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Week 10 IDP Hits: Did Jaelan Phillips Get Traded to Heaven?

How Jalen Hurts Helps Philly Pass Rushers

I don’t know how much Jaelan Phillips liked living in Miami. But from a football standpoint, at least, he has to be happy with this week’s move.

The Dolphins -- mercifully -- sent him to Philadelphia for a third-round pick. The Eagles are obviously serious about Phillips, and their defense badly needs him. It also can’t hurt that he played under Philly DC Vic Fangio with the 2023 Dolphins. 

But there’s another reason to like his landing spot.

Philly Offense Boosts Phillips’ Upside

You probably already know this, but the Dolphins aren’t very good this year. Most relevantly, they rank 22nd in the league in time spent leading opponents so far, according to FTN. The Eagles rank third in that category.

More time leading means more pressure on your opponent to drop back. Indeed, Eagles opponents have so far averaged 33.5 pass attempts vs. 27.4 for Dolphins foes. And that’s even with Philly’s offense looking shaky for much of the season’s first half.

Phillips has played surprisingly well this year for a guy coming off an ACL tear. That includes QB hits in five straight games, with sacks in three of those.

The move to Philly should only strengthen Phillips’ IDP upside the rest of the way. That run starts with a pair of tough sack matchups (Green Bay and Detroit), but Phillips could prove to be a weekly starting option in his new place.

Van Ginkel’s Back … Mostly

The Vikings finally got Edge Andrew Van Ginkel back for last Sunday’s win at Detroit, his first action since Week 3.

Van Ginkel notched a tackle for loss and a QB hit among 3 total tackles. But he also played just 61% of the snaps. That’s an OK level for the position in general. It’s also well below the 81% he played for the season last year -- his first in Minnesota -- and the 91% he played in this season’s opener.

We’ll see about Van Ginkel’s playing time this week against Baltimore. It’s also worth noting, though, that Minnesota’s remaining schedule is the worst for DL scoring, according to our adjusted fantasy points allowed. 

The best matchups, at least, look like the Commanders in Week 14 and the Giants in Week 16. So Van Ginkel could yet prove to be a valuable IDP contributor.

His return also meant season-low playing time for Edge Dallas Turner (22%), who has disappointed so far since arriving as the 17th overall pick in 2024.

Bills Defense Remains Unsettled

I intro’d last week’s coverage of the Buffalo defense in this space by calling the unit “annoying,” mostly because of the situation with LB Terrel Bernard.

In case you missed it, he was active for Week 8 but didn’t play a snap after entering the weekend questionable.

Fortunately for fantasy purposes, Bernard did get back to his full role in last week’s win over the Chiefs. And he played well ahead of No. 2 LB Matt Milano (55%), with Dorian Williams (22%) trailing.

We’ll see how Shaq Thompson factors in once he’s back healthy (not this week). But Bernard’s the only usable Buffalo LB in IDP lineups for now.

Bills Lose Key Edge Player

Free-agent signee Michael Hoecht had just made a strong, 1.5-sack debut in Week 8 after serving a six-game PED suspension. Then an Achilles’ tear against the Chiefs ended his season.

That takes an important player out of the defense and leaves Buffalo particularly light this week thanks to A.J. Epenesa’s concussion.

Javon Solomon’s the next guy up. The fifth-round pick from last year looks interesting for the long term. He delivered an FBS-leading 16 sacks in 2023, his final college season -- plus a season of 11 sacks and 17 tackles for loss two years before. But he’s also undersized (6’1, 246 at the Combine) with just OK speed for his size (50th-percentile speed score).

Solomon’s probably not going to be an IDP factor this year. But he has generated some slight buzz in practices. We’ll see if he’s worth dynasty attention.

The Rapp(-less) Battle

The Bills have now played two games without S Taylor Rapp (on IR), and the fill-in plan has differed.

Jordan Poyer started at Carolina two weeks ago and drew near-full duty in a blowout win that left no one on the defense playing every snap. (He played 74% while the leaders topped out at 89%.)

Last week still found Poyer in the starting lineup against the Chiefs, but he played just 57% of the snaps. Cam Lewis joined Cole Bishop in playing every snap, splitting his time between slot CB and safety positions. That game found starting slot Taron Johnson inactive, though, after he did play vs. the Panthers.

