Cincinnati Bengals Team Preview 25-26

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  • By Jon Mosales

     

    The Bengals were the perfect fantasy team last season.  They had a high-powered offense that could go toe-to-toe with anyone and a horrific defense that gave up points by the boatload.  They were 1st in passing TDs and 29th in passing TDs allowed.  As a CIN fan, I imagine it was very frustrating, but as a fantasy GM it was a sight to behold.  The good and bad news is that not much has changed on either front.  CIN was able to lock up Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins to massive deals which compromises their ability to get better on the defensive end, see ongoing saga with Trey Hendrickson.  They were the second-most pass-heavy team in rush/pass splits at 35/65 and while that sort of imbalance isn’t ideal, it was necessary since they were constantly playing from behind.  That led them to finishing 30th in rushing attempts and rushing yards, but Chase Brown emerged as a legit dual-threat weapon and finished 5th in receptions for a RB.  This team knows where its bread gets buttered and that’s keeping the ball in the hands of Joe Burrow.  It’s very in these days to draft a running QB, but Burrow breaks the mold and was able to finish as the QB3 with just his arm and his league leading 43 TDs.

    Burrow had 53 more completions than anyone else in the league with Chase and Higgins back along with Mike Gesicki, the Bengals might try for a more balanced offense, but I’d be shocked if the run/pass split got to even 40/60.  Everyone knows Chase is the best WR in football and he finished nearly four FPPG higher than second place Justin Jefferson, but do you know who finished 4th? Tee Higgins.  Higgins was the rare WR2 who was able to have standalone value, but he’s only played 12 games in b2b seasons and is prone to playing hurt laying a goose egg.  There are a handful of teams that are fantasy juggernauts, but the truly elite teams like the Chiefs, Bills and Eagles all have elite defenses as well and that leads to some low scoring affairs where the offense is often in neutral by the 4th quarter.  CIN doesn’t dink and dunk down the field, they attack it vertically.  Burrow was second to BAL in pass plays 40+ yards and that is why CIN finished 1st FPPG to WRs, but only 22nd in percentage of passes to WRs.  Burrow will spread the ball around, but when it’s time for a big play, it’s Chase and Higgins all day.  This isn’t breaking news, but that’s why Chase is going 1st overall in most drafts because he’s one half of the best stack in fantasy.  It was as simple as if you had the Burrow/Chase stack last season, you had a great chance to win your league.  Nothing has changed this season, but the price of the brick has gone up.

    Gesicki was able to finish as the TE14, but there just isn’t volume to rely on him week-to-week, but Burrow did target his TEs 25% of the time, which was good for 11th.  The real diamond in the rough for this CIN team is the other Chase, Chase Brown.  He was the RB12, but also got hurt trying not to score a TD in Week 17.  If he had simply scored and not gotten hurt, he would have easily finished as the RB9, but we can play the if game forever.  The real key for Brown is that it took him a while to shed Zach Moss and take over the backfield.  He didn’t crack the top-30 until Week 4 and from Weeks 9-17, he averaged 23.7 touches and 116.3 total yards as the RB4 in fantasy points per game.  With a transcendent QB, the best WR duo in the game and an up-and-coming RB, the Bengals are poised to be one of the most exciting teams in the league.

    Player most likely to beat ADP: Chase Brown (ADP 33, RB13)

    Brown has all the tools to be an elite RB, but his dual-threat ability in a pass-first offense is the most tantalizing.  There isn’t a ton of room to beat his ADP, but his floor should be assured and the ceiling is still there as long as he can improve on his seven rushing TDs and stay healthy over the entire season.

    Player most likely to fade based on ADP: Tee Higgins (ADP 27, WR12)

    Higgins is great on a per-game basis, but he’s never finished as a WR1 and the offense will never be as potent as last season.  This is mostly a bet against his health as he’s only played 12 games in b2b seasons.  Betting on the CIN offense is a great move, but the price is too high for the second-best WR on the team.

    Late-round Flier that could blow up: Andrei Iosivas (ADp 211, WR77)

    If we are fading Higgins, than it only makes sense to back Iosivas.  With six TDs last season, if Higgins gets hurt, there is no telling how many great looks the sophomore can get while defenses key on Chase.  I love this pick for the upside.

    Writer’s Season Win Prediction: 10-7

    Whether you start with Burrow or Chase, it’s the same outcome.  Many teams have an elite WR or a QB, but only the Bengals have the best of both.  If it wasn’t for CIN missing the playoffs, Burrow would have likely won MVP as he was the driving force of nearly every positive play.  As great as balance is for an offense, defenses still can’t stop the Burrow-to-Chase combo, no matter how hard they try.  Burrow still took too many sacks (league-leading 49), but that’s the price you pay.  He wasn’t holding on to the ball as long as he had previously, getting the ball out in 2.2 seconds or at the first sign of pressure.  It’s one thing to succeed doing things the way you want and it’s altogether a different story to do exactly what you want when the other teams attention is solely focused on stopping you.  The Bengals led the league by a mile in red zone passes (122), nearly double that of 5th place Jayden Daniels.  Guess which WR led the league in red zone targets, yes it’s not a trick question, Ja’Marr Chase (35).  The goods news is both players are right in their prime and still have some room to grow as silly as that seems.  The bad news is, discount season is over.  Burrow was going for peanuts on draft day once that preseason video of him struggling to grab a water bottle hit the algo.  Chase without Burrow is like Iron Man without the suit, still imposing, but also beatable.  Burrow is now going as the QB5 and the four above him are among the best running QBs the sport has ever seen.  Chase is the first player being drafted and if you do get Chase first overall, expect the rest of your league to band together to make sure Burrow doesn’t fall to you.  The stack is too deadly to fail and only in auction leagues is it potentially viable, but even then it might cost you close to half your budget.

    The real question surrounds what to do with the supporting parts.  Higgins is the one WR2 who fulfilled his promise last season as the other supporting WRs like Jaylen Waddle and DeVonta Smith ended up being invisible due to various factors.  He’s the perfect situation in a high-powered offense who gets to go against the second-best corner on a team that will often be passing to stay in games.  The only real problem is he’s being drafted at his ceiling, the WR12 even though the best finish he’s ever had is the WR17.    He does have some unfulfilled upside as a true number-one if Chase ever got hurt, but Chase has only played less than 16 games once in his four-year career.  It’s more likely that Higgins gets hurt again and while the situation is near-perfect, I can’t recommend going after Higgins without much wriggle room to get value on his ADP.

    Chase Brown is in a similar spot, being drafted as the RB13 and slightly behind Christian McCaffrey, James Cook and Kyren Williams.  On the face of it, there seems to be a clear tier-break behind those stars and Brown and when you factor in that the Bengals’ offensive line ranked fourth-worst in run blocking last season, there are plenty of reasons to fade Brown, but I just love his situation and ability to thrive in a pass-first offense.  With so many crowded backfields, Brown in CIN is one of the few I’m fairly confident in.  The Bengals have historically gone with one main RB and I don’t worry about Samaje Perine or Zach Moss usurping his role or any goal-line carries.  We know the Bengals like to pass when they get close and Brown was tied for third with four receiving TDs.  The price is high since Brown hasn’t even proven it over one full season, but I’ve seen enough in that eight-game stretch where he scored the third-most fantasy points for a RB that the floor and ceiling are both high enough to take the leap.


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    June 14, 2024, 3:47 pm