2024 Team Previews: Cincinnati Bengals
Cincinnati Bengals 2024 Preview
All ADP data is courtesy of Fantasy Pros.
** = target in drafts at this ADP
Top 120
**Ja’Marr Chase, WR (ADP: 6, WR4): Chase had to play much of 2023 with a compromised, or completely absent Joe Burrow in 2023, and it barely mattered. That’s how good he is. Chase finished the season with 100 receptions, a career-high, 1,216 yards and a mildly disappointing seven touchdowns. It’s a safe bet that his TDs will be greater with Burrow back under center, and that he’ll comfortably justify his sky-high ADP. There are no holes in Chase’s game, as he crushes both man and zone, and posted a wild 80.2% success rate vs. press, which was 26% of the time! He’s every bit as good as any of the top WR options, and there’s no ADP that I’d feel is crazy.
**Tee Higgins, WR (ADP: 55, WR26): Higgins suffered from missing peak Burrow more than Chase did, and the QB situation plus his own injury battles conspired for a down season for one of the NFL’s best No. 2 receivers. With that said, there were some alarming aspects of his game that can’t be pinned on backup QBs. He fell from the 71st percentile vs. man in 2022 to 50th last year, and while he’s one of the more pure outside receivers in football, dropping from the 45th percentile vs. zone to the 19th is not what you want to see.
Higgins is only 25 years old, so this isn’t a time to write him off. In fact, I think that with Burrow back his down season has made him into a value, because the ADP is overreacting. Assuming he hasn’t fallen off a cliff, and 2023 was a down season, it’s clear who Higgins is. You draft him and expect about 110 targets, around 1,000-1,100 yards and 6-7 touchdowns. That’s where he’d been for three years before the Bengals’ year from hell, and that’s likely where he’ll be in 2024 in a contract year. Last season at this time, he was going No. 27 overall, and he’s fallen quite a ways from that. At No. 27, you’re looking at his career and projecting a jump. Now, his normal numbers are a very nice value at this ADP. I’m happy winding up with Higgins here.
**Joe Burrow, QB (ADP: 63, QB7): Burrow had the year from hell in 2023, starting the season with a bum calf, flashing his greatness in a short burst, before his season ended with a freak wrist injury in Week 11. But from Weeks 5-10, a mostly healthy Joe Burrow put up 2+ touchdowns for 100% of that five-game stretch, topped 300 yards three times, and averaged 296 yards and 2.5 touchdowns per game. He remained lethal to just about every part of the field except to the middle and left beyond 20 yards, which makes sense considering his support base was shot to hell.
At this time last year, Burrow was going No. 35 overall, and while that is high – in my opinion – for a pocket passing QB, that ADP has basically doubled when he hasn’t changed at all as a player. For pocket passers, you need to be around 4,000 yards and 35 touchdowns to be a difference maker vs. the running QBs. That’s exactly where he was in the previous two seasons, and they may throw even more in 2024 after letting star RB Joe Mixon walk. If you’re not going with a running QB, Burrow’s about as safe a play as there is so the value here is pretty nice.
Zack Moss, RB (ADP: 77, RB26): Moss appears set to walk right into the Joe Mixon role on this offense and be a high-volume grinder with a ton of TD opportunity on what should be a high-scoring outfit. It makes total sense on paper, but men make plans, and God laughs. One key difference between Mixon and Moss is that Mixon was a high-level running back, one who was a star in college and was elite for years in the NFL. Moss has been in the league since 2020, and has never topped 794 yards, a number he set last year in Indianapolis largely before Jonathan Taylor came back and banished him to the shadow realm. He has never proven an exceptional runner, nor is he a difference maker as a pass-catcher. Moss could be fine in 2024, but there is almost zero chance he’s “special,” and the electric but small RB he shares this backfield with, Chase Brown, will be heard from. I do not love this ADP for Moss, and picking him as the RB25 feels uninspired.
Fantasy Relevant (120-150 ADP)
**Chase Brown, RB (ADP: 118, RB41): Brown is probably too small to be a three down workhorse for the Bengals, capping his ceiling, but his potential as a playmaker is undeniable. Brown had one of PFF’s highest RB receiving grades (81.1) last year, and while his overall numbers are middling, he wasn’t getting regular touches until Week 13. From Week 13 on, Brown averaged 53.6 yards from scrimmage on nine opportunities per game. His touches may be too sparse to be reliable week to week, but he can make a house call from anywhere on the field, and with regular touches throughout the season, he will offer efficient production. Maybe that’s just FLEX value, or spot start duty, but his single-game upside is higher than most in this range.
Favorite Deep Sleeper
Jermaine Burton, WR (ADP: 213, WR75): Burton is an interesting player in this offense because he doesn’t have wild numbers in college to point to as a harbinger of big success in the NFL, and he’s playing behind two monsters who demand a ton of targets, but he also has some truly eye-popping underlying characteristics.
Burton scored 15 touchdowns in his final two seasons at Alabama, which is great, and he did so while trading volume for efficiency. Burton’s career-high is 40 receptions, set as a junior at Alabama, but he averaged 18 yards per catch for his NCAA career. He ate up man coverage for the Crimson Tide to the tune of a 75% success rate, and he was equally good against press coverage. He was good vs. zone, but significantly less so than he was vs. man which makes sense considering he was on the outside 86% of the time. That makes projecting him here tricky. The lazy take is to plop him in the slot and imply that he takes over Tyler Boyd’s role. Maybe, but the data shows that’s not really what he’s done, and not the best way to use him. Drafting Burton may not have been a “let’s replace Boyd” pick, and might have been, “he’s our guy next year when Higgins isn’t here.” The talent is sick, the offense should be very strong, but I’m not convinced Burton is a meaningful contributor in his rookie season. This ADP is late enough that it can’t hurt you, but he feels like a wasted pick and early drop candidate.
Deep Cuts (150 & later)
Mike Gesicki, TE (ADP: 235, TE28): Gesicki is talented, and I’ve held out hope for a while now that he’ll be a guy. He just isn’t. He’s useful in a real-life sense, but not for fantasy managers, and not in an offense with this defined a hierarchy. He could be a useful streamer in desperate times.