The Philadelphia Eagles’ conversion to a 4-3 defense has been a complete and utter success, as they have been challenging the Denver Broncos’ title for top defensive unit in the league all season long. In fact, through Week 9 the Eagles rank a close second in numberFire’s schedule-adjusted Defensive Net Expected Points (NEP) per play metric.
A large part of that is due to the dialed-up pass-rush, which features edge rusher Connor Barwin. Barwin has been a typical low-floor attacking end, with only 17 total tackles in his 8 games played, but that’s allowed him to make a major impact in the pass-rush: his quarterback hit rate is 42nd among the 118 defensive linemen playing 30 snaps per game or more, and his sack rate is 35th among the same.
Barwin has a great matchup lined up this week for his skillset, as the Atlanta Falcons are allowing the 10th-highest sack rate to opposing defenses. Over their last three games, the Falcons have given up five sacks to opposing defensive ends, and the Eagles have enough of an offense to keep pace, so Atlanta won’t be able to go into its shell and run the ball for half of the game.
Barwin is available in 96.0% of ESPN IDP leagues, and we project him for 2.51 tackles, 0.44 sacks, and a total score of 4.53 fantasy points in Week 10.