100 Questions: Fantasy Football 2024 (Philadelphia Eagles)

As we head toward the start of the 2024 NFL and fantasy football season, FTN Fantasy editor-in-chief Daniel Kelley is asking (and attempting to answer) the 100 most pressing questions in fantasy football. This is 100 Questions. Today: The Philadelphia Eagles.

The 2023 Eagles ended their season with six losses in their last seven games, including the postseason. Regular season only, they went from 10-1 to 11-6 in the span of 35 days.

Before that, the number of days it took the Eagles to lose five regular-season games was … much bigger. The Eagles lost five games in 35 days in December-January. They had lost five regular-season games in their prior 1,049 days — they opened 10-1 in 2023 and went 14-3 in 2022 after losing their final regular-season game of the 2021 season (and that game was meaningless to them; if you only want to count games that mattered, we’d add 41 days).

Super Bowl hangover? Flaws exposed? Bad luck? The Eagles certainly need to figure that out, because what looked like the foundation of a borderline dynasty (24-4 from the start of 2022 to Week 12 of 2023!) fell apart in a hurry.

The Questions

80. How High Is Saquon Barkley’s Ceiling?
81. Are We Scared of Jason Kelce’s Retirement?
82. Is Dallas Goedert a Fantasy Starter?

100 Questions for 2024: Philadelphia Eagles

How High Is Saquon Barkley’s Ceiling?
Are We Scared of Jason Kelce’s Retirement?

EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ - DECEMBER 29: New York Giants running back Saquon Barkley (26) during the National Football League game between the New York Giants and the Philadelphia Eagles on December 29, 2019 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ. (Photo by Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire) — EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ – DECEMBER 29: New York Giants running back Saquon Barkley (26) during the National Football League game between the New York Giants and the Philadelphia Eagles on December 29, 2019 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ. (Photo by Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire)

That’s right, I’m two-in-one-ing this one. Because you can’t answer anything about Saquon Barkley’s ceiling without acknowledging the changes in the Eagles offensive line, and you can’t acknowledge the changes in the Eagles offensive line without discussing how they’ll affect Jalen Hurts, and you can’t discuss Jalen Hurts without taking into account Saquon Barkley’s presence. It’s all very circular! (Buckle up.)

For all his (many) virtues, Barkley has never been the most efficient back, currently sitting at 4.3 yards per carry for his career and only 4.0 since his first two seasons. Then again, the best you could say about the Giants offensive line during his tenure in New York is that it existed. Barkley has always been a boom-or-bust back — among 28 running backs with at least 3,000 rushing yards since Barkley entered the league, he has the second-highest percentage of his yards coming on runs of 15-plus yards:

Running Back	Total Rush Yards	Yards on 15+ Runs	Percentage
Nick Chubb	6511	2484	38.2%
Saquon Barkley	5211	1937	37.2%
Raheem Mostert	3477	1140	32.8%
Tony Pollard	3621	1177	32.5%
Jonathan Taylor	4582	1462	31.9%
Christian McCaffrey	5750	1768	30.7%
Derrick Henry	8268	2515	30.4%
Devin Singletary	4049	1227	30.3%
Dalvin Cook	5853	1684	28.8%
Miles Sanders	4140	1179	28.5%
Kenyan Drake	3043	859	28.2%
Gus Edwards	3395	951	28.0%
Aaron Jones	5492	1499	27.3%
James Conner	4732	1268	26.8%
Chris Carson	3294	872	26.5%
Joe Mixon	5786	1502	26.0%
Melvin Gordon	3800	985	25.9%
Leonard Fournette	3478	845	24.3%
Austin Ekeler	4095	981	24.0%
Latavius Murray	3432	817	23.8%
Kareem Hunt	3109	696	22.4%
Josh Jacobs	5545	1238	22.3%
Sony Michel	3243	706	21.8%
Alvin Kamara	5101	1076	21.1%
Ezekiel Elliott	6290	1222	19.4%
Najee Harris	3269	615	18.8%
David Montgomery	4624	830	17.9%
Jamaal Williams	3402	465	13.7%

Barkley could do that with a bad line, meaning he wasn’t getting as many before-contact yards as you’d want — he has averaged 2.1 yards before contact per carry in his career, tied for 10^th worst among 44 backs with 500-plus carries — so just imagine what he can do with a good one. And the Eagles do have a good line — D’Andre Swift averaged 2.8 yards before contact per attempt last year, and Miles Sanders averaged 3.0 with the Eagles in 2019-2022. The line is ranked seventh in our FTN Fantasy offensive line rankings, so we know it’s good.

