Fantasy Football Draft Guide 2025: NFC East Coaches & Their NFL Systems

.While it may sound cliche, we are adamant believers in the philosophy that if you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. This is why our fantasy football prep is so head-and-shoulders above everyone else’s. We put a heavy focus on teaching you the different NFL coaching systems so that you not only learn who best to pick in your fantasy football draft, but also which players to target in-season as well. Isn’t that what a fantasy football draft guide is supposed to do?

Every run-of-the-mill draft guide will feed you fantasy football rankings, a few draft strategy articles and even toss you some sleepers to draft and busts to avoid. They’ll tie a bow around it with a fantasy football mock draft and send you on your way. Not here. We want you to be a better fantasy player and that means not only give you the tools for a successful draft like our fantasy football cheat sheet, but also the knowledge to bring in-season to help you make stronger waiver wire decisions. The education will last a lifetime and the championships will continue to roll in.

If you missed the general overview of NFL schemes and personnel packages, you can find them in the AFC East Coaching breakdown. You should bookmark that page for easy reference. Once you have your base knowledge, we can move forward into the schemes of the NFC East division!

2025 Fantasy Football: NFC East NFL Coaching Systems

Dallas Cowboys

Cowboys Offensive Breakdown

This was an interesting offseason for the Cowboys and one that, perhaps, they weren’t expecting. Head coach Mike McCarthy actually left on his own terms and is taking a year off from coaching. Rather than dive into the search for something completely new, Jerry Jones opted to maintain some year-to-year continuity and promoted offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer and tasked him with restoring the Cowboys to a level that would make our very own Jim Bowden proud. Will it work? Obviously, health is important, but if it all breaks right, it could be a very long year for me on the Fantasy Alarm Show on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio. How ‘bout them Cowboys?

Let’s start with one of the most important changes Schottenheimer has made and that is employing former Arizona Cardinals offensive line coach Klayton Adams to serve as his offensive coordinator. Schottenheimer will call the plays, but Adams will be the one tasked with rebuilding this offensive line and getting the run-blocking and pass-protection needed to succeed. To do that, Adams brought in Connor Riley who most recently served as the offensive coordinator and offensive line coach for Kansas State. 

They will run a power/gap blocking scheme which is what both Adams and Riley ran in their former stops and should benefit the linemen. Tyler Guyton had some issues moving to the outside in a zone scheme, so he should feel much more comfortable while 320-pound rookie Tyler Booker move to the interior at right guard next to center Cooper Beebe who served under Riley back at K-State. Both LG Tyler Smith and RT Terence Steele are equally ginormous and should flourish in this scheme which will, undoubtedly open up some wide rushing lanes for Javonte Williams and rookie Jaydon Blue. Even Miles Sanders should be ablet to find those holes, so whichever running back actually lands atop the depth chart, he should have some clear paths to run through.

But while establishing a ground game is important, let’s not forget that Schottenheimer is a big believer in the pass and will likely want to use it to set up the run. The west coast style of passing will utilize the short, high percentage passing to help move the chains and keep CeeDee Lamb quite busy, but they traded for George Pickens for a reason and that is to set up the deeper shots downfield. Pickens is capable of beating corners down the sidelines as well as being able to come down with contested catches. 

We will see a lot of three and four-receiver sets that will also incorporate the tight end as Schottenheimer likes to create as many mismatches in the secondary as possible. You’ll see a lot of crossing routes with Jake Ferguson and Jalen Tolbert with the hope of freeing up Lamb or Pickens in one-on-one situations further downfield. The running backs ill also be deployed as receivers to create even more confusion. 

We know Dak Prescott can throw the football and fantasy owners are going to love being invested here. Mobile QBs are all the rage but in a high-volume passing attack such as this, you can actually afford to wait a little when drafting the position. If the line stays healthy, if one of the running backs can really step up and if Pickens can keep his ego in check, this offense is going to hum and produce a lot of points. 

