The New York Giants will face the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 18. Here’s fantasy football start-sit advice for every Giants and 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 18 Fantasy Start-Sit Cheat Sheet, where we cover every fantasy-relevant player in every game.
Drew Lock, QB
Andrew Luck … Drew Luck … Drew Lock.
A few minor spelling changes and we’d have a QB with elite pedigree and high expectations. Instead, we have none of those things, so when Lock posts the best Giants QB+ in our database and a top-five overall grade of the season, we take notice in a big way.
The list of players since 2020 with a 300-yard, four-TD, one-rushing-TD game is a short and impressive one:
- Josh Allen (3x)
- Patrick Mahomes (1)
- Tom Brady (1)
- Justin Herbert (1)
- Dak Prescott (1)
- Drew Lock (1)
Last week was a lot of fun, and with a concentrated target tree, maybe I’m underselling his chances to expose what figures to be a backup-laden Eagles secondary, but I’m not at all interested in chasing the points I missed out on last week.
For his career, Lock is a sub-60% passer with nearly as many interceptions (nine) as touchdown passes (10) since 2021. I’ll trust the overall profile instead of an exciting 60 minutes.
Devin Singletary, RB
Devin Singletary’s role alone is hardly rosterable in any situation, and when you consider that it comes behind a weak offensive line with no real (sustainable) passing game, he’s not someone who should be even close to your radar.
New York’s secondary back hasn’t reached 10 carries in a game since September, and the only way for me to feel even remotely good about any running back in these bottom-of-the-barrel offenses is extreme and reliable volume.
Tyrone Tracy Jr., RB
Tyrone Tracy Jr. has made it clear that he is the man of the present and future when it comes to this New York backfield, but if this offense doesn’t grow around him and Malik Nabers, it may not matter.
He was handed the rock 20 times against the Colts last week and managed to pick up just 59 yards. He failed to gain yardage on seven of his carries, and if not for an outlier 20-yard gain, that ugly stat line gets far worse.
Tracy’s grade in our custom elusive rating metric has dipped over the past month, and that could symbolize a rookie wall. It could also point to a team that has generally thrown in the towel around him.
I think you can get away with Flexing Tracy for his volume this week, especially if you believe that it’ll come against second-string defenders like I do, but I can’t go much higher than that in my rankings given the overall state of this New York offense.
Darius Slayton, WR
Darius Slayton rode the Drew Lock express last week (32-yard touchdown), but even with the Giants getting, by our measuring, the single-best QB game they’ve had in five seasons, Slayton was unable to catch more than two balls for the sixth straight game.
I don’t think Lock is Jameis Winston 2.0, and even if he is, I’m not sure that Slayton is capable of earning targets at the rate needed to make me comfortable.
Malik Nabers, WR
Updated at 11:30 AM ET on Sunday, January 5
Nabers is active for today's game.
The Giants have nothing to play for and would actually be wise to tank, but if last week was any indication, “tank” is not a word in the vocabulary of Mr. Drew Lock.
Malik Nabers is two catches from the rookie record and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. He is four receptions away from breaking Steve Smith’s franchise record (107 in 2009), and with 135 receiving yards, he can join Odell Beckham Jr., Victor Cruz, Homer Jones, and Del Shofner as the only Giants to average 85 receiving yards per game for a season.
And what better way to wrap up a tough season than to put up some decent numbers against a divisional rival (even if it’s largely against backups with Philadelphia being locked into the NFC’s two-seed)?
Plenty of stars will be limited this weekend, but I’m not sure we’ll see that in New York.
Wan’Dale Robinson, WR
Wan’Dale Robinson scored for the first time in nearly two months, but that’s to be expected when Drew Lock looks like a Hall of Famer for 60 minutes.
Consider me just a little skeptical about that sustaining.
That said, even if the quality of the pass falls off a cliff this weekend, last week’s volume was good to see. Robinson and Malik Nabers combined for a 63.6% target share against the Colts, both hauling in a single pass that gained more yards than any of their teammates had received for the entire game.
Robinson is what he is — a PPR scam that should find some room to operate against an Eagles defense that will feature reserves with them locked into the NFC’s No. 2 seed. I’d caution against penciling in much in the way of upside, but 9-12 PPR points is a plenty reasonable assumption, and in the right matchup, that holds value.
