Cincinnati Bengals Start-Sit: Week 14 Fantasy Advice for Joe Burrow, Chase Brown, Ja’Marr Chase, Mike Gesicki, and Others
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 Buffalo Bills to help you craft a winning lineup.
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Joe Burrow, QB
Was Joe Burrow in his borderline MVP form on Thursday night?
Not close.
Did he show enough to consider him a strong play for the remainder of this season?
Without a doubt.
In a road game against an improving Ravens defense, he completed 24-of-46 passes for 261 yards and a pair of touchdowns. He took just one sack, threw a touchdown against the blitz, and showed far more pocket mobility than I expected after the toe injury cost him over two months.
That’s all we needed, right? Breadcrumbs. No one expected a vintage performance; we were just happy to have Burrow back in our lives, and I thought he delivered.
What will I be looking for this weekend in terms of areas of growth? Here’s a look at how last week stacked up with his career rates in some categories that I often monitor when chasing fantasy upside.
Week 13 vs. Ravens
- 28.6% deep completion rate
- 4.7 YPA when pressured
- 65.2 red zone passer rating
Career
- 44.9% deep completion rate
- 6.8 YPA when pressured
- 96.3 red zone passer rating
We went from zero production to an upset win over a desperate rival. I’d say that’s a win for all involved. I’d have no problem rolling Burrow out there as my fantasy starter for the remainder of the way (assuming you were streaming the position every week, you can feel good about using that roster spot to add flex depth instead of rostering a second QB).
Chase Brown, RB
Remember three months ago when you got irrationally excited about drafting Chase Brown?
How about two months ago, when you were questioning your life choices in relying on him to dictate your mental stability during the long NFL season?
It’s been a bumpy ride, but we are trending toward an inverse bell curve where the end-of-season production lives up to your expectations with a significant dip between the two.
READ MORE: Soppe’s Week 14 Fantasy Football Start ‘Em Sit ‘Em: Analysis for Every Player in Every Game
Better late than never. Brown seems to be rounding into form at the right time, and with this offense now whole, you can count on the good times rolling.
Brown has three straight games averaging north of five yards per carry and has caught at least six passes in three of his past four. He’s not Christian McCaffrey, but he can have Christian McCaffrey-like weeks, and this spot certainly profiles as one of them.
Regardless of how you stack up the top of the board at the position, Brown is a great play this week. The conversation goal posts shift when talking DFS ownership levels, and I doubt I take an overweight position, but the upside is undeniable. Everything is trending toward the elite.
Ja’Marr Chase, WR
Earning targets at the professional level are difficult. You have to win on your route, stay connected with your quarterback, and navigate the real-time shifts of the defense.
It’s no easy task.
Remove a threat on the other side of the field, insert a quarterback who hasn’t played in over two months, and match up with an improving defense attached to a team that is trying to regain some Super Bowl steam … a poor Ja’Chase showing in Week 13 would certainly have been easy to explain away.
Instead, he earns a 31.8% target share, clears 100 yards, and piles up 24.3 expected PPR points.
Some players are just built differently, and Chase has proven it time and time again.
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The 50% catch rate obviously leaves plenty to be desired, but we have plenty of data points that suggest efficiency struggles aren’t to be taken seriously. This is as good a QB/WR connection as there is in the league, and while the Bills are better against the pass than the run, there’s no reason to panic.
Zay Flowers, Stefon Diggs, Drake London, Rashee Rice, and Jaylen Waddle are the WR1s who have posted 18+ PPR points in this matchup this season, paving the way for Chase to equal what he did on Thanksgiving if not improve.
Tee Higgins, WR
Suffering a concussion means a missed game more often than not, and considering that the Bengals had a quick turnaround last week, Tee Higgins never really had a shot to pass through the needed protocols in time.
That said, it does sound like he’s good to go for this week, and with Joe Burrow returning in Week 13, there’s no real reason to feel skittish in starting his star receiver.
Higgins has scored five times in his past five games and was drafted as a fringe WR1 this summer, when the assumption was that this offense would look like the one it currently does. Ja’Marr Chase is the alpha in this passing game, and that’s not going to change, but there’s enough food on the table for multiple pass catchers to be fed, especially if this offense is forced to play catch-up with Josh Allen on the other side.
Higgins’ yards per route are down 29.1% from a season ago: you can feel good about a more efficient version of him moving forward, and I’d expect to see it on Sunday.
Mike Gesicki, TE
Mike Gesicki moved the chains on a third down that felt important in the fourth quarter last week against the Ravens. Still, I was underwhelmed by his role in an offense welcoming back Joe Burrow and operating without Tee Higgins (concussion).
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Cincinnati ran a tight end committee, and that’s a quick way to have me outright dismiss them as a team of interest in the never-ending search for streamers at the position. Three Bengal TEs ran 15-23 routes, and while they combined for 10 targets, the distribution was scattershot, and that only figures to get more difficult to predict with Higgins expected back.
I don’t expect to be interested in the TE position from this team moving forward, and that’s certainly not going to be the case against a Bills team whose struggles come in stopping the run more than the pass.