• Best Fits for the System: Dak Prescott, Jaydon Blue, CeeDee Lamb
• Worst Fits for the System: KaVontae Turpin

Cowboys Defensive Breakdown

• Defensive Front: 4-3
• Secondary: Cover-3, Single-High
  • Man Coverage: 33.2% (12^th)
  • Zone Coverage: 66.2% (18^th)

The defense gets a lit bit of a makeover here as Schottenheimer brings in veteran defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus to run the show. He wasn’t a great head coach in Chicago, but as a DC in Indianapolis, he ran a strong scheme and a tight ship. He’ll run a 4-3 base and have his defensive line focused more on gap control. Not only will this help stop the run, a shortcoming of the Cowboys last season, but it will also help free up Michah Parsons and allow him to move around more to create mismatches. 

With the defensive line focused on gap control and getting pressure on the quarterback up front, Eberflus can deploy the zone coverage he likes to use in the secondary. He likes to have one high safety to take away the deep ball, so his linebackers will help drop back, so long as the line is getting pressure, and keep everything focused on the underneath work. A healthy Trevon Diggs will also be paramount for the success of this secondary. Knowing the safety is there monitoring the deep work, Diggs can focus on the middle of the field or on the perimeter, whichever he is tasked for at the time, and worry less about getting beaten deep, an issue of his in the past. 

• Best Fits for the System: Micah Parsons, Mazi Smith, Trevon Diggs
• Worst Fits for the System: Dante Fowler, Donovan Wilson

New York Giants

Giants Offensive Breakdown

Last year was a veritable disaster for the Giants as they let Saquon Barkley walk and watched him flourish with the Eagles while further alienating and, ultimately, ridding themselves of their once quarterback-of-the-future in Daniel Jones. They took a somewhat safer route this offseason by employing Russell Wilson to run their offense, but also gave themselves multiple outs in the form of veteran back-up Jameis Winston and the drafting of new future QB Jaxson Dart. The personnel fits within the scheme Brian Daboll runs and fantasy owners have some legitimate options, but how this ultimately works in the realm of actual wins is a different story.

Daboll’s spread offense and heavy use of three and four-receiver sets helps stretch out the defense and gives Wilson additional time to read the coverage and identify the mismatches. Daboll likes to use a lot of west coast-type routes so expect a lot of short, high-percentage passes. The goal is to always give Wilson a couple of easy, underneath options so that they can continue moving the ball if the deeper routes aren’t available. Malik Nabers should be the one in the high-percentage range as his ability to add yards after the catch is something Wan’Dale Robinson just couldn’t do. Darius Slayton can catch all the moon balls Wilson wants to throw at him. They will also employ plenty of RPO work and while Wilson isn’t a major threat to take off running, it will help freeze the linebackers and afford him more time to see which receiver is in the best situation.

As for the ground game, there weren’t a lot of changes with the offensive line and we can expect a mix of both outside/wide zone as well as plenty of power/gap. The Giants running back tandem of Tyrone Tracy and Cam Skattebo fit well here, though we might be seeing the Giants telegraphing their plays simply by the personnel on the field. Tracy will likely handle the zone runs and pass-catching while Skattebo profiles more as the between-the-tackles, power runner. He'll handle the short-yardage/goal-line work which, for fantasy, should give him enough value for drafting. Could this adversely affect Tracy’s value? Perhaps. Daboll will need to be creative inside the five-yard-line if he doesn’t want defenses to know exactly what he’s doing.   

• Best Fits for the System: Malik Nabers, Darius Slayton
• Worst Fits for the System: Cam Skattebo

Giants Defensive Breakdown

• Defensive Front: 3-4 base with multi-front looks
• Secondary: Single-High Match Zone
  • Man Coverage: 32.6% (14^th)
  • Zone Coverage: 66.7% (24^th)

The Giants will continue to use a 3-4 base and use bulk on the defensive line to stop the run and free up the pass-rushers to do what they do best. Dexter Lawrence is a huge asset for this and rookie Darius Alexander will hopefully be able to contribute more of the same within the team’s lineman rotation. Bobby Okereke is strong up the middle as well and his presence should not only help support the line in front of him, but also allow first-round draft pick Abdul Carter, Kayvon Thibodeaux and Brian Burns the opportunity to move around and bring immense pressure from all angles to the quarterback. You won’t see a ton of blitzing, but with this trio of pass-rushers, we may not need to see all that much anyway.