PHILADELPHIA, PA - DECEMBER 13: Philadelphia Eagles Center Jason Kelce (62) readies to snap the ball in the second half during the game between the New Orleans Saints and Philadelphia Eagles on December 13, 2020 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, PA. (Photo by Kyle Ross/Icon Sportswire) — PHILADELPHIA, PA – DECEMBER 13: Philadelphia Eagles Center Jason Kelce (62) readies to snap the ball in the second half during the game between the New Orleans Saints and Philadelphia Eagles on December 13, 2020 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, PA. (Photo by Kyle Ross/Icon Sportswire)

Or do we? The Eagles still have Jordan Mailata, Landon Dickerson and Lane Johnson, so it’s hard to imagine the line could drop below above average. But the absence of Jason Kelce could matter in a few different ways. First, Kelce — who never put up a PFF run-block grade outside of the top seven among qualified centers after 2012 — gives way to Cam Jurgens, who has been a mediocre right guard and has only 45 NFL snaps at center. That definitely weakens the center position. But Jurgens’ move means either Tyler Steen (who barely played as a rookie and wasn’t great) or Mekhi Becton (who could never stay healthy with the Jets and got progressively worse) will play right guard. Mailata-Dickerson-Johnson are all good-to-very-good. The rest of the line might very much not be.

And one more impact, the one that matters more to the Eagles than to any other team, is the impact of Kelce’s absence on the Tush Push. No, the Eagles aren’t the only team that runs the Tush Push, and no, it’s not as simple as “The Eagles can do it and other teams can’t.” That all said, Kelce was absolutely (along with Jalen Hurts) the key to the approach, and his absence could make the entire maneuver that much harder. And with Barkley unlikely to get tackled at the 1-yard line as often as D’Andre Swift did last year, we can expect Hurts to see his touchdown total (15! The all-time record! Shared with Josh Allen last year as well because things are weird!) drop by a lot. And Barkley is the best running back Hurts has ever run alongside, not by a little, so don’t be surprised if Hurts’ raw rushing attempts drops as well.

Translation: Barkley is solidly a top-five running back in 2024. There are several tier gaps at the position, but the biggest tier gap anywhere at running back in 2024 is the one between the top five (in some order, Christian McCaffrey, Bijan Robinson, Breece Hall, Jonathan Taylor, Saquon Barkley) and the rest. The gap there is massive.

And because Barkley is very likely to do so well, we have to ding Hurts. If Hurts puts up the exact same season as last year in every way except for losing 5 rushing touchdowns, that’s a 30-point drop and he falls down around Lamar Jackson. Add in an improved Eagles pass defense (meaning fewer shootouts and less need to push to score) and probably fewer carries because of Barkley, and I’m comfortably taking Hurts after (again, in some order) Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson and (surprise?) Anthony Richardson, and lumping Hurts in with guys like Jordan Love, C.J. Stroud and Kyler Murray. I’m comfortably going to be low man on Jalen Hurts in 2024.

Is Dallas Goedert a Fantasy Starter?

As I noted in the Sleepers, Busts & Bold Predictions entry on the Eagles, Dallas Goedert and DeVonta Smith have played 40 NFL games together, and they’ve cracked 15 PPR points in the same game twice (Week 4 2021, Week 5 2022). In games they’ve shared the field, Smith has out-targeted Goedert 22 times, Goedert over Smith 14 (they’ve tied four times). Smith averages 6.9 targets, Goedert 5.6. You more or less have to pick one of those two Eagles (A.J. Brown is going to get his) as your fighter, and Smith has the clear edge.

Which is not to say Dallas Goedert is irrelevant. Even as the No. 3 or No. 4 weapon in the Eagles offense, he’s averaged at least 9.6 PPR points per game every season of his career except his rookie year when he was stuck behind Zach Ertz. That’s not a dominant average, but it’s enough to hang around at the fringes of the TE1s every season. But then there are other problems — a high floor, yes, but a low ceiling (he’s never topped 11.8 PPR points per game and has only cracked 20 points in a game twice in the last two years), brittleness (he’s missed an average of 3.2 games the last five years and hasn’t played a full season since 2018) and an improved tight end position (the position’s floor is higher than it’s ever been), and there’s little reason to draft Goedert at his ADP (TE12). He very well might finish there. But among the top 20 tight ends in drafts this year, his best-case scenario is among the lowest. He could be the TE12. He has almost no chance of being the TE7.