Johnson’s questionable this week. If he remains out, we should expect another full-time outing for Lewis. If Johnson’s back, we’re probably looking at split snaps between Poyer and Lewis. That scenario would make neither an IDP option.

Houston Switches Back at ’Backer

Texans LB Henry To’oTo’o opened the year as a full-timer before ceding work to E.J. Speed for a while. Here are the weekly snap shares for To’oTo’o through the first seven weeks:

• 95%
• 96%
• 89%
• 48%
• 58%
• 60%
• 52%

But Week 9 found To’oTo’o rebounding to 86% playing time and Speed dipping to 30%, his smallest snap share since Week 3 (30%).

To’oTo’o hasn’t been much of an IDP factor but did open the season with LB18 and LB12 finishes in balanced-scoring formats before his playing time started to decline. His two weeks in the 80-89% range of snap share have produced LB68 and LB49 (last week) scores.

The realistic ceiling here is probably LB3-range production the rest of the way.

Greenlaw Getting Close to Relevance

Broncos LB Dre Greenlaw overtook Justin Strnad in playing time Thursday night for the first time this season.

His third appearance found Greenlaw playing 62% of Denver’s defensive snaps, still well behind Alex Singleton’s 100% but a steeper climb vs. the 27% and 37% of Greenlaw’s first two outings.

The big-money free-agent addition has already reminded us of his potential scoring efficiency. Although just four of his total tackles have been solos, Greenlaw has produced a solo or assist on an impressive 22.4% of his snaps so far. That would project to 13.7 tackles per game at full playing time (using the NFL average of 61.1 plays per game).

Greenlaw has also delivered a sack, a tackle for loss, 2 QB hits, and a pass breakup.

He’ll be usable for Week 11 in deeper leagues and should see further playing-time growth at least on the other side of the Week 12 bye (if not this coming week).

There’s No Full-Time Pat Surtain Replacement

Denver’s lead CB has missed the past two games (and most of the one before).

Kris Abrams-Draine racked up 9 tackles in the game Surtain left and followed that with 7 in the Week 9 win over Houston. He notched 5 solos in each and a tackle for loss against the Texans. But then came a zero on Thursday night.

The issue is playing time. Abrams-Draine has played 49%, 59%, and 78% of the defensive snaps the past three weeks. Even though his share against the Raiders marked a season high, he still trailed Ja’Quan McMillian, the starting slot man.

McMillian played 95% against Vegas but just 70% and 62% the previous two games.

So if you’ve wondered who the second full-time CB is (with Riley Moss) while Surtain’s out, the answer is no one.

Cowboys Rookie Ascending Quicker Than Expected?

I called Dallas Edge Donovan Ezeiruaku “much more of a stash than a guy who’s about to help your lineup” when I included him in the Week 9 IDP waiver wire article. But it turns out I might have undersold him.

The second-round rookie got his first official start in Monday night’s loss to the Cardinals and played a season high 76% of the snaps. That marked a significant jump from the 57% that had been his previous high. And it coincided with his fewest special-teams snaps of the year (another indicator of his rising importance in the defense).

Most importantly, Ezeiruaku has proved worthy of more playing time with his performance. After totaling 3 QB hits across the season’s first five games, he has delivered at least one in each of the past five contests. That included his second sack in three weeks against Arizona.

PFF has credited him with 3+ pressures in five straight games, with an average of 3.6 over that span. That’s up from 1.0 per game over the first four weeks.

Strong Finish Could Be Coming

I’ll be watching, of course, to make sure that playing time stays up after the Week 10 bye. But I don’t see why it would regress.

Week 11 holds a Raiders matchup that has allowed 3 sacks per game to date. Dallas then gets three straight strongly negative matchups for DL scoring, according to our adjusted fantasy points allowed. But after that comes three straight positive spots to close out the fantasy season.

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Matt Schauf, Editor

Matt has earned two Fantasy Pros accuracy awards for IDP rankings and won thousands of dollars as a player across best ball, dynasty, and high-stakes fantasy formats. He has been creating fantasy football content for more than 20 years, with work featured by Sporting News, Rotoworld, Athlon, Sirius XM, and others. He's been with Draft Sharks since 2011.