Fantasy Football Draft Targets And Avoids- NFC East Breakdowns For Dak Prescott, Jalen Hurts, Terry McLaurin, more

July 7, 2023

Rob looks at each NFL team in the NFC East and identifies players from each team that fantasy football managers should be targeting and avoiding in 2023.

Our last entry featuring the AFC East was a rough one. There are several elite-level players in that division but very few in the second and third tiers. The NFC East, however, is a very interesting fantasy football division. It comes equipped with elite-level players but also plenty of options in that second tier. There are even several sleeper picks fantasy managers won’t want to miss out on.

If you have missed the first few entries in this series, you can find them below:

• AFC North
• NFC North
• AFC East

As I’ve tried to make evident throughout this series: we’re not so much looking to identify good and bad fantasy football players. Rather, we’re looking to identify good and bad prices. That could mean a good player has a bad price or a not-so-good player has a good price. This is what we’re focusing on, the cost of acquisition. Fantasy football draft season keeps inching closer and closer, so use promo code "BOOM" at checkout for a 10% discount on any premium purchase.

Dallas Cowboys

Players to Target- RB Tony Pollard

Yahoo! drafters are already taking Tony Pollard as the RB8 in half-PPR scoring, so there’s plenty of love already being shown to him. However, finishing as a top-five or even a top-three RB is not out of the question. In some facets, Pollard looks eerily similar to Austin Ekeler.

For years, he was the change of pace and pass-catching back behind Melvin Gordon before finally getting his chance to shine as the lead dog. Well, this is Pollard’s chance. Ezekiel Elliott is gone, and the depth chart behind him (much like that of the Chargers) is barren.

Last year, Pollard finished as the RB7 with a 15.2 half-PPR PPG despite working behind Zeke. He handled 232 touches last season, 39 of which were receptions. With Elliott no longer on the roster, it shouldn’t be a surprise whatsoever if his 193 carries increase to the 210-220 range. Over a 17-game season, that’s just a 1-2 carry per game increase.

One area where Pollard could actually see more work is in the passing game. Last year, the Cowboys employed Dalton Schultz, who largely operated as Dak Prescott’s safety valve for the past few seasons. He had 282 targets in the past three campaigns. With Schultz now gone and a lack of talent at the position, Pollard could become Prescott’s preferred safety valve.

Not only that but with Elliott gone as well, Pollard’s role in the passing game is likely to grow, and it could grow rather significantly. While Zeke had just 23 targets and 17 receptions, he still ran a route on 39.8% of the team’s dropbacks, according to PlayerProfiler. This ranked 32nd. Pollard ran a route 39.6% of the time, finishing 34th.

With Elliott out of the way, fantasy managers should expect Pollard’s route participation to skyrocket. That increased opportunity is going to lead to additional targets. After finishing 34th among running backs in route run percentage, it shouldn’t be a surprise to see Pollard climb into the top 10. If that was the only thing he had to look forward to, it would still be enough for him to target, but there’s more.

Pollard finished 2022 with just 27 red zone touches. This ranked 34th. Zeke had 40, which was 13th. With him out of the picture, the vast majority of that red zone work will be going to Pollard, which is going to substantially increase his touchdown-scoring potential. Zeke had 26 carries inside the 10-yard line, which was the third-highest. Pollard lagged behind with just 12. It was more of the same the closer they got. Zeke had 19 carries inside the five-yard line, the second-most. Pollard had seven.

Imagine Pollard getting a 55% route participation rate as opposed to the 39.6% he had last year and the majority of Zeke’s leftover red zone work. You absolutely have a scenario where Pollard could finish with a very Ekeler-esque stat line and a top-three fantasy finish.

Players to Avoid- QB Dak Prescott

This has nothing to do with Dak Prescott's interceptions last season, which have been made into a bigger deal than it should be. Looking back at his previous four seasons (excluding the first game of 2022 where he got hurt and the game in 2020 where he suffered that gruesome ankle injury), Prescott has completed 67.2% of his passes.

