The Philadelphia Eagles will face the Dallas Cowboys in Week 17. Here’s fantasy football start-sit advice for every Eagles skill player who has the potential to make a fantasy impact during the game.
Looking for more lineup advice? Head over to our Week 17 Fantasy Start-Sit Cheat Sheet, where we cover every fantasy-relevant player in every game.
Jalen Hurts, QB
Hurts completed 1 of 4 passes for 11 yards in Week 16 before entering concussion protocol and being ruled out for the remainder of the game. This was obviously a brutal break for fantasy managers, as there was no reason to not play him with the utmost confidence (2023 was his first season without a DNP).
Process-wise, you did nothing wrong. I understand that prioritizing process over results this time of year is irritating to hear, but you did nothing wrong.
This is pretty clearly a situation to keep tabs on and will require some creativity on your end if you still have meaningful games in front of you. Kenny Pickett isn’t the answer to your issues.
Hurts turned 14 completions into 202 yards and a pair of scores (56 rush yards and two touchdowns) in the Week 10 shellacking of the Cowboys — Pickett isn’t assuming that sort of projection.
Maybe you go to Michael Penix Jr. (at WAS) or lean into the recent struggles of the Bears and take a chance on a sporadic producer in Geno Smith.
Kenny Pickett, QB
Kenny Pickett has as many touchdown passes as interceptions for his career, and without much rushing equity, he’s not the type of backup quarterback that will walk into even reasonable fantasy value.
The Eagles have little motivation to force the issue this week, thus making Pickett far more risk than any reward as a spot-starting option.
Saquon Barkley, RB
As a team, the Giants have 1,603 rushing yards and 12 touchdowns on 369 carries – Saquon Barkley has turned his 314 carries into 1,838 yards and 13 scores this season.
Barkley is nothing short of special, and while we didn’t need 109 rushing yards with two scores in the first quarter last week to remind us of that, it never hurts to get statistical proof when leagues are being decided.
If you’re scrolling through the All-Pro’s box scores and come across the less-than-ideal numbers he produced in the first matchup with Dallas, don’t worry about it. Philadelphia controlled that game and ran the ball effectively (187 yards); it just didn’t need Barkley to do the heavy lifting (36.8% carry share).
With the Eagles still holding out hope for the NFC’s top seed, I’d expect a heavy dose of their RB1 early in this game to remove all doubt from the outcome. He’s a top-five play this week and in the 1.01 conversation for redraft leagues next season.
A.J. Brown, WR
“If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.”
Jerry Seinfeld, one of the great philosophers of our time, uttered that line to George Costanza years ago. I can’t help but think it applies here. The Eagles’ instinct last season was to come out of the gates firing. Establish themselves as a powerhouse and heavily feature A.J. Brown in their attempt to overwhelm you with production.
It worked until it didn’t.
If the opposite then has to be right (assuming that the Eagles are George Costanza, the Everyman who has a hard time getting out of his own way), how does ending the season like that sound?
Weeks 3-7, 2023:
- 29.9% on-field target share
- Four end zone targets
- 25.8 PPR PPG
Weeks 15-16, 2024:
- 34.7% on-field target share
- Four end zone targets
- 24.4 PPR PPG
Included in both of those sample sizes is a game with at least 13 targets and a touchdown against the Commanders. The stars align further for the week following this data set, as Brown faced a defense that allowed over 7.5 yards per pass and a touchdown on 5% of all throws and gets the pleasure of another such spot this weekend.
In said spot last season, Brown casually dropped 33 PPR points and carried your squad. That was a Week 8 game — the stakes are higher now, with Philadelphia a win away from locking up the NFC East. I’m that much more confident in Philly’s go-to option.
Of course, the math will be reworked should Jalen Hurts sit out, but there won’t be an actionable change for season-long managers, just less bravado from your humble narrator.
DeVonta Smith, WR
DeVonta Smith went from GOAT to goat in a hurry last week after he dropped a pass that would have likely kept the Eagles in a great spot to compete for the NFC’s one seed and eventually resulted in a soul-crushing loss to the Commanders.
That series of events hurt Philadelphia fans in a significant way, but the game as a whole was fine for forward-thinking fantasy managers. Smith has cleared a dozen expected PPR points in three straight games (he didn’t have one such performance in his previous six) and has 6+ catches or a touchdown in five of his past seven.
The interesting part of Smith’s profile is that what we perceived as his greatest skill has been removed from his role. Over his past four games, his aDOT sits at just 6.7 yards, essentially half of where it was in the previous three games (13.3).
With time, that’s resulted in an increase in efficiency (85% catch rate over the past two weeks, and that includes the bad drop last week that he catches at least 95% of the time) and could well be the norm for the remainder of the regular season as the Eagles try to figure out how to best maximize their weapons.
Smith was held to just two catches in the Week 10 meeting with the Cowboys, but I’m comfortable projecting him to double or triple that output given his new target diet. This season, the Cowboys are the worst team in the league in terms of completion percentage and yards per attempt on those short passes. Philadelphia fans aren’t usually ones to forgive and forget, but I think Smith can work his way back into the good graces with a big Week 17.
Grant Calcaterra TE
Right idea.
Fantasy is very much a game of opportunity, and when the Dallas Goedert injury opened the door for a one-to-one replacement in terms of role, Grant Calcaterra was a pretty reasonable add.
From a process standpoint, you weren’t wrong. He’s played over 88% of the snaps and three straight games, running 92 routes in the process. The problem is that instead of keeping Goedert’s role in-house at the TE position, they’ve (logically) elected to load up their star receivers with looks.
In those three games, Calcaterra’s 92 routes have yielded just 38 yards and only a single target over the past two weeks. I could alert you that the Cowboys own the worst red-zone defense in the league (75% touchdown rate, 36-of-48) in an effort to sell you on him as a streamer, but I’m not going to do that.
Well, I guess I just did. I’m arming you with information that I’m choosing to ignore in this instance. Either Jalen Hurts is a full go, and he soaks up a ton of red-zone usage, or he sits, and this team struggles to get to the red zone at their season rate (3.9 per game, sixth most).
