We've seen this story before: a declining QB is named the Week 1 starter, his team flounders, and he's replaced by a rookie QB who supposedly wasn't ready enough in early September, but is now expected to be ready. The team plays better with the rookie under center, and we wonder why the team waited.
Of course, coaches have good reasons to wait, and sometimes the rookies are worse than the journeymen they replace. But when the Giants drafted Jaxson Dart in the first round, it was clearly a "when" not "if" situation. And it's all the remarkable given that they lost their all-world WR for the season. The Giants are back to being a tough out after enduring seven losing seasons in the past eight years.
Fantasy-wise, yesterday reaffirmed why Tyrone Tracy is droppable, as Cam Skattebo went bonkers with three rushing scores and 110 total yards. His Eagles counterpart, the presumably irreplaceable Saquon Barkley, had his first 3-rushing-TD performance in . . . actually, he's never had three rushing TDs. An incredible outburst for the rookie, who's averaging 23 touches in Dart's three starts.
Wan'Dale Robinson finally got his points after three straight underwhelming games, while Lil'Jordan Humphrey led the team with eight targets. If Darius Slayton misses another one, Humphrey could be a popular Slayton-like streamer.
For the Eagles, where should we begin? Let's go with Saquon Barkley, and you know what I'm about to say. He actually ran fine. But as has been the case most weeks, he did little through the air and didn't score. Some might say he's not getting enough touches. But the reality is that he's on pace for 323, plus the playoffs (if they get there). That's plenty.
The issue isn't volume. It's that he's averaging only 3.4 yards per carry. It's that last year he was tied for fifth with 18 touches inside the opposing five-yard line, collecting 27 yards and scoring four times. He entered last night tied for eighth with minus-2 yards on five touches and zero scores. And yesterday he had one carry for one yard inside the five and didn't get another goal-line carry, getting passed over for Jalen Hurts on four successive tries in the second quarter. Barkley now has minus-1 yard
It's a rough situation for managers, and once again, this is what almost always happens the season following a massive RB workload. The next time a running back has 400, 450, or (especially) close to 500 touches, fade him at the following season's draft.
Elsewhere, Hurts did enough, but the two Eagles turnovers might have cost him at 5-7 points -- maybe even 10+ -- on what looked like high-probability scoring drives. AJ Brown was good enough (though not as great as I expected), and DeVonta Smith had little room to pop with Brown and Dallas Goedert combining for 20 of the team's 33 targets.
Finally, a word on Goedert. In my 14-team league, I drafted him in the ninth round (followed by Wan'Dale Robinson in the 10th). Goedert was one of my fallback options if I didn't reach early for a tight end. And I didn't have any intention to reach early. So with 10 TEs off the board, I took the 30-year-old knowing he'd probably miss a handful of games, just as he's done the previous five seasons. But when healthy, he's still near-elite.
His 2024 numbers don't show this, unless you look a little deeper. I talk about this on today's podcast: why Goedert was one of my favorite preseason must-draft bargains, and why Barkley was a fade . . . and why raw numbers are often misleading.
For the closest-score prediction, thanks to all of you who thought the Eagles would win. Made my job easier tabulating the results. Only three of you correctly called the upset. And the winner (barely, but deservedly) is Steve Biedenbender, who predicted 26-24. The Bengals and Steelers are up next Thursday, so we'll see if Steve doubles down and picks Cincy in a blowout behind five Joe Flacco TDs.
---