He’s averaged 292.9 passing yards per game and has a 7.83 yards per attempt average. He sports a 5.6% touchdown rate, averaging 2.1 touchdowns per game. His interception rate is 2.1% or roughly 0.8 per game. Over 17 games, his per-game averages over the last four years would amount to a season with 4,979 yards, 35 touchdowns, and 13 interceptions.

His interception rate was 3.8% last year, but prior to that, Prescott had four straight seasons under 2.0%. Do I think we’re exaggerating his interception struggles? Yes, yes I do. Luckily, fantasy managers do as well, and that’s a good thing because he’s a fantastic quarterback. However, now we need to shift gears because even though I’ve defended him, he’s priced a bit too high for my liking.

Yahoo! drafters are currently taking him as the QB10 and a full round ahead of Kirk Cousins, Daniel Jones, and Tua Tagovailoa. Not that Prescott’s price tag is egregious, but it is overpriced when you can get any single one of these three QBs for cheaper. Since his ankle injury, Prescott has averaged just 164 rushing yards per season. Cousins is at 106 and Tagovailoa is at 99 rushing yards per season, so there’s hardly a benefit there. When it comes to passing statistics, Prescott, Cousins, and Tagovailoa all feel fairly similar. If forced to pick between these three, give me the cheaper one.

This is especially true since Cousins and Tagovailoa are entering their second season with Kevin O’Connell and Mike McDaniel, respectively. We’ve often seen a big step taken in the second season of a head coach and quarterback pairing. Prescott, on the other hand, will be switching from Kellen Moore to Mike McCarthy. For fantasy purposes, it seems to be a downgrade. If nothing else, it’s a slightly new system.

New York Giants

Players to Target- WR Isaiah Hodgins and WR Darius Slayton

Both of these options are basically free. Isaiah Hodgins is being drafted as the WR76, and Darius Slayton goes as the WR89. However, despite all the receiver additions the Giants have made, these two seem likely to have their roles locked down. That’s because of all of their other additions -- Jalin Hyatt, Jamison Crowder, Parris Campbell, and the return of Sterling Shepard and Wan'Dale Robinson. All of whom profile as slot receivers. Not Slayton and Hodgins, though. They’ll operate as the team’s starting outside receivers and likely have the nod in two receiver sets, as well as for their size and run blocking.

The table above displays their statistics from Weeks 11-20. Week 11 was the first week Hodgins played more than 50% of the snaps with the Giants. As you can see from their 17-game pace stats, both players offer excellent value at their current rankings, even with the addition of Darren Waller.

From Weeks 4-17 where Slayton played 50% or more of the snaps, he finished as a top-24 WR five times and WR33 once. From Weeks 11-17, Hodgins had four games where he finished as a top-24 WR. The best part is both of them are free.

Last season, the Giants attempted just 30.5 passes per game, ranking 25th in the NFL. With the talent upgrade among the team's pass-catchers, we can anticipate an increase in pass attempts in 2023. This will help offset the additional volume Waller will receive.

If the Giants' offense and Daniel Jones take another step forward this season as they did in 2022 and either Slayton or Hodgins separates themselves from the other receivers, either one of them could reach WR3 territory. This possibility makes both players extremely attractive picks in the late rounds of your fantasy drafts.

Players to Avoid- WR Jalin Hyatt

It’s crazy that Jalin Hyatt is being drafted as the earliest Giants receiver this season. It appears as though Slayton, Hodgins, and Campbell will be the primary starters early, but it gets worse for Hyatt.

While some will undoubtedly recall the reports of K.J. Osborn working ahead of Justin Jefferson, this is nothing like that. Jefferson was a first-round pick. Hyatt was a third. This all comes back to price, though. Hyatt needs to leapfrog several receivers before he even gets regular playing time. From there, he’ll need to leapfrog the starters to earn enough volume to be fantasy-relevant. It all seems far too unlikely for a third-round rookie.

Hyatt’s speed will result in a few explosive games where he catches a long touchdown, but the consistency will be utterly lacking. He’s better in best ball. In redraft, fantasy managers are better targeting Slayton and Hodgins later.

