Quick Slant: SNF - The Rams, Backed into a Corner and Fighting for Survival, Affix Their Eyes Upon the Unstoppable Force
Eagles @ Rams, Sunday @ 8:20 PM
The Rams will face a formidable opponent on Sunday night. The Eagles, at 8-2, have emerged as one of the NFL’s most complete teams. Their slow start now feels like a stellar remnant as the Eagles have become a team without weakness, piloted by a QB who is one-of-one in terms of his uniqueness, even keelness, and growth. He is joined by an RB vindicated as an exonerating factor in his own recent failures by way of a new setting, where he has thrived. Their terrifying defense has turned weakness into strength, manufacturing one of the most complete secondaries in the league from the ashes of a dreadful revolving door a year ago. Weekly, the Eagles seem ever more unassailable and perfect.
At 5-5, the Rams live out a season defined by attrition as injuries have ravaged their offensive line, and the losses of Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua—arguably the best receiver duo in the league—turned a potent passing attack into a caged bird. But all is not lost. Both receivers have returned to full power; the line is four-fifths of its original self, and with all this comes a spark of optimism for a Los Angeles team narrowly clutching at playoff aspirations. Matthew Stafford is still playing good ball, and the Rams have shown flashes that suggest they’re not ready to touch oblivion.
At SoFi Stadium, these teams will collide with very different stakes. It’s another chance for Philadelphia to prove their supremacy and solidify their status as a Super Bowl contender. For the Rams, it’s a shot at survival—a chance to prove they’re still dangerous, still capable of a run, and worthy to be remembered in the 2024 story.
Eagles’ Implied Team Total: 25.5
The Eagles rank 8th in EPA per play and 12th in offensive success rate. They rank 11th in EPA per dropback and 14th in offensive success rate on dropbacks. They are led by Jalen Hurts, who, despite ranking just 23rd in passing attempts, is fantasy football’s QB2 in PPR/G.
The secret to Hurts’ success as a fantasy asset is no secret; he is an excellent runner who leads the NFL by a wide margin in rushing TDs due to the success and gross volume of Philadelphia’s Tush Push (although he runs well in all areas of the field, ranking third in rushing yardage among QBs).
Based on TDs/YDs, Hurts has scored nearly eight more TDs than he would have if he were to produce the league average rate of TDs/Yards. Regression principles would indicate that this type of thing will usually spring closer to the league base rate. However, we know the Eagles are simply a different animal (this is, in fact, a fantastic example of the flaw of regression analysis within sports, as select players and circumstances perform above the base rates all the time because they do things better or differently than other comparables). We should resist this way of thinking regarding Hurts and the Eagles.
Hurts is also an excellent passer, but he isn’t called upon much for it, as the Eagles are the run-heaviest team in the league. Philly ranks 31st in pass rate over expected (PROE), narrowly in front of only the Packers, who are likely elevated due to the run-heavy scripts they’ve logged in games where Malik Willis played extensively. They lead the league in neutral script run rate at 54%, the highest rate any team has had since 2022. Their 68 plays per 60 minutes are tied for fourth due to their ability to sustain drives; they rank in the top ten in both third-down and fourth-down conversions per game, primarily due to the success of the Tush Push.
The Eagles typically have a relatively narrow target distribution. This year has been no different, except they’ve experienced a fair amount of injuries to each of their three favorite passing options: A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, and Dallas Goedert. Brown’s share has been elite in the past six games, and Goedert has been in and out.
Smith continues to be an extremely efficient player when he gets his shots, ranking 12th in FPOE, yet drawing a 23% share in a run-heavy offense is not necessarily ideal. To be clear, Smith has a 26% target share for the season, including games Brown missed due to a hamstring injury, two of which Smith was healthy for and drew 34% and 28% market shares. Since then, he has drawn more than six targets only once and averages four targets per game. When we play Smith, we hope he can maximize a relatively small workload; when he can’t, we are left wanting.
Brown has a plus-30% share and excellent efficiency. Even he has been somewhat disappointing in fantasy the past four weeks. Most No. 1 WRs like Brown get double-digit targets regularly; Brown has only one such game in 2024, back in Week 1. Similarly, we require Brown to turn a little into a lot to feel satisfied with him.
This is the effect of having Hurts on the same team as Saquon Barkley. The Eagles have the top EPA per rush and sixth-best offensive success rate on rushes.
Yet, even as Barkley may adversely affect Smith and Brown, Barkley gets lumped into Hurts’s gravitational pull in his own right, having yielded many high-value touches (HVT) he would have gotten elsewhere.
Barkley’s career receiving market share has been 16%, but it is down to 12% with the Eagles. As we know, he has ceded green zone work to Hurts. And yet, he is doing far better in fantasy than he has in many years because he is on a highly productive offense that scores gobs of points and maintains possession of the football. This should be one of the year’s great takeaways in fantasy football; many faded Barkley in drafts because they expected such a reduction in HVT, but they failed to recognize the incoming uptick in opportunities as well as quality opportunities (his green zone touches are actually up from 1.1 to 1.6/G in 2024, despite the Tush Push).
The Eagles trail only Baltimore in terms of adjusted YBC/Att generated on offense, and the Rams rank only 13th in adjusted YBC/Att allowed, giving the Eagles the second-best run-blocking advantage among all Week 12 matchups.
The Rams are 19th in EPA per play and 22nd in defensive success rate. They rank 22nd in EPA per dropback allowed and 26th in defensive success rate on dropbacks.
The Rams are capable of decent pressure, ranking ninth in pressure rate over expected (PrROE), and the Eagles are surprisingly weak in pass protection, ranking 22nd in PrROE allowed. This is the Rams’ primary advantage. Hurts has the eighth-most pronounced drop-off in QB Rating when pressured vs. from a clean pocket.
The Rams run the fourth-highest rate of man defense at 32.9%. Like most teams, their most common alignment is Cover 3, followed by Cover 1. The Rams play at the fourth-highest rate of Cover 2, intended to mitigate deep shots.
Against these types and rates of coverages, Hurts is ranked fourth among QBs in Fantasy Points’ Matchup Expected Points per Dropback model. Brown ranks third, Smith ranks 26th, and Dallas Goedert ranks 29th among pass-catchers, so they all do well against the types of coverage they are expected to see. All are also in good matchups against specific personnel; they end up reasonably nebulous compared to usual as both the Eagles’ pass-catchers and the Rams’ DBs move about quite a bit, and yet, there isn’t an expectation the Rams will employ shadow coverage.
Smith will miss the game with an ongoing hamstring issue. He has been very durable, so there is not much to go by to find the Eagles’ response to his absences, although he missed a game earlier in the year due to a concussion. Brown was also inactive in that one game, and some of the slack was picked up by Goedert, who drew eight targets. There might be an inclination to assume a more prominent role for Jahan Dotson, especially since he would assume much of Smith’s favorable matchup from the slot; he drew four targets in Smith’s absence. Barkley also saw a slight uptick in targets at four, but he was generally far less involved, only gaining ten attempts. This is all very difficult to use, though, as a one-game sample size cannot be considered predictive. It’s anecdotal, as there isn’t any real data on it, but my inclination would be to anticipate a more significant share for Brown.
The Rams are slightly better in rush defense, ranking 15th in EPA per rush allowed and 18th in defensive success rate on rushes.
The Rams have been better in their last five games. During that span, they have held their opponents to 16.3 PPR, which would rank as the 4th-worst matchup to opposing RBs, though the RBs they’ve faced aren’t exactly a murderer’s row.
This strikes me as no reason to downgrade Barkley, who we would never sit in managed leagues regardless.
