The NFL season is almost over but that hasn’t stopped DraftKings from introducing a new format! Snake Draft Showdown is now open and ready for you to dive into, including Sunday night’s game between the Washington Football Team and the Philadelphia Eagles, which starts at 8:20 p.m. ET.

The Football Team can make the playoffs if they can get a win, while the Eagles are trying to prevent a celebration on their home turf. DK Sportsbook has the Football Team favored by 3.5 points with the O/U at 43.5.

If you’ve ever played season-long fantasy before, you’re likely familiar with how a Snake Draft works. In short, for these Showdown contests, once the allotted number of entries are filled in a contest, the draft will begin one minute later. The entrants are assigned a random draft order and will commence in that order. The player with the first pick gets dibs on everyone while the player with the last pick will get a double pick, as it’ll end the first round and thus begin the second.

For a full breakdown of rules, please visit our How to Play Classic and Showdown NFL Snake Draft page.

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Favorable Matchups

Antonio Gibson and J. D. McKissic, Washington Football Team vs Philadelphia Eagles
Snake Showdown Rank: 3rd and 4th

Gibson is listed questionable for this game and hasn’t practiced all week, but he has worked on the sideline and head coach Ron Rivera has been positive for most of the week regarding his status. If Gibson is unable to play, then McKissic will be the main guy. In Week 15 when Gibson missed the game, McKissic garnered 88% of the running back snaps.

The matchup and situation should be ideal for both running backs. The Eagles will be without their starting DE (Derek Barnett), MLB (Shaun Bradley), OLB (Duke Riley) and DT stud (Fletcher Cox) on defense. They will also be without RB Miles Sanders and TE Dallas Goedert, so there’s a good chance they can control both sides of the ball and do what they want to do best, which is run the ball.

Finally, Alex Smith has a chance to play, which is great news for sustaining drives and funneling targets to the running backs in the passing game. In Weeks 10 to 13 when Smith was under center, McKissic received 31 targets and Gibson got 13 targets.

Zach Ertz, Philadelphia Eagles vs Washington Football Team
Snake Showdown Rank: 11th

Both Goedert (calf) and Richard Rodgers (shin) are out for this game. That leaves Ertz as the last tight end standing. Fine, there’s Jason Croom and Caleb Wilson, but they have combined for 23 snaps on the season so, as I was saying, Ertz is the last of the tight ends.

The Football Team’s pass defense is tough, as they are second in pass-defense DVOA and have allowed the eighth fewest fantasy points to the tight end position. That said, the Eagles heavily utilize the tight ends in the passing game and have had success against the Football Team in the past. During the Week 1 game between these two rivals, Goedert led the team with eight catches on nine targets for 101 yards and a touchdown. Ertz received seven targets that game as well.

Since Jalen Hurts has taken over the starting quarterback position, a tight end has led in targets in every game: six for Goedert in Week 14, eight for Goedert in Week 15 and seven for Ertz last week. In those games, the other tight end received 13 targets, so that’s 34 targets to the position in three games.

Matchups to be aware of

Jalen Reagor, Philadelphia Eagles vs Washington Football Team
Snake Showdown Rank: 6th

As mentioned above, the Redskins are second in pass defense DVOA. Whew, that was easy. On to the next.

I’ll dig a little deeper because it’s a new year and I’ve decided to try and be nicer, Plus, my daughter keeps telling me that sharing is caring. Or is that what I keep telling her? It’s all jumbled at this point. Anyways, Reagor runs 79% of his routes from the outside of the formation. On the other side, Kendall Fuller defends the right side 87% of the time, while Darby patrols the left side of the defensive formation.

Both cornerbacks are allowing a 56% catch rate, which is top 20 in the league. To compound matters, Reagor is only averaging 5.3 targets per game with a paltry 7.2 yards per target.

Third-Round Flier

Boston Scott, Philadelphia Eagles vs Washington Football Team
Snake Showdown Rank: 20th

Miles Sanders has been ruled out, so Scott should lead the action on the ground. Sanders has missed two games this season and in those games, Scott received 69% and 65% of the snaps. He also received five and two targets, and five and two red-zone looks.

The matchup isn’t great, as the Football Team is 13th in rush defense DVOA and have allowed the third-fewest fantasy points to the running back position. They have also allowed the second-fewest receptions to running backs. That said, volume is volume.

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I am a promoter at DraftKings and am also an avid fan and user (my username is sontzu) and may sometimes play on my personal account in the games that I offer advice on. Although I have expressed my personal view on the games and strategies above, they do not necessarily reflect the view(s) of DraftKings and I may also deploy different players and strategies than what I recommend above. I am not an employee of DraftKings and do not have access to any non-public information.

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