While stopping the run was an offseason priority, the Giants also knew they needed to fix some issues in the secondary. They didn’t go after any high-end corners, but they did add Paulson Adebo as well as safety Jevon Holland who finally fills the void left when Xavier McKinney ran of to Green Bay last year. The Giants will use a combination of man and zone coverage here. They will sit in Cover-3 to start and then once the ball is snaped, have the corners break off into man-coverage on the outside while maintaining zone underneath. The single-high safety helps to take away the deep play while the zone underneath forces the offense into shorter passing and taking more time to actually move the sticks. If their run defense can do it’s job, the secondary should have a much easier time than they did last season. 

• Best Fits for the System: Dexter Lawrence, Brian Burns, Jevon Holland
• Worst Fits for the System: Rakeem Nunez-Roches, Deonte Banks

Philadelphia Eagles

Eagles Offensive Breakdown

While offensive coordinator Kellen Moore may have jumped ship for the head coaching job in New Orleans, the Eagles are not likely to miss a beat with their promotion of Kevin Patullo who has been the team’s passing game coordinator for the last four seasons.  Most everything in Philadelphia comes from their analytics department where James Gilman breaks everything down and passes it down to the coaches who help design/implement from there. They will continue to be a run-first team and rely heavily on their strengths which happen to be their offensive line, Jalen Hurts and Saquon Barkley. They were a dominant club last year that won the Super Bowl, so no one is reinventing the wheel.

With everything starting on the ground, we can begin here with the offensive line. You’ll see a mix of zone and power/gap blocking and while they lost Jason Kelce two years ago and Mekhi Becton this past offseason, they’ve done a great job adding strong components via free agency and the draft. The overall running game and the tush-push (possibly in its final year) should maintain its prowess.

Saquon Barkley will be out front, of course, but don’t be surprised to see them limit his touches by mixing in both Will Shipley and AJ Dillon. Barkley saw a tremendous amount of volume last year between 345 regular-season carries and an additional 91 in the playoffs and the last thing the Eagles want is to run him into the ground and not have him available for this year’s run at another championship. Fantasy owners may get frustrated at times, but the Eagles aren’t playing to win your league. They want to win theirs.

The passing attack is what I am most looking forward to this year. While Barkley was chasing records last season, the Eagles threw the fewest passes in the league and Patullo has specifically stated that he plans to change that. This is an Air Coryell system which means it will feature a lot of vertical routes that push the ball downfield and put a strain on the defensive backs, especially when trying to cover the likes of A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. But because of Jalen Hurts’ talents, you will also see a lot of RPO which freezes the linebackers and affords him with multiple options. 

In addition to Patullo discussing his desire to see Hurts throw the ball more, you have to also look at the changes on defense. Vic Fangio is a master and we’ll discuss that in a bit, but the defensive personnel has changed significantly and may need more time to jell. If they aren’t as much of a lock-down unit as they were last year, then handing the ball off in the second half to kill the clock may not be in the cards as much. That means we could see some of the passing increase early on as a tough Eagles schedule has all the looks of some potential shootouts.

• Best Fits for the System: Jalen Hurts, Saquon Barkley, A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith
• Worst Fits for the System: Dallas Goedert

Eagles Defensive Breakdown

• Defensive Front: 3-4 base with multi-front looks
• Secondary: Cover-2 with Cover-3 Mix
  • Man Coverage: 28.5% (17^th)
  • Zone Coverage: 69.7% (17^th)

What makes Fangio one of the premier defensive coordinators in the league is that his scheme is always evolving. Sure, there are some basics which he maintains, but overall, he is constantly making adjustments to all of the new, high-octane offenses we see developing out of the Shanahan and McVay coaching trees. One of the challenges Fangio will face this year is the change in personnel as Josh Sweat, Darius Slay and CJ Gardner-Johnson, three integral components of the Super Bowl champion defense, are all gone.

Fangio like to use a 3-4 base set-up, but typically has four main pass-rushers up front who are also capable of stopping the run. Moro Ojomo, Jordan Davis and Jalen Carter create a formidable defensive line and then Fangio mixes up who the fourth guy will be depending on what the offense is showing. This creates issues for the opposing linemen as they are forced to shift around their gap-coverage on the fly. This affords them the luxury of not having to run a ton of blitzes and save them for when he really feels it necessary. That’s why the run-stopping is so integral and will be even more so this season as the secondary develops.

