Top former Eagles for Philly fans to target in Fantasy Football 2025

Fantasy is more fun when you get one of ‘your guys’ on your team. You know everything about them, and when they hit, it’s a double whammy… unfortunately, that’s a double-edged sword. 

Let’s say you have DeVonta Smith on your team: it ends up being one of those games where the Philadelphia Eagles win, but Smitty doesn’t go off, fantasy-wise. Now you’re glad the Birds won, but you feel a little bit bummed out because your guy didn’t go off. Or vice versa: the Birds lose, and your guy goes off. 

Winning and losing should be straightforward: you’re either good or you're bad; no emotional hedging or anything in the gray area. That’s why it’s nice to draft guys who used to be your guys. 

Draft the guys who used to be your guys

Fantasy-wise, there aren’t a whole lot of good former Eagles out there... which makes sense because they’ve had such a dominant offense over the past three seasons. Literally (and I mean literally), the only problem is that it’s hard to draft players who you have a relatively strong emotional attachment to. These are those guys. 

D’Andre Swift:

D’Andre Swift has had a weird career. He had his first three seasons in Detroit, and they were not great, but a lot of that was due to injuries. Then in 2023, he came to the Eagles and had his first 1,000-yard rushing season. After that, he went to Chicago to play behind one of the worst offensive lines in the NFL, but he still hit 959 rushing yards. 

This season, the Bears revamped their offensive line in a big way. They signed Drew Dallman, who was the top free-agent center. They also traded for four-time All-Pro Guard Joe Thuney and pretty decent guard Jonah Jackson. That’s a big step up from the Teven Jenkins, Coleman Shelton, and Matt Pryor interior combo they were throwing out there last season.

On top of that, Ben Johnson is their new head coach and play-caller. Last season with the Lions, Jahmyr Gibbs had 16 rushing touchdowns (tied for first in the NFL). No one in their right mind is going to say Swift is as good a player as Gibbs, or that the Bears’ new offensive line is as good as the Lions’, but Johnson knows how to give his running backs opportunities to score.

When you’re trying to get a good fantasy player, opportunities are everything.

Zack Ertz:

Zack Ertz is tricky to classify when it comes to trying to get a player who used to be your guy on your fantasy team. Did he catch the go-ahead touchdown that led to the Eagles winning their first Super Bowl? Yes, of course. Is it a huge bummer that now he’s one of Jayden Daniels’ leading pass catchers? Also, yes.

Miles Sanders used to be our guy, but now he’s a turncoat in Dallas. Could he be their leading rusher and end up getting you a decent number of points? Maybe. Luckily, there are a whole bunch of other running backs out there, so you don’t absolutely need to get him.

Ertz’s situation is worse than that because he’s a tight end with some big upside, especially when tight ends with any upside are few and far between. It would just be super cool and super helpful if he wasn’t on a team in the division. 

Cameron Dicker:

In Week 4 of the 2022 season, Jake Elliott hurt his ankle against the Jaguars, so the Eagles signed undrafted rookie Cameron Dicker to kick in the Week 5 game against Arizona. In that game, Dicker kicked the game-winning field goal and won NFC Special Teams Player of the Week… so while his stint in Philadelphia was brief, he is a former Eagle, and he’s with the Chargers again this season.

Jake Elliott used to be a great guy to get on your fantasy team because you never had to draft him with premium picks, and typically his success lined right up with the Eagles’ success. That might not be the case anymore.

He’s coming off a really, really bad year. Now, he had the worst year of his career in 2020, and then he bounced back big-time in 2021… but that was five years ago. Do you want to chase that kind of bounce back? I don’t know. 

Cameron Dicker, formerly known as “Dicker the kicker” but now known as ‘Dicker the field goal and also the longest free kick field goal kicker’ (it’s a long, but apt nickname), is a good replacement if you’re not comfortable with Elliott. 

He ended the 2024 season with 150 points (tied for second), was 39-of-42 on field goals (tied for third), and 33-of-36 on extra points. What you're betting on here is that Justin Herbert and the Chargers are going to be a team that’s good enough to score sometimes, but mostly just get into field goal range and flame out. 

In other words: you’re banking on the Chargers Charger-ing. That’s just about as safe a bet as you can make a safe bet.