Predicting the Top Fantasy Performer From Eagles vs. Cardinals

By Nick Wilder @NickCWilder on October 24, 2014

The Philadelphia Eagles (5-1) visit the Arizona Cardinals (5-1) on Sunday in a somewhat unexpected battle of elite NFL teams thus far this season. Chip Kelly’s bunch has enjoyed an easy schedule through seven weeks, but they’ve been impressive in their victories. Arizona has been pretty consistent all season, even though they have shuffled between three quarterbacks already this year. With that said, surprisingly, the top fantasy performer in this matchup will prove to be Cardinals quarterback Carson Palmer.

The former USC Trojan has only played in three games this season, but he’s played very well in each of those contests. He hasn’t scored under 16 fantasy points this year and has developed a nice chemistry with the Cardinals’ offensive weapons. Larry Fitzgerald has been a major disappointment, but Michael Floyd and Andre Ellington have proven to be reliable options.

In addition, the Eagles’ defense has done very poorly against opposing quarterbacks. They’ve given up the fifth-most fantasy points to signal callers this season. The combination of starting cornerbacks Cary Williams and Bradley Fletcher has been inconsistent at best, and Palmer should be able to take advantage. Philadelphia is very weak across their whole defensive backfield, aside from safety Malcolm Jenkins.

Palmer has thrown for at least two touchdowns in each game that he’s played in and there’s no reason to believe he won’t at least match that number this weekend. Also, the Eagles rank 20th in fantasy points allowed to opposing running backs, so with Ellington likely having an average rushing game for Arizona, Palmer should have a large amount of passing yards.

This should be an interesting battle of two playoff-hopeful teams in the desert. There are several players who are capable of putting up big fantasy numbers for each team, but the prediction here is that Palmer will lead everyone in that department. It’s highly unlikely that Philadelphia can duplicate the performance they had against Eli Manning and the New York Giants in their last outing.

Nick Wilder is a writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @NickCWilder and add him to your network on Google.