The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar, breaks down everything you need to know about the Week 1 matchup between the Patriots and Eagles.
Find a breakdown of every Week 1 NFL game in our Worksheet Hub.
Philadelphia | Rank | @ | New England | Rank |
---|---|---|---|---|
-3.5 | Spread | 3.5 | ||
24.25 | Implied Total | 20.75 | ||
29.1 | 2 | Points/Gm | 21.4 | 16 |
19.8 | 7 | Points All./Gm | 20.4 | 11 |
66.8 | 5 | Plays/Gm | 59.2 | 28 |
61.1 | 6 | Opp. Plays/Gm | 64.2 | 21 |
5.8 | 6 | Off. Yards/Play | 5.3 | 19 |
4.8 | 1 | Def. Yards/Play | 5 | 5 |
49.74% | 4 | Rush% | 42.25% | 16 |
50.26% | 29 | Pass% | 57.75% | 17 |
42.23% | 13 | Opp. Rush % | 40.42% | 8 |
57.77% | 20 | Opp. Pass % | 59.58% | 25 |
- Philadelphia was 2-6 against the spread on the road in 2022, tied for the worst record ATS on the road in 2022.
- 72.2% (57-of-79) of the Philadelphia scoring plays in 2022 were touchdowns, the highest rate in the league.
- The Eagles scored 12.6 offensive touchdowns over expectation in 2022, the most in the league.
- The Patriots scored 4.9 touchdowns below expectations in 2022, 24th in the league.
- The Patriots converted a league-low 42.2% of their red zone drives into touchdowns in 2022. It was their lowest rate as a team in the 2000s.
- The Eagles outscored opponents by 121 points in the first half of games last season, the largest differential in the league.
- Philadelphia was first in the NFL in differential of gains of 20 or more yards (+32) and gains of 30 or more yards (+13) versus their opponents.
- The Eagles averaged 2.2 more yards per passing play than their opponent in 2022, the most in the league.
- The Eagles allowed a league-low 4.9 yards per passing play in 2022.
- 46.4% of the New England completions in 2022 went for a first down or touchdown, ahead of only the Texans (45.2%) and Cardinals (43.6%).
- Philadelphia averaged 5.7 sacks plus takeaways per game defensively, the most in the league.
Trust = spike production for that player
Quarterback
Jalen Hurts: Hurts climbed up to 14.9 passing points per game last season (10th) while still popping for 10.3 rushing points per game (second).
Hurts is a front-end QB1 play to open the year.
Coming off of the easiest schedule in the NFL last season and the loss of Shane Steichen, I do expect some regression for the Philadelphia offense, but a more challenging outlook will also press the Eagles to be more aggressive for 60 minutes per week in 2023.
The question here is do the Patriots hang around and score enough points to make the Eagles aggressive for the full game in Week 1?
What Hurts did as a passer was largely done in just two quarters of football each week.
Philadelphia dropped back on 64.8% of their first-half plays last season (eighth), which signaled that they were going to be an aggressive offense.
Hurts led all positions in fantasy scoring (249.2 points) in the first half of games despite missing two full games last season.
In the second half of games, he ranked 26th in scoring output while ranking 45th in fourth-quarter scoring.
In the third quarter, that dropback rate for the Eagles fell to 14th (58.9%) and then down to dead last in the fourth quarter (38.6%) since the Eagles put games away early.
Hurts was eighth in the NFL in first-half pass attempts, 24th in second-half passes, and 32nd in fourth-quarter pass attempts.
The Patriots were once again solid defensively in 2022, ranking 12th in passing points allowed per attempt (0.398), eighth in yards allowed per attempt (6.8 Y/A), and fifth in completion rate (61.0%).
But they gave up a 4.7% touchdown rate to opposing passers, which was 26th in the league.
It will also be curious to see how New England approaches defending the Eagles.
New England was an aggressive man-to-man defense in 2022, playing man coverage on 33.4% of passing plays. That was the sixth-highest rate in the league.
In the preseason, they were once again man-coverage heavy, playing man coverage on 43.8% of passing plays, which was fourth in the league.
Hurts led the NFL in yards per pass attempt against man coverage (8.5 Y/A) in 2022 with 11 touchdowns and one interception.
