Go here for this week's Rushing Matchups.
Top 5 Passing Matchups
San Francisco at Philadelphia
Brock Purdy continues to be under-appreciated for what he is doing in San Francisco. While many have attributed the success of Purdy to Kyle Shanahan or the weapons around Purdy, Purdy is playing at a high level. He leads the league in completion percentage at 70.2% and in yards-per-attempt by a full yard as he is at 9.4 compared to the next closest quarterback, Tua Tagovailoa, at 8.4. A big reason that this offense has emerged as one of the league's best passing attacks is the development of Brandon Aiyuk, who has established himself as one of the best big-play wide receivers in the NFL as he is averaging 19.6 yards per catch which is second in the NFL this season. For defenses to defend Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk, and George Kittle while having the league's best left tackle in Trent Williams makes this a matchup nightmare for any defense.
The Eagles' secondary has struggled all season, but over the last four weeks, they're starting to crack. Over their last four games, they've allowed 330 yards or more to three of the four quarterbacks they've faced, and five quarterbacks have now topped 300 passing yards against this secondary. The issue for the Eagles is that they're an extreme funnel defense combined with a strong offense. They have an elite run defense as they're allowing the fewest fantasy points to opposing running backs this year, so over the last four games, teams have averaged throwing the ball 47.5 times per game. At corner, both James Bradberry and Darius Slay are having down seasons compared to last year, but the big problem has been the rotating door at the slot corner position. The Eagles had been playing undrafted rookie Eli Ricks at the position but made the change two weeks ago to veteran Bradley Roby as Ricks was a liability in the slot. Roby has been a significant improvement compared to Ricks over the last two games, so there is some optimism heading forward for this team that they can figure out how to have a more consistent pass defense.
New England vs LA Chargers
By most accounts, it looks like Mac Jones' days in New England may be numbered, as Bailey Zappe will likely get the start this week for the Patriots. The issues with the quarterback play run deeper than just the struggling Jones, as this is a poorly constructed roster. They built their receiving room around JuJu Smith-Schuster and DeVante Parker but instead have had to turn to Kendrick Bourne and Demario Douglas, as both additions have been abysmal this season as neither player has over 200 yards receiving this year. Bailey Zappe is a gunslinger who threw for 5,967 yards in his final season at Western Kentucky. While Zappe likely will provide a spark to this offense, as we saw last season when he threw for 309 yards and 2 touchdowns against the Browns, he has struggled this season in limited appearances, completing just 48.7% of his passes and averaging just 4.1 yards-per-attempt.
The Chargers, for the first time all year, held an opposing quarterback to under 200 yards passing last week, as their pass defense had their best game of the season against Lamar Jackson and the Ravens. However, this pass defense has struggled so much this season that one strong performance will not move them out of the top 5 matchups where they have been for most of the season. This defense, in the two games before last week, allowed 322 yards to Jordan Love and 333 to Jared Goff and has allowed five quarterbacks to top 300 yards on the season. On the year, the Chargers allow 304 passing yards per game, which is the most in the NFL with the next closest team being Tampa Bay at 285. There is some optimism for the remainder of the season for the Chargers, as their best performance of the year last week comes at the same time as they've made wholesale changes at their corners. Both Michael Davis and Ja'Sir Taylor, who have struggled all year, were benched last week for second- year 7th-round pick Deane Leonard and Essang Bassey, who was cut from Denver earlier this year. The expectations of a turnaround should be low, given that it took 12 weeks for the 4-7 Chargers to make this move, but at least they're trying to do something to turn this thing around, as sticking with Davis and Taylor would have led to very similar results that we've seen all season.
Miami at Washington
The Dolphins passing attack continues to be one of the league's best this season, especially when facing bad teams. This is a relentless offense, as even in games they win by 14 or more points, Tagovailoa is averaging 289 passing yards per game. This offense has 62% of its passing yards going through two players, Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, as no other player has over 200 receiving yards on the season. Hill is a strong contender for Offensive Player of the Year as he is on pace to be just the second player in NFL history to top 2,000 receiving yards in a season, as Cooper Kupp was the first in 2021.
Washington's secondary has been bad all season, but since they traded their top two pass rushers, Montez Sweat and Chase Young, they're trending to become the league's worst. Since the trade, they've had a little bit of luck as they've faced two of the most incompetent passing offenses in the NFL, Mac Jones and Tommy DeVito, along with Dak Prescott and Geno Smith. Smith and Prescott shredded this defense as Smith threw for 369 yards and 2 touchdowns, while Prescott threw for 331 yards and 4 touchdowns. However, what might be even more alarming is that DeVito and Jones had success as DeVito threw for 246 yards and 3 touchdowns while averaging just 150 yards and 1.3 touchdowns per game this season. For Mac Jones, his 220-yard performance was just the second time since Week 3 that he has topped 200 passing yards. At cornerback, Benjamin St-Juste continues to struggle, as he is now allowing the most receiving yards per game among all corners. Meanwhile, in the slot, it continues to be a revolving door of players as Emmanuel Forbes and Danny Johnson both had their chances and now it is second-round rookie Jartavius Martin. While putting a second-round rookie should help a struggling position, the big question is why it took so long for them to give him a chance, so it should lead to some skepticism about whether Martin can step up and make a considerable improvement on this defense.
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