Fantasy football projections, Week 13: Eagles-Bengals featuring Wendell Smallwood, Jordan Matthews, Tyler Eifert, more

The Week 13 matchup between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Cincinnati Bengals features teams looking to rebound from tough losses. We’ve got the fantasy projections courtesy of numberFire.

Running back Wendell Smallwood was a popular waiver wire addition heading into the team’s Week 12 game against the Green Bay Packers. He got nine carries in the contest compared to Darren Sproles’ three. Unfortunately for Smallwood, the game flow dictated a pass-first approach for Philadelphia as they trailed most of the way. Smallwood finished with 37 yards on his nine carries. It’s time for fantasy owners to cut him loose after just one week, simply because the backfield still belongs to Sproles. Sproles’ fantasy value is higher in PPR formats and the passing game is how he should see most of his action in Cincinnati. With him being banged up it’s hard to picture Sproles surpassing his projections in Week 13, even though he’s still getting more action than Smallwood.

Given the murky picture in the Eagles’ backfield, wide receiver Jordan Matthews is probably the best bet for fantasy production moving forward. Surprisingly, Matthews was only targeted four times in a game where the Eagles trailed by as much as two touchdowns. The good news is he caught all four of those passes against Green Bay for 47 yards. The bad news is that Matthews has been held under 75 receiving yards in for the last five games and he has not scored a touchdown since Week 8. Matthews can’t be trusted to surpass his projections against the Bengals. If he does however, it might give fantasy owners reason to consider starting him in the postseason.

With wide receiver .A.J. Green out this week again due to injury, fantasy owners rightly assumed that tight end Tyler Eifert would get more work for the rest of the season. He proved that theory correct in Week 12. Eifert caught five passes for 68 yards and a touchdown against the Ravens. He was targeted 11 times in the game, his second highest total of the season. Philadelphia is pretty tough against opposing fantasy tight ends, but Cincinnati doesn’t have many other options in the passing game. Eifert may be blanketed tightly in Week 13, but he’s still going to be productive based on volume. Fantasy owners should consider him a high floor, low ceiling play heading into the final week of the fantasy regular season. He’ll either finish slightly above are slightly below his projections against the Eagles. His predictable outcome is good enough to warrant a starting role in lineups this week.

Perhaps one pass catcher on the team with more upside than Eifert is rookie Tyler Boyd. He hasn’t seen much time this year because Green and Brandon LaFell are ahead him on the depth chart, but now Boyd gets his time to shine and show what he can do. The rookie caught five passes for 62 yards against Baltimore and the week before that caught six passes for 54 yards and his first career touchdown against the Buffalo Bills. He’s a physically gifted athletic receiver who can fight off coverage in the end zone as he proved throughout his college career. Philadelphia has been generous to wide receivers even though they’ve managed to keep tight ends in check this season. Boyd might outperform Eifert in Week 13. Should he do just that he will definitely rise above his projections.