For as good as the Patriots have been defensively under Bill Belichick, they once again struggled against mobile quarterbacks, something that has been consistent.
New England was 21st in rushing yards allowed per game to quarterbacks (20.5 yards).
They allowed Lamar Jackson (107 yards and a touchdown) and Justin Fields (82 yards and a touchdown) to have huge games on the ground last year.
Mac Jones: Jones took a full step backward in 2022.
Jones ended the season 29th out of 33 qualifying passers in expected points added per dropback (-0.09) and 29th in success rate (37.5%).
After a 67.6% completion rate, 4.2% touchdown rate, and 7.3 yards per pass attempt during his rookie season, Jones completed 65.2% of his passes with a 3.2% touchdown rate and 6.8 Y/A last season.
To give Jones some benefit of the doubt, he missed three starts with an ankle injury, the Patriots once again lacked firepower among their pass catchers, and most importantly of all, the team entered last season not only without an offensive coordinator but let the offense run through Matt Patricia and Joe Judge.
While that is a good amount of excuse-making for Jones in 2022 and he ultimately needs to play better, he now will be onto his third offensive coordinator in three seasons with New England bringing back Bill O’Brien.
Week 1 will be a tough test for Jones as a back-end QB2.
The Eagles are transitioning from Jonathan Gannon to Sean Desai as defensive coordinator this season, but this side of the ball is still loaded with talent.
Last season, the Eagles were second in the NFL in pressure rate (37.5%) and led the league in sack rate (11.2%) by a wide margin. The league sack rate on passing plays was 6.7%.
Philadelphia allowed 6.4 yards per pass attempt (fourth) while ranking sixth in passing points allowed per attempt (0.349) and fifth in passing points allowed per game (11.3).
If Jones can open the year with a strong performance here, it will set a foundation for trusting him moving forward.
Running Back
Eagles RBs: The Eagles fielded the most efficient rushing offense in the league last season.
They led the league in EPA per rush (0.10) and success rate per carry (48.3%) on their way to 2,509 yards (fifth) and 32 rushing scores (first).
Even removing the rushing production that Jalen Hurts provides, the Eagles led the NFL in success rate (45.4%) and EPA per rush (0.04) on carries from their running backs.
The team lost leading rusher Miles Sanders via free agency this offseason.
Still, they have arguably upgraded their backfield as a whole with the additions of Rashaad Penny and D’Andre Swift to go along with Kenneth Gainwell.
Penny has the highest EPA per rush (0.13) among all running backs with 100 or more carries the past two seasons while leading all of those 71 backs in yards after contact per carry (4.43) and overall yards per carry (6.2).
Swift has averaged 5.5 yards per touch over his three years in the league.
There have been a lot of mixed signals in how this rotation will shake out this season.
My initial assumptions are that Swift will be the primary option, Penny doing the grunt work, and Gainwell as the long down and distance and two-minute back, but we are going to finally have the cards revealed here and begin to gain clarity.
Flying in blind makes things hard on gamers using any of these options as more than upside-based FLEX plays.
The Philadelphia run game is one that we are not overly concerned with matchups, but New England was an elite run defense in 2022.
The Patriots allowed just 3.8 yards per carry to backs (fourth) and just 9.0 rushing points per game to backfields (third).
Opposing running backs had just three total rushing touchdowns against New England a year ago, the fewest in the league.
They were more vulnerable to backs out of the backfield in the passing game, surrendering 9.5 receiving points per game (20th).
That gives Swift and Gainwell more appeal than relying on Penny as a touchdown-dependent play against the team that allowed the fewest rushing scores in the league a year ago.
Rhamondre Stevenson: Stevenson accounted for 49.4% of the team’s rushing attempts in 2022.
That was the highest rate for a New England back since 2019 and the second-highest rate over the previous 10 seasons.
Stevenson handled 35.6% of the team touches, which was the highest rate for a New England back since 2016.
As a rusher, Stevenson averaged 5.0 yards per carry (sixth among all backs with 100 or more carries).
He was more of a boom-or-bust runner as his 37.1% success rate ranked 27th among the same group.
That was not entirely his fault as the Patriots ended the season dead last in run block win rate (68%) at ESPN while Pro Football Focus had them 20th in collective run blocking grade (20th) as a team.
