In 2023-24, the Green Bay Packers became the first No. 7 seed to win a playoff game since the NFL Playoffs expanded to 14 teams in 2020, beating the second-seeded Dallas Cowboys, 48-32, in a game that maybe should’ve foretold Dallas’ disaster class this season.
One year later, Green Bay will have a chance to repeat history, as it lost its final two games of the season and the Washington Commanders were able to leap-frog it to claim the No. 6 seed. The Packers will once again play the NFC East champion during Wild Card weekend, but this time, it’s the Philadelphia Eagles.
Outside of a stunning 36-33 loss in Washington during Week 16, the Eagles have been pretty much unstoppable ever since their bye week, winning 12 of their 13 games, including six by multiple possessions. Running back Saquon Barkley, in his first season in Philadelphia, put up one of the greatest single-season rushing performances in NFL history and might’ve broken Eric Dickerson’s 40-year-old record if he hadn’t rested in Week 18. Trying to put aside the benefit of hindsight, I’d easily favor these Eagles over the 2023 Cowboys.
DraftKings Sportsbook thinks Philadelphia should win comfortably, favoring the Eagles by 4.5 points against Green Bay, with the point total set to 45.5.
DraftKings is offering a Showdown contest for the big game, so I’ll take you through my two captain’s picks, two FLEX picks, and one fade. Let’s dive in:
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SHOWDOWN STRATEGY
Captain’s Picks
Saquon Barkley ($17,400 CP) – It’s pretty simple: When you have the chance to take arguably the best running back in the league, you take him, even it costs nearly 36% of your budget to make him a Captain’s Pick. I’ve followed that logic repeatedly with Baltimore’s Derrick Henry, and he hasn’t let me down yet.
While there’s no such thing in football as a sure thing, Barkley is about as close as it gets. In the 2024-25 season, he has failed to record 100 scrimmage yards just three times and averaged less than four yards per attempt only twice. He’s also scored at least one touchdown in half of his 16 games. Philadelphia’s offense starts and ends with Barkley; his 345 carries this season lag behind only two Henry campaigns for the highest single-season total in the last decade.
Barkley should be able to exploit the only weakness in a battle of two pretty good defenses. Although the Packers have allowed the eighth-fewest rushing yards to opposing running backs, they’ve also allowed the third-most receiving yards to the position, along with 15 total touchdowns. In part because of its weakness on passes to halfbacks, Green Bay has ceded the 13th-most fantasy points to running backs. Barkley isn’t primarily known as a pass-catcher, but he still earned a 10.8% target share during the regular season.
Romeo Doubs ($11,100 CP) – One of the Packers’ biggest concerns going into the postseason is health, especially at the wide receiver position. Doubs sat out the Week 18 game against the Chicago Bears with an illness, and during that game, Christian Watson went down with a season-ending torn ACL. Green Bay did a notoriously bad job surrounding Aaron Rodgers with wide receiver talent in the late stages of his stint with the team, and beyond Doubs and Jayden Reed, Jordan Love’s options are dangerously thin. Dontayvion Wicks, Bo Melton, and Malik Heath — the only other healthy receivers on the Packers’ roster — have a combined 1,527 career receiving yards.
Still, Love’s passes have to go somewhere, and Doubs has been his favorite target this season, with a 19.7% target share. Love turned to Doubs early and often in arguably Green Bay’s most important game, the Week 17 loss to the Minnesota Vikings, and Doubs did pretty well with his opportunities, corralling seven passes for 58 yards and a fourth-quarter two-point conversion catch. His fantasy ceiling might be somewhat limited by the fact that he ranks behind Wicks in target share both within the red zone and on passes into the end zone, but he’s still worthy of a Captain’s Pick given the increased workload he’ll see without Watson.
The Eagles excel at pretty much everything defensively, but they’ve allowed the second-fewest fantasy points to opposing running backs and only the seventh-fewest to opposing wide receivers. Although Philadelphia has conceded just 2,202 receiving yards to the position — the third-fewest in the NFL — it has also allowed 17 touchdowns, tied for the 12th-most in football.
