Eagles Fantasy Preview #1

Let me say right up front that I'm a pretty crappy fantasy sports player.  I think it's most likely a continuation of my crappiness as a sports gambler in general.  It's just not where my talents lie.

For example, I currently am the not-so-proud manager of a fantasy baseball team.  This particular team was pretty much auto-drafted, in that I couldn't make the league draft and this is a pretty competitive bunch.  Which means the guy picking my team wasn't doing me any favors, but the other guys in the league also weren't going to let him stock my team with crap because they wanted to make sure he wasn't trying to pull a fast one.

The mid-season result was that a team I had no input in drafting and which I hadn't checked in on a single time -- other than to reject some truly embarrassing trade offers -- was somehow in second place.  So of course, I finally logged in to fix my lineup, since my complete ignoring of the team was causing some angst in the league, and as of today I've already dropped two slots, and currently sit in 4th place.

All of which is to say, take anything I say about fantasy sports with a grain of salt.

With that caveat out of the way, let me suggest that I do know a few things about the Philadelphia Eagles.  And that those things may be useful to other people who are better at fantasy sports, but may not know quite as much about this team.  So while I would make sure to avoid most of the players I eventually end of selecting for this year's lost cause, you might find some of the following things to be helpful:

1. Don't overrate Brian Westbrook.  I know, he had an awesome season last year and he's one of the very best players in the league.  But there are two possibilities for this season, and neither one is good.  The first is that the Eagles use him in '08 the way they used him in the second half of '07.  That is, early and often.  While that might work out for awhile, keep in mind that a super-heavy workload is probably not a great thing for Westbrook.  He's certainly not McNabb-esque in being injury prone, but he's also not the model of durability.  So the Eagles are likely to underutilize him for most of the season in the hopes that he'll be 100 percent at the time of the playoffs.  That's going to hurt your stats.  Buyer beware either way.
2. Yes, LJ Smith is in a contract year, but he's also not all that important in this offense.  LJ is not a bad player.  In some offenses, he could put up some significant numbers.  But for the Eagles, he's never going to be more than about the fourth option on most plays.  He's not a bad guy to have on your team, but as a starter the last two years he's been pretty consistently slightly above average.  If the leap were coming, it would have happened by now.  Don't talk yourself into it.
3. There's a pretty good chance McNabb continues to go bonkers.  Yes, the Eagles will probably run the ball a bit more this year and they'll likely be a bit more concerned about ball control.  But when they throw it, they're still going to spend a fair amount of time chucking it deep.  There's always the injury risk to consider, but expect McNabb to put up similar numbers to last season (which were good enough to win me a lot of weeks at the time).
4. Watch out for the Eagles defense.  They were pretty good last year, and I expect them to be even better this time around, but check out the back end of the schedule.  Do you really want to be going into your league playoffs with the Eagles on the road against Dallas and New Orleans in weeks 15 and 16, and then facing a likely meaningless game against Buffalo in week 17?  You may not be able to dance with the one that brung ya in that situation.
5. Not sure any Eagles receiver is a good bet.  Yes, Reggie Brown will probably take another step forward this year and Kevin Curtis is likely to fit in well.  But this is a spread it around offense.  No one guy is going to give you the week in, week out production you're looking for.  With that said, I fully expect Curtis to start fast and then slow down mid-season, so you may be able to draft a bargain and then flip him before his true value is apparent.

That's it for now.  Depending upon how things change during the preseason, I might revisit this topic in a few weeks.  In the meantime, if you're one of the 17 people left in the United States who doesn't care about fantasy football, check back tomorrow for some "real" football stuff.