The fantasy football landscape shifts each week, bringing fresh opportunities and unexpected challenges that separate the prepared from the pretenders. Savvy managers know that last week’s performance tells only part of the story, and diving deeper into the underlying metrics reveals the accurate picture.
This week presents some intriguing decisions. Here’s insight about key Cincinnati Bengals players heading into their matchup with the Denver Broncos to help you craft a winning lineup.
Joe Burrow, QB
We spent all offseason wondering aloud if Joe Burrow was the top quarterback in the second tier or if his elite passing numbers were enough to put him in the class of the athletic marvels at the position.
They were fun conversations to have, but they don’t matter now. Burrow (turf toe) is going to be out until December at the very least, and that means he’s going to be cut loose in all leagues that don’t have enough IR room for him. And even then, we aren’t sure the Bengals will be in a position to compete when Burrow returns to the practice field.
I want to use this brutal injury as a launching point. Football is as physically taxing a team sport as there is. That’s obviously more true for some positions than others, but it’s a gladiator sport where everyone on the field isn’t far from a significant injury.
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The four quarterbacks drafted ahead of Burrow this summer are much more athletic, and their ability to run often gets tied to an increase in injury risk. I understand the train of thought: they invite contact when they are on the move.
That’s accurate.
But what doesn’t get looked at enough is the other side of the coin: that quarterback is also capable of escaping trouble spots at a higher rate than average. No one is catching Jayden Daniels from behind, so while he is at risk of taking punishment, it’s usually coming head-on, and in those spots, he has the opportunity to make a business decision.
I’m not arguing that Burrow is more likely to get hurt than the Danielses of the world, though it is worth noting that he missed six games in 2020 and seven more in 2023. I’m arguing against the assumption that athletic quarterbacks are reckless investments.
Are they risky? Yes. Because they play football. Josh Allen’s propensity to take hits is worrisome to the eye, but he’s been huge and taking hits his entire life. There’s something to be said for knowing how to do it, and that’s a big reason why I’ll never shy away from that prototype.
Chase Brown, RB
Chase Brown was one of the biggest risers in our Mock Draft Simulator as draft season drew to a close, and it made all the sense in the world.
At that time, he was a bellcow set to lead a high-powered offense that would be asked to score 30 points a game to stay competitive.
That last part may still be true, but the math has changed significantly with Jake Browning under center. This is now a conservative offense that gives defenses no reason to back off from the line of scrimmage.
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That’s how we see a talented player like Brown average under a foot per carry in Week 3 and muster just 17 yards on four receptions against the Vikings. The touch count should remain high enough to keep Brown in the low-end RB2 conversation against a Broncos defense that has surprisingly allowed the fourth-most yards per carry after contact to running backs this season, but without a path to much upside.
Brown has yet to finish a week as a top-20 back in 2022 and has twice been outside the top 30. I think we see some growth this week as Browning settles in, but this is a brutal spot.
Ja’Marr Chase, WR
I think we can probably burn the game tape from last week’s 48-10 loss in Minnesota, but it is a data point, and given that we don’t have many from Jake Browning, we have to take what we can get.
I worry that Ja’Marr Chase is at risk of being a fancy DJ Moore.
That’s probably a bit harsh, but his career average depth of target with Joe Burrow is more than two yards higher than what he’s put on tape with Jake Browning, and the few deep balls he does get are 18.2% less valuable with the backup pulling the trigger.
Now, I will say that I trust the volume. Chase has a 28.8% on-field target share with Browning this season, and a talent like this getting consistent volume is enough for him to be considered a lineup lock, a designation Tee Higgins no longer has.
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Better days are obviously ahead for this offense and this team as a whole, but I don’t think the spike weeks for Chase are in the cards. Remember those three games last season with 170+ yards and multiple touchdowns?
They all included a 40+ yard reception, and those are going to be difficult to come by. Don’t do anything crazy, but Chase is no longer a Tier 1 receiver for me.
Tee Higgins, WR
The margins are so thin in this league, and they are getting even thinner in Cincinnati if Week 3 Jake Browning is the version we get for the next 2+ months.
Tee Higgins caught just three of eight targets in Week 2’s win over the Jaguars, the game in which Joe Burrow was hurt, and struggled to earn targets, forget efficient ones, on Sunday in Minnesota with Browning under center from the start.
- One catch
- Two targets
- 15 yards
It was a mess. The game got out of hand in a hurry, and that reduced any chance of a bounce back.
It should be noted that Browning just missed Higgins on an end zone fade that would have added 9.7 PPR points to his bottom line and lessened your headache quite a bit, but that is the sort of thing that happens with a backup under center.
The reason I’m worried isn’t because of a single poor performance, but a usage pattern.
Since 2023, Higgins has seen 18% of his Burrow targets come 15+ yards downfield, a rate that sits at 40.6% with Browning.
In theory, you’d assume that means more reward potential, but considering that the quality of those throws is low, it carries more risk than anything.
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Higgins was effective with Browning in 2023 (2.06 yards per route), but again, if those bombs aren’t connecting, we have a problem (0.98 yards per route with him this season).
I’ve got Cincinnati’s WR2 ranked as a low-end WR3 for fantasy managers this season and fear that his stat lines might look similar to what we’ve seen from Brian Thomas in Jacksonville up to this point.
Mike Gesicki, TE
The lone leg that Mike Gesicki truthers had to lean on in the past was the sheer volume of routes, and that’s now gone with Noah Fant running north of 12 routes per game while accounting for the only TE score in Cincinnati this season.
The quality of targets is very much in question for this offense sans Joe Burrow, and with Gesicki playing 39.2% of offensive snaps through three weeks, not to mention earning less than a target per five routes, there’s just no real path to consistent viability.
And yes, if you want to change your team name, which was stacked with Burrow and Tee Higgins this summer, to “no real path to consistent viability,” I’ll co-sign it.
