bijan still saw 18 carries and 5 targets . . . that’s right, he touched the ball on just shy of half of Atlanta’s plays. That’s a big role, friends. He’s just shy of Saquon Barkley for the honor of being the highest-salary player in the game but it’s hard to say he doesn’t deserve to be up there with a role like this. The problem is that there are a lot of other strong plays that are priced up, which makes it tough to get to him when the Falcons are significant road underdogs, which I think is likely to keep his ownership suppressed somewhat. The way I see it is that Bijan’s ceiling is as high as anyone’s in this game, but his floor is lower than Saquon and Hurts because it’s entirely possible the Eagles jump out to a big lead and that would suppress his workload (even though he would still retain his passing game role). Behind Bijan, you could play Tyler Allgeier though he would be a thin punt option. 

Showdown Ownership Projections!

Ownership updates automatically

In the passing game, the Falcons had an extremely narrow group of players on the field in Week 1. Drake London and Darnell Mooney played 100% and 95% of the snaps, respectively, while Kyle Pitts played 96% at tight end. Ray-Ray McCloud played 54% of the snaps and tight end Charlie Woerner played 41%, basically splitting that role depending on if the Falcons were running 11 or 12 personnel for that play. Backups KhaDarel Hodge and Ross Dwelley each played 2 snaps. That’s right, the entire passing game was basically five guys, which is about as narrow a grouping as I have ever seen when doing Showdown writeups. Frankly, I have a hard time seeing this last for the entire season as it’s just so unusual, but at least for now, we should probably go with what the Falcons have shown us. The problem is that Atlanta’s passing game was a disaster in Week 1, specifically because Kirk Cousins just didn’t look fully recovered from last season’s ACL injury. He didn’t look mobile and they consistently played out of shotgun and pistol formations instead of having Cousins under center. Overall, he just didn’t seem comfortable moving around out there. Against a strong Philly D line, Cousins could be in for another rough day. Falcons believers will just need to hope that Cousins quickly ramps things up. London is the alpha receiver here but only saw 3 targets last week – he’s not really a big play guy so he needs volume in order to pay off. The good news is that Week 1’s dud dropped his Showdown salary from $10,000 all the way to $7,800, and that keeps him firmly in play even if the Falcons passing game isn’t quite a full go. 

TE Kyle Pitts is $6,800, though that’s closer to what we saw from him last year. He caught a touchdown in Week 1 and a lot of analysts have been expecting a breakout this year, but I’m hesitant despite the draft pedigree. Pitts has not really looked good at the NFL level yet, and it’s not like he’s a rookie who’s still adjusting. I think he’ll have a better season this year with the quarterback upgrade, but I’m not sure I buy a full-on breakout into, say, a top-3 tight end. He’s cheap enough to be in play but overall I prefer London to him even at $1k more. Mooney is Atlanta’s deep threat guy but unfortunately, he hasn’t been priced down like the rest of the Falcons. $5,400 is a pretty fair price for a deep threat, low volume WR2-type. If you think the Eagles throttle Atlanta and suppress play volume, that makes Mooney more interesting, because his role can lead to him paying off with just a couple of catches whereas it would be much more difficult for London or Pitts to do so. WR3 McCloud led the team in targets last week with 7, which is kind of nuts when you realize he’s A) not very good and B) only on the field for about half the snaps. I expect this is an outlier rather than something that will continue, but if you feel otherwise, you can roll out McCloud at just $3k. Personally, I’m going to view him more as a relatively thin WR3 on an offense filled with higher-priority, more talented pass catchers. TE2 Woerner is a punt play. 

Philadelphia