14.3% of Stevenson’s carries gained 10 or more yards, which was sixth in the league, while his 3.81 yards after contact per carry were second, trailing only Tony Pollard.
As a pass catcher, Stevenson drew 88 targets, which was second on the team behind Jakobi Meyers (96).
It was the third-most targets for a New England back over the past 30 seasons, trailing just two James White seasons. Only Austin Ekeler and Christian McCaffrey were targeted more out of the backfield last season.
The question for Stevenson in the latter regard is did he just run into a perfect storm for that type of usage and will the Patriots go back to him carrying this backfield?
In games in which Damien Harris was available, Stevenson shared touches.
In the nine games with Harris fully available, he averaged 10.5 rushing attempts and 15.0 touches per game compared to 16.6 rushing attempts and 19.9 touches per game in his seven full games with Harris limited or inactive.
But are any of these New England reserves as good as Harris?
I would lean no, but the signing of Ezekiel Elliott at least gives New England a potential pivot if Stevenson has struggles near the end zone again.
Stevenson had just four red zone touchdowns on 37 opportunities.
After converting 5-of-11 carries inside of the 10-yard line for scores as a rookie, Stevenson cashed in 3-of-19 carries in that area of the field in 2022.
Say what you want about Zeke, but he was still effective at chain moving on short yardage.
He had a 68.9% 1D/TD rate on non-first downs needing 1-3 yards (13th of 42 RBs with 100-plus carries) and a 72.0% conversion rate on 3rd downs, which was eighth in the league.
The Patriots had given us multiple signals that they were going to add another veteran running back prior to the season while Stevenson himself highlighted that he wore down with more touches last season.
Whereas I do think Elliott is only a real threat to Stevenson in short yardage, I do question whether Stevenson can run back his target total from last season.
Every Patriots wide receiver missed time last season, which created a runway for those targets.
And although Stevenson did accrue a lot of targets a year ago, they still were not overly beneficial to the offense.
He averaged just 6.1 yards per catch and 4.8 yards per target. 48.9% of his targets were at or behind the line of scrimmage.
His volume was elevated purely through check-downs and not designed passing game usage, which makes it harder to project and lean on entering this season.
The addition of Elliott and the potential reduced volume in the passing game adds elements of variance here. The Patriots also have a pedestrian team total here.
All of those factors make Stevenson a volatile RB1 play to open the season, but there is an outcome where he just once again is the focal point of this offense and if the Patriots are going to make this a game, he will be at the heart of production.
The Eagles were a mixed bag against the run a year ago.
They threw a lot at the wall at defensive tackle last season, but when they had Jordan Davis in the game, they were a strong unit.
Philadelphia allowed 4.7 YPC to running backs (25th) with a 60.0% success rate (22nd) on those carries with Davis out of the game as opposed to 3.4 YPC and 64.8% success rate versus running back runs with Davis in the game.
Davis was a limited pass rusher as a rookie, which kept him from being a full-time player.
With the team not retaining veterans Linval Joseph and Ndamukong Suh, the Eagles added Jalen Carter to the defensive line.
Wide Receiver
A.J. Brown: Brown was the WR6 in overall scoring and the WR8 in per-game output over his first season with the Eagles.
Brown received a career-high 145 targets, setting career marks in receptions (88) and yardage (1,496) while matching his best season with 11 touchdowns.
Brown averaged a career-high 5.2 catches per game while averaging 3.39 yards per route run against man coverage, which was fourth in the league.
Against man coverage, Brown led the team with 34.8% of the targets and was targeted on 31.4% of his routes.
Versus zone coverage, Brown still was more than good (2.17 yards per route run), but he shared more target opportunities, receiving 25.4% of the team targets with a target on 22.2% of his routes.
New England was an aggressive man-to-man defense in 2022, playing man coverage on 33.4% of passing plays. That was the sixth-highest rate in the league.
In the preseason, they were once again man-coverage heavy, playing man coverage on 43.8% of passing plays, which was fourth in the league.
This is going to be a huge test for Christian Gonzalez right out of the gates.
Brown is a WR1 with strong upside should the Patriots give him opportunities to win 1-on-1.