Philadelphia Eagles

Players to Target- QB Jalen Hurts

If you want to wait on QB because you can still draft Tua Tagovailoa at QB13, I wouldn’t fault you. I totally get it, but I am not of those old-school, wait-on-quarterback kinds of guys. That theory worked beautifully when even the best quarterbacks weren’t putting up much more than 20 PPG, if that.

Now, we got Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, and Jalen Hurts putting up video game numbers. They’re averaging 25 PPG, and dropping 30 doesn’t even make you look twice. 40 is within range for all three of those guys. That kind of weekly upside is enough for me to want to be on these three studs. What’s more, I don’t even think we’ve seen the best Hurts has to offer. In fact, that could come this very season.

This will be the second season Hurts will be throwing to A.J. Brown. Theoretically, Dallas Goedert will be healthy the whole season. Those two things are only going to help the passing offense. The other thing that will help is more volume, and I suspect we’ll get that this season in Philly.

Last year, the Eagles won seven games by more than one possession and finished with one of the easiest strengths of schedule for the 2022 season. This year, however, their schedule looks considerably more difficult. Their 2023 opponents actually have the best winning percentage from the 2022 season, coming out to a 161-123-4 record.

By this metric, they have the hardest strength of schedule this year. However, using Las Vegas’ projected win totals for their 2023 opponents, they have the 16th-most difficult schedule. Still, a far more difficult slate than the one they faced last year, which was one of the three easiest schedules.

In fact, from Week 6 to Week 18, they’ll face nine playoff teams from last year, including the Seahawks, Dolphins, Cowboys (twice), Chiefs, Bills, 49ers, and Giants. One of their other 11 opponents during this 12-week stretch (that includes their bye week) is the playoff-hopeful New York Jets. The challenging schedule could result in the Eagles playing in more high-scoring and closely contested games that keep their passing offense in attack mode more than they were last season.

The defense will also be starting two new starters at inside linebacker and two more new starters at both safety spots. They’ll also be working with possibly as many as three rookies. All these new faces could result in growing pains for a defense that allowed the eighth-fewest points last season.

Getting Hurts in what could very likely be a more aggressive Philadelphia offense could provide fantasy managers with the No. 1 player in fantasy football this season. His rushing gives him that ceiling. If the passing volume increases, which certainly seems possible, we could be talking about an epic MVP season.

This says nothing about the running back room, which raises many questions. Can Rashaad Penny and D'Andre Swift stay healthy? In order to keep them healthy, may they opt for a pass-heavy approach? I believe they will. Getting Hurts won’t come cheap, but it’ll be worth the investment.

Players to Avoid- RB D'Andre Swift

As good as Miles Sanders was last year, there are plenty of red flags for Penny and Swift going into 2023. For starters, the Eagles' running backs had just 61 targets and an 11.3% target share. With Hurts always a threat to run with the football, there aren't many reasons for him to dump the ball off as there might be for other more stationary quarterbacks.

While Sanders finished the 2022 season as a very valuable fantasy player, he received the vast majority of the running back carries and handled most of the red zone work that Hurts didn't do himself. This creates part of the problem for Swift and Penny. They are not going to see the same workload as Sanders had, and there's a good chance the red zone work is split between them as well. Of course, Hurts isn't going anywhere either and is going to continue to be a sizeable thorn in the side of every Eagles running back.

Fantasy managers should expect the Eagles to have to pass the ball more this season for the reasons mentioned above. Last year, they had a 536/544 pass-run split, but here we’ll be working with a 500/580 pass-run split. This would have resulted in the Eagles finishing 10th for most rushes last season, but they’d climb to 13th in pass attempts.

For this exercise, we’ll project a 45% share of the RB carries for Penny and 40% for Swift, which would leave 15% for Kenny Gainwell and Boston Scott. Hurts would still finish with 160 carries, slightly down from the 165 he had last year. With the increased passing volume and the addition of a truly elite pass-catching back in Swift, the RB target share is going to increase. Here, we’ll project a 15.0% target share, up from last year’s 11.3%. This is still lower than the league average.

Swift should be expected to lead the way as the team’s primary pass-catcher out of the backfield. We’ll be giving him a 70% share of the RB targets. Gainwell will have 20%, with Scott and Penny each having 5%. Below is a table for what this kind of workload would result in.