FLEX Plays
Jalen Hurts ($11,000) – I was a little bit hesitant to pick Hurts here in his return from the concussion that he suffered in Week 16, especially as the most expensive FLEX player on the board once Barkley is selected as captain. However, after head coach Nick Sirianni held him out in Week 18 and he was a full participant in practice on Thursday, I trust that he will be healthy and fairly effective, even against a pretty strong Packers defense.
While most of the media attention on the Eagles has been centered around Barkley and on NFC quarterbacks around Sam Darnold, Baker Mayfield, and Jayden Daniels, Hurts has arguably had an even more effective season than he did in 2022, when he finished second in MVP voting. Hurts completed 68.7% of his passes for 2,903 yards, 18 touchdowns, and five picks, plus 150 carries for 630 yards and 14 touchdowns, tied for the fourth-most in football. He won’t put up huge volume through the air — Philadelphia has operated the most conservative offense in the NFL this season — but when the Eagles get inside the opponent’s five-yard line, it’s Tush Push time; Hurts has garnered 51.4% of Philadelphia’s carries in such situations.
Green Bay has allowed 3,959 passing yards this season, which puts it around the middle of the pack, and opposing passers have completed 67.4% of their passes. While Packers’ defensive backs have snagged 17 interceptions, tied for third-most in the league, Hurts is an excellent ball protector. His 79.1% on-target percentage was the sixth-highest in the league and 1.4% interception percentage was the sixth-lowest, so he should be able to neutralize Green Bay’s ball hawk tendencies.
Dallas Goedert ($5,800) – If you’ve gone with Barkley as your captain and especially if you’ve stacked him with Hurts, you’re desperately in need of a budget option. In that case, look no further than the Eagles’ six-foot-five man in the middle, Dallas Goedert.
Six days after his 30th birthday, Goedert might no longer be quite the player he was two seasons ago, when his consistency was critical in helping Philadelphia make a run to the Super Bowl. Still, even in an injury-riddled season in which he played just 10 games, Goedert put up some solid numbers, recording 42 catches for 496 yards and two scores. His 80.8% catch percentage is a career high and was the fifth-best mark among all tight ends during the regular season.
It’s clear that Hurts really trusts his big man, especially in the red zone. Although Goedert only ranks third on the team in overall target share, his 28.6% target share within the opponent’s 20-yard line leads the Eagles by a huge margin. Goedert only found the end zone twice in 2024, but he should still be productive on Sunday against a Packers defense that allowed 970 yards to opposing tight ends this season, the eighth-most in the league. Although Green Bay allowed only four touchdowns to opposing tight ends, tied for the sixth-fewest in the league, they still only rank 19th against the position, making Goedert a strong value play.
Fades
Josh Jacobs ($10,600) – This isn’t a slight against Jacobs, who has rebuilt his stock nicely after a rough 2023 campaign with the Las Vegas Raiders. The Packers’ leading man has rushed for 1,329 yards and 15 scores on decent efficiency, rightfully earning his third Pro Bowl nod. Pro Football Focus grades him as the second-best running back in football, seven positions ahead of Barkley.
I just don’t know how effective any running back is going to be against Philadelphia’s defensive front. The Eagles have allowed just 1,357 yards to opposing running backs, and five total touchdowns. That’s two fewer than the second-place Los Angeles Chargers and four fewer than the third-place Kansas City Chiefs, the only two other teams to have allowed single-digit touchdowns to halfbacks this season. The last running back to find the end zone against Philadelphia was Carolina’s Chuba Hubbard, all the way back on December 8.
THE OUTCOME
I can excuse Green Bay for losing a tight one against the Vikings, and the Week 18 loss to the Chicago Bears can even be explained away by the fact that Love sat most of the game. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that those losses happened.
Philadelphia’s defense is good enough that I think the Eagles could stop anyone, especially a banged-up Packers unit. Hurts and Barkley are too efficient, and the loss of Watson will hurt. Green Bay may have made history by winning last season’s Wild Card matchup. History won’t repeat itself.
Final Score: Philadelphia 24, Green Bay 17
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All views expressed are my own. I am a promoter at DraftKings and am ineligible to play in public DFS or DKSB contests.