Jalen Hurts, QB
Last Updated Sunday at 11:30 AM
Hurts is inactive for today's game as the Eagles are resting starters.
Jalen Hurts completed one of his four 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).
Philadelphia sat him out last week against the Cowboys and is now locked in the two-seed. With Hurts still in protocol, there is no reason to rush him back.
Kenny Pickett will likely draw a second straight start. He looked fine last week against an overmatched Cowboys team (10-of-15 for 143 yards and a touchdown), but that was with DeVonta Smith and A.J. Brown dominating down the field.
It would stand to reason that all valuable Philadelphia pieces are players you want to avoid, and that would wipe Pickett off of my DFS player pool, even with a cheap price tag.
Kenny Pickett, QB
Last Updated Sunday at 11:30 AM
Pickett is active for today's game, but Tanner McKee will start.
Kenny Pickett will likely draw a second straight start with Hurts set to sit out Week 18 due to a combination of him being in concussion protocol and the Eagles having the second seed locked up.
Pickett looked fine last week against an overmatched Cowboys team (10-of-15 for 143 yards and a touchdown), but that was with DeVonta Smith and A.J. Brown dominating down the field.
It would stand to reason that all valuable Philadelphia pieces are players you want to avoid, and that would wipe Pickett off of my DFS player pool, even with a cheap price tag.
Saquon Barkley, RB
Last Updated Sunday at 11:30 AM
Barkley is inactive for today's game as the Eagles are resting starters.
Saquon Barkley needs 101 rushing yards to set the single-season record — he’s done that in a half of action five times this season (including the second half in Week 7 against these Giants).
This case would have been pretty straightforward if Barkley was playing on Sunday — he would have deserved to to be locked into lineups as, for once, the primary goal of both fantasy managers and an NFL team will align.
But since Barkley is sitting, I’m not overly interested in the surrounding pieces. I suppose if Will Shipley were to sit, Kenneth Gainwell’s path to holding Flex value would be reasonably clear, but that’s a low-ceiling play in a game that I don’t see having much in the way of scoring chances.
A.J. Brown, WR
Last Updated Sunday at 11:30 AM
Brown is inactive for today's game as the Eagles are resting starters.
A.J. Brown has caught a touchdown pass in three straight games, and it’s become clear that this team is willing to take its chances with weighing their WR1 down with targets.
Wise move.
I like what that means for their potential to push for an NFC crown, but that means getting to the postseason in one piece. With Week 18 meaning nothing to their standing, I’d be shocked if we got much more than a cameo from Brown on Sunday.
If you’re hellbent on targeting the Giants’ defense, Jahan Dotson is the WR3 in this offense, and Kenneth Gainwell has shown savvy in the passing game. It’s very possible that an Eagle or two got you to this point in your playoff bracket, but I find it unlikely that any of them attached to the passing game make an impact this week.
DeVonta Smith, WR
Last Updated Sunday at 11:30 AM
Smith is inactive for today's game as the Eagles are resting starters.
DeVonta Smith was shaken up early last week but finished with easily his best game of the season (6-120-2) in a shellacking of the Cowboys.
With nothing to gain from this week, I think you’re probably wise to avoid all pieces in Philadelphia outside of maybe Saquon Barkley if you want to play up the historic angle.
Smith’s role has been nearly identical for this team ever since A.J. Brown entered the mix (5-6 catches and 12-13 yards per catch per game), and I see no reason not to expect more of the same during the postseason and into 2025.
I don’t think he has a chance to be Tee Higgins (that is, a WR2 who has extended stretches where he is more productive than the WR1), but suitable year-end numbers appear to be a given at this point as long as you’re willing to deal with some variance on a weekly basis.
Grant Calcaterra, TE
The Eagles are locked into the No. 2 seed in the NFC and thus have nothing to play for, something that makes counting on any of their pieces difficult to do with confidence this weekend.
Grant Calcaterra has earned just a pair of targets on his 46 routers over the past two weeks. That could change should his star teammates be managed this week, but you also have to factor in a dip in the value of each target earned not coming from Jalen Hurts.
I’m not digging this deep at the position – there are other creative avenues to consider that I like more (Mike Gesicki, Juwan Johnson, and others).