The table above seems to be the most likely in terms of how these players will be used. Penny will be the team’s early-down and short-yardage back, while Swift will be the team’s pass-catcher and secondary rusher. Scott and Gainwell will primarily operate as backups and depth.

Swift is currently being drafted as the RB23 by Yahoo! drafters, but his 9.86 half-PPR PPG average from above would’ve finished RB26 last season. There are just so many ways for this to go south for Swift.

While we can’t project injuries, we can acknowledge a player’s struggle to stay healthy. That’s true for Swift. There’s Penny and the dreaded running back-by-committee approach. There’s Penny and Hurts in the red zone, solidly hurting his touchdown potential. On top of all that, there’s the running back target share, which was among the lowest in the league last year for Philadelphia running backs. There are just far too many questions for fantasy managers to invest in at this price.

Washington Commanders

Players to Target- WR Jahan Dotson

Jahan Dotson had an extremely underrated rookie season, largely due to a midseason injury that impacted those all-important counting stats that we're quick to check. Dotson played in 70% of the snaps and ran a route 80% of the time in eight games. This happened in Weeks 1-3 and Weeks 13-18, but the difference between these two periods is drastic. It shows just how much Dotson improved in such a short period of time.

He scored three touchdowns in Weeks 1-3, which inflated his half-PPR PPG average. But you can clearly see how much more effective and efficient Dotson became in Weeks 13-18. That becomes even more clear in his efficiency metrics as well.

In the first three weeks of the season, Curtis Samuel was a thing. In the final five weeks, Dotson’s emergence made Samuel largely irrelevant. Dotson wasn’t just a very good No. 2 alongside Terry McLaurin. Rather, in many aspects, Dotson was stride for stride, right next to him. Yahoo! drafters aren’t nearly high enough on the second-year receiver. He’s currently being drafted as the WR39, but he feels like a great bet to finish as a WR3, providing potential drafters with plenty of surplus value.

Players to Avoid- WR Terry McLaurin

This pains me because I love Terry McLaurin as a player. He’s been dogged by bad quarterback play year after year. However, I question his current price of WR21. As a rookie, he finished as the WR26 in half-PPR PPG. In 2020, he was the WR19. In 2021, he finished as the WR31.

This past year, he was the WR24 in half-PPR PPG. Just one time in four years has McLaurin performed at a rate equal to or better than that at which he’s currently being drafted. In the one year he exceeded his current 2023 preseason ranking, he finished just two spots higher.

McLaurin's constantly been held back by bad quarterback play, but should we really expect anything different this year? Jacoby Brissett is certainly less mistake-prone than the QB group he’s been forced to catch balls from, but he’s far, far from a prolific passer. Sam Howell is a 2022 fifth-round pick. How confident can we be with him?

Not only that, but the target competition has increased significantly. In 2019, McLaurin's rookie season, the second-leading target-earner was RB Chris Thompson. He finished with 58 targets, 42 receptions, and 378 yards. The best non-RB, WR Steven Sims, had 56 targets and 310 yards.

In 2020, the second-leading target-earner was a tie at 110 between RB J.D. McKissic and TE Logan Thomas. They finished with 589 and 670 yards, respectively. In his third season, the second-leading target-earner was WR Adam Humphries, who finished with 62 targets, 41 receptions, and 383 yards. That’s absolutely putrid. There was absolutely zero target competition. None.

Last year, Curtis Samuel had 92 targets, 64 receptions, and 656 yards. He’ll be back in the fold for 2023. Logan Thomas will also be back, and they’re the only other receivers for Washington who have ever gained more than 600 yards in a season during McLaurin’s tenure. We’ve already mentioned Dotson, but needless to say, Washington’s quarterbacks will have other weapons other than just McLaurin.

McLaurin outperformed his current WR21 draft slot just once during his previous WR finishes when he was literally the only option. Factoring in the quarterback concerns and the increased target competition, this makes McLaurin an easy fade at cost. Realistically, you’re being forced to draft him at his ceiling, which should be a pass whenever possible.

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