2025 Draft Guide: Cincinnati Bengals

Coaching History: Last Three Years

Head Coach: Zac Taylor (CIN ’22-24)
Offensive Coordinator: Dan Pitcher (CIN ’22-24)
2024 Record: 9-8

Team Summary

The Cincinnati Bengals are a fantasy football goldmine. They boast stability (offensive coaching staff has been with the team for the past 3 seasons), elite talent, and a sub-standard defense. This means we know what to expect out of the Bengals: high scoring games with touches concentrated to a few key players.

With Joe Burrow healthy, the Bengals are one of, if not the, most pass heavy teams in the NFL. This extra volume gives their passing game pieces a leg-up on the fantasy football competition at their positions. However, that doesn’t mean that their running game is useless. Despite low volume and low yardage, the offense is strong enough to provide scoring opportunities for the running game, and the team has seemingly chosen a single RB to use as much as possible in Chase Brown.

The Bengals run the majority of their plays with three WRs on the field, but will sometimes add an extra tight end to project the possibility of a run to the defense. Cincinnati tended to use 4 primary WRs: Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, Andrei Iosivas, and rotating in rookie Jermaine Burton. Even with Tee Higgins missing 5 games due to injury, Iosivas and Burton failed to garner even 10% of team targets. At RB, they began the year with a two-player committee, between Zack Moss and Chase Brown, however, Moss suffered a season ending neck injury, and Chase Brown dominated touches from that point forward. All that is to say, the Bengals use their best players, and their depth options aren’t worth rostering in fantasy.

2024 Ranks (2023 Rank)

• Points: 6th (16th)
• Yards: 9th (22nd)
• Passing Attempts: 2nd (7th)
• Passing Yards: 1st (15th)
• Passing TDs: 1st (12th)
• Rushing Attempts: 30th (30th)
• Rushing Yards: 30th (31st)
• Rushing TDs: 25th (19th)

2024 Positional Market Share

Zack Moss and Chase Brown entered the season as a committee. However, as shown when Zack Moss was lost to injury, Brown was really the only rushing option used.

The 2024 target distribution is a bit deceiving, as the discrepancy between Chase and Higgins should not be as large as shown since Higgins missed 5 games due to injury. In the 12 games played together, Chase maintained a stellar target share at 27.0%, but Higgins’ share was at 23.1%. As you can see, Chase’s role is secure at the top of the pecking order, and Higgins is a clear #2. If Higgins or Chase miss time, the additional looks are then split between the other players on the roster rather than going directly to a backup.

Depth Chart:

• QB: Joe Burrow, Jake Browning
• RB: Chase Brown, Semaje Perine, Tahj Brooks
• WR: Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, Andrei Iosivas, Jermaine Burton
• TE: Mike Gesicki, Noah Fant, Tanner Hudson, Drew Sample
  • Bold – Fantasy relevant
  • Highlighted – Priority target

Player Breakdowns

Burrow is one of the best pure passers in the NFL. He has elite arm talent, and the decision making to match. He leads the most potent passing offense in the NFL, and barring injury will be near the top of the league in passing categories. The only drawback with Burrow is that he doesn’t tend to run as much as other top options, which makes him a bit less consistent than the other elite QB options.

Chase Brown overtook Zack Moss quickly in 2024, becoming the 1A by week 6.  Ultimately, Moss suffered a season ending injury and Brown never looked back.  Exceeding an 80% snap share in every game from Week 9 on, Brown finished worse than RB10 only twice in that span.  As the main RB in Cincinnati he averaged 19.6 FPPG, which would have tied for 4th in the NFL.  For some reason, Brown isn’t even being drafted at RB10 where he finished last season, despite splitting time for part of the year.  Brown is an absolute bargain at his current ADP of RB12 and you shouldn’t hesitate to take him starting in the mid-2nd round.

Tahj Brooks, a rookie out of Texas Tech, is 3rd on the Cincinnati depth chart.  However, should Chase Brown suffer an injury, it would likely be Tahj Brooks stepping in as his replacement.  Brooks is a well-rounded RB that had a sterling production profile in college.  He wouldn’t necessarily get as large a workload as Brown does, he would likely cede some touches to Samaje Perine, but it would still be guaranteed RB2 production on a weekly basis.

Chase is on the short-list for those that could be debated as the best WR in football.  He’s got all the tools you could ask for in a WR: speed, ball tracking, good hands, and he is a menace after the catch.  The Bengals seem to know this, too.  You don’t need fancy stats to know that he’s one of the best options in the game.  He’s the top weapon in the top passing offense in the league.

If Chase is on the list for best WR, Higgins would make the list for best WR2.  Several teams would love to have him as their WR1.  As a bigger body than Chase, Higgins does more of his work cutting inside.  Higgins has a tendency to be dinged up throughout the season, but that is a risk worth taking given his upside.

Iosivas can at times become the forgotten man in the Bengals offense.  A solid WR in his own right, he just gets fewer opportunities due to the talent around him.  He’ll be the 3rd WR when the Bengals run plays out of “11” personnel.  Because he is lower on the target hierarchy, his production becomes very tough to predict when Chase and Higgins are both active.

Burton is a talented young WR who needs to work on maturity more than football skills.  Burton is a vertical threat that can hang with anyone in the NFL.  However, he needs to show the team that he knows how to be a professional.  Burton was a coaches-decision inactive due to missing a walkthrough ahead of a game with Tee Higgins ruled out last year, and there were rumors that he was sleeping during position meetings.  Reviews this offseason have generally been positive, and if that continues, be aware of Burton on the waiver wire in the event that Chase or Higgins need to miss any time.

Gesicki’s best production is likely behind him, especially while competing for targets with WRs like Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins.  He has been inconsistent at best, finishing TE6 or better 3 times in 2024 despite having six games with at least 6 targets.  His targets are unlikely to increase as the Bengals recently signed Noah Fant, another pass catching TE, after he was released by the Seahawks.

It was a rough training camp for Noah Fant, who went from TE1 in Seattle to unexpectedly unemployed.  After a break to consider his options, Fant signed with the Bengals to add depth totheir TE room.  Expect Fant to slot in as their TE2, which is not a fantasy relevant role in Cincinnati.

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