TahjBrooks

Oct 12

Samaje Perine led the Bengals in rushing attempts and yards.

Chase Brown has been excellent from a fantasy perspective at times, in part because he plays in one of the best offenses in the league, and in part because he dominates rushing volume while also being among the league leaders in receiving volume for running backs. However, he has never graded among the best running backs in the league, and has had occasional rough spots. Despite this, Cincinnati has rarely adjusted the personnel in the backfield. Perine has been the receiving back the last two years, while Tahj Brooks has been the third back, who only ever plays if one of the top two backs are injured. Brown had a rough game last week, running nine times for 10 yards. He similarly had a difficult outing this week, running 13 times for 39 yards. He has gained just one first down over the last two weeks, and has no runs of 10 or more yards. This led Perine to rotate in more often on early downs and short-yardage situations this week. The strategy appeared to be part of the plan from the start, with Perine totaling 11 snaps and six carries on first and second downs over the first five drives. If this rotation continues, then Brown is still a fantasy starter, but his ceiling will be lower. There is a chance Brown steps up, and then his playing time will go back to normal. A similar phenomenon happened last season. However, there is also a chance Perine’s playing time increases even further after having a good game. Perine is worth adding off the waiver wire in case his role continues to expand.

Oct 5

Brown is rarely mentioned in these recap articles because his situation in Cincinnati has been exceptionally stable. He played between 70-72% of snaps over the first three weeks, including most of the early-down snaps, roughly one-third of the third-down snaps and dominating snaps in two-minute drills, short-yardage situations and goal-line snaps. Samaje Perine has been the backup, taking all other snaps, while Tahj Brooks has three offensive snaps on the season. The situation was similar last season when both players were healthy. This week, Brown was used more on third downs than usual, playing seven of a possible 10 snaps. This didn’t hurt his playing time in other situations, so he was on the field for a season-high 78.9% of snaps. Brown was completely ineffective as a runner, as Jacksonville has one of the highest-graded PFF run defenses of any team. However, his fantasy value was still fine thanks to his receiving production. The reason Brown played more on third downs is the injuries at wide receiver. This led to more plays with both Brown and Perine on the field, with Brown often lining up in the slot in these situations. If the Bengals are down multiple wide receivers next week, we could see that trend continue, but we shouldn’t expect this to be a long-term change for Brown.