A trademark of Fangio’s defense, specifically in the secondary, is to lure the opposition into running the football by protecting itself from big pass plays. He’ll show Cover-2 with two high safeties and when the play clock ticks down to about five seconds, he’ll switch it up immediately, usually into Cover-4. Not only does this disrupt the quarterback, but it also confuses the receivers who are supposed to be reading the defense for their “read and react” routes. 

You will also see Fangio use a lot of press man coverage on the outside in an attempt to disrupt the receivers’ timing on their routes. Cooper DeJean was a great addition last year, as was Quinyon Mitchell. Where we will see the inexperience is with second-round pick Andrew Mukuba at safety, as well as Kelee Ringo who should be tested early and often this season.

• Best Fits for the System: Jordan Davis, Jalen Carter, Cooper DeJean
• Worst Fits for the System: Adoree' Jackson

Washington Commanders

Commanders Offensive Breakdown

Defensive-minded head coach Dan Quinn brought in Kliff Kingsbury to run his offense last season and based on everything we saw, it was a rousing success. There was some concern regarding the Air Raid offense Kingsbury ran when he was with Arizona, but he vowed not to use it and, instead, installed more of a traditional spread offense that leaned heavily on the run and took tremendous pressure of rookie QB Jayden Daniels. In fact, the Commanders had the fifth-most rushing attempts last season while also running the most RPO plays of anyone. While we expect a few adjustments to stay ahead of the curve this season, it doesn’t appear as if too much is going to change.

The Commanders are double-downing on this rushing attack as evidenced by the improvements on the offensive line. They brought in LT Laremy Tunsil, OG Nate Herbig and used their first-round pick on RG Josh Conerly, so we expect to see the heavy inside-zone work they used last year on runs by Daniels and running back Brian Robinson. They will also continue to work in Austn Ekeler and Jeremy McNichols for work on the outside, as well as some designed runs for Daniels himself. 

The passing game is where we should see some interesting things. Last season, they lived among the short, high-percentage passing to help Daniels adjust to the NFL game. The goal was to get him to get rid of the ball quickly, build his confidence and completion rate and put the ball into his playmakers’ hands. There is an assumption that maybe they stretch things out more vertically this season, but the addition of Deebo Samuel really seems to put an emphasis on the shorter routes that allow the receivers to pick up more yards after the catch. Not that they don’t have any field-stretchers – though it would be nice to see Terry McLaurin in camp -- but it does look like they’re pushing to enhance more of what they did last season rather than reinvent the wheel.   

• Best Fits for the System: Jayden Daniels, Terry McLaurin, Deebo Samuel
• Worst Fits for the System: Brian Robinson

Commanders Defensive Breakdown

• Defensive Front: 4-2-5 with multi-front looks
• Secondary: Cover-3 base with Man Mixed In
  • Man Coverage: 40.1% (6^th)
  • Zone Coverage: 59.7% (28^th)

There was a lot of attention on stopping the run this offseason, an issue last season Quinn was not happy about. They brought in DTs Javin Kinlaw and Eddie Goldman as well as DE Deatrich Wise with the hope of maintaining better gap control and limiting inside runs. Quinn and defensive coordinator Joe Whitt have settled in on multi-front looks and the new personnel should help them achieve their goals. If the defensive line can hold up, then the edge-rushers will have better opportunities to get to the quarterback.

The secondary will work predominately in Cover-3 and use it in sync with where the extra pass-rusher is coming from. The desired result is limiting the opposing quarterback to the shorter options, which is very similar to what Quinn did back when he was in Seattle with the Legion of Boom around the 2010s. You’ll also see them try to lock down at least one of the receivers in man-coverage on the outside which will ideally free up the safeties to do some ball-hawking as both Whitt and Quinn push their guys to turn the ball over at every chance they get. 

• Best Fits for the System: Dorance Armstrong, Bobby Wagner, Frankie Luvu
• Worst Fits for the System: Will Harris

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