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Welcome to Sleepers, Busts and Bold Predictions for the 2024 fantasy football season. Our Chris Meaney and Daniel Kelley are going to go team-by-team around the league all summer. They’ll pick sleepers, busts and bold predictions for each team. Sometimes they’ll agree! Sometimes they will go completely opposite one another! And that’s fine, because they’ll defend their positions, and you can decide for yourself who to side with. Up today: The Cincinnati Bengals.
Below, they tackle the team, starting with their picks in “The Answers,” then expanding on their picks in “The Explanation.”
2024 Sleepers, Busts & Bold Predictions: Cincinnati Bengals
The Answers
Favorite Sleeper
Meaney: Zack Moss
Kelley: Chase Brown
Biggest Bust
Meaney: Joe Burrow
Kelley: The Bengals
Bold Prediction
Meaney: Tee Higgins Outscores Ja’Marr Chase
Kelley: Cincinnati Drafts in the Top 10 in 2025
The Explanations
Sleepers
Meaney: Zack Moss
Zack Moss and Chase Brown are separated by about 30 picks in Underdog best ball drafts, and I’ve been drafting both of them. I lean Moss because I think he’ll be the lead running back and should be the Bengals’ goal line back, but Chase will get his touches and he’s a very good pass-catching running back. However, Moss is coming off a season with the Colts where he touched career highs in games (14), attempts (183), rushing yards (794), rushing touchdowns (5), targets (37), catches (27) and receiving touchdowns (2). It’s a small sample size, but Moss averaged 22.2 attempts, 111.2 rushing yards, 2.0 catches and 15.5 receiving yards in his first four games of last season. Jonathan Taylor was sidelined for three of those games. Moss continued to get touches throughout the season, but he split the backfield for most of the second half. It was pretty much the first time in Moss’ career where he had control of the backfield and he put up RB2 numbers. I don’t expect the efficiency to be there, but I expect the touches to be there in early-down situations and near the goal line. Both Moss and Brown are interesting targets outside of Round 7 for those who like the Hero RB approach.
Kelley: Chase Brown
The Bengals are going to be my Debbie Downer entry in this series, because I’m going to be low man on the team across the board in 2024. The exception? 2023 fifth-round rookie Chase Brown. Brown didn’t do any great damage on the ground last year (maxed out at 61 yards in a game, no touchdowns), but he accounted for five runs of at least 10 yards on only 44 carries. And as a receiver, he was electric in limited work, catching 14 of his 15 targets for 156 yards and a score, putting up 4.5 yards per route run that led the league among running backs (again, small sample caveats apply, but the next best YPRR for any back with at least 10 targets was Kendre Miller at 2.2).
With Joe Mixon gone, the only relevant names in the Cincinnati backfield right now are Brown and Zack Moss. Drafters are in on Moss, taking him at RB26 in current ADP compared to RB36 for Brown. Flip those. Moss has a four-year career of being largely mediocre-to-worse broken up by a short run of success behind a very good Colts’ O-line last year. Our FTN Fantasy projections already have Brown outscoring Moss in PPR. If the Bengals roll into the season with this backfield, Brown will take over as the RB1 by October.
Busts
Meaney:
I love Burrow the QB, and he’s had two very strong fantasy seasons in his four years, but he’s an easy fade for me in drafts. There are plenty of quarterbacks going after him who I would much rather have, including Kyler Murray, Jordan Love, Brock Purdy, Jayden Daniels and Jared Goff. Goff may not have the same sort of ceiling, but he plays in a much easier division, behind a great offensive line, and 14 of his games this season will be played in a dome. He’s also going 30-45 picks later than Burrow. There’s no question last season was a rough year for Burrow, finishing 25th in fantasy points per game (14.7). He began the season with a calf strain, and he suffered a season-ending wrist injury in Week 11. That’s just it, in four years in the NFL Burrow has suffered a torn ACL, a dislocated finger and two different knee strains to go along with the two injuries he suffered in 2023. He also suffered a hand fracture and chest rib fracture in college. On top of that, Burrow plays in the toughest division in the NFL as the Ravens, Steelers and Browns all have strong defensive units. All three teams can get after the QB and the Bengals’ offensive line is average at best. Burrow also lost play caller Brian Callahan, third-down specialist Tyler Boyd and Joe Mixon who had 92 catches and over 800 receiving yards over the last two seasons.
Kelley: The Bengals
Here’s where I go all Eeyore on you. The vibes around this Bengals team are awful. There’s a quarterback who might not be able to grip a football (he’s consulting linemen for recovery tips because no quarterbacks have ever had this sort of wrist injury). There’s a wide receiver who appears to want to be anywhere but Cincinnati. There’s the aforementioned “big” offseason acquisition at running back whose history of being good in the NFL is about as long as this writeup. There’s the “big” acquisition at tight end who combined for barely 600 yards the last two years. There’s the defense that kind of cratered last year, going from 322 points allowed and a 74.4 overall PFF grade to 384 and 67.7.
And of course there’s the fact that the draft stocks are still relatively high. Joe Burrow is QB7 by current ADP. Zack Moss is RB26. Ja’Marr Chase is WR3, Tee Higgins is WR29. I just can’t pull the trigger on any of those guys at cost.
Bold Predictions
Meaney:
I think the Bengals are in for a long season — I have them coming last in the NFC North. I love Daniel’s bold prediction below, but I’ll go another way. The one true value I see on their team from a fantasy perspective is Tee Higgins. He’s starting to move up draft boards, but he’s still going as WR27. Higgins finished as WR19 and WR14 in 2021 and 2022, and he still has WR2 upside. In those two seasons, Higgins averaged 11.5 and 13.5 fantasy points per game. He had 1,000 yards and 70-plus catches in each season. Higgins was limited to 12 games in 2023 due to an injury and he started off the year with two or fewer catches in four of his first five games. Burrow’s calf injury was a big reason for the slow start and as I stated earlier, Burrow isn’t a lock to stay healthy, but I believe in Higgins’ talent. Even with Burrow sidelined, Higgins had games with 140 yards, 72 yards and 61 yards. Ja’Marr Chase is certainly more talented than Higgins and he has a higher fantasy ceiling, but I believe the ADP gap between them is too large.
Kelley: Cincinnati Drafts in the Top 10 in 2025
This goes hand in hand with my “Busts” pick, but everything about the Bengals makes me feel like a win total over/under of 10.5 is the under-est under of all time. We aren’t even totally sure Joe Burrow can throw a football. The backfield is a mess and is running behind a mediocre line. The defense allowed 374.6 yards per game last year (second worst in the league) and made no significant moves this offseason. The offensive coordinator left, and Tee Higgins wants to leave. The division remains at the very least a rock fight. Ja’Marr Chase is still a superstar, but I just don’t see a path for the Bengals to return to their pre-2023 glory in 2024.
