Fantasy Upside
Joe Mixon is out the door, and the team signed former Indianapolis Colts back Zach Moss to only the ninth-highest free agent RB contract in AAV ($4M/year). This shows that the team is willing to let Moss and Chase Brown split the Joe Mixon role, and might even indicate that they didn't need a D'Andre Swift or Aaron Jones in the building, who ended up earning about twice as much as Moss on the market. Mixon earned ~60 targets per year over the previous three seasons, so if Brown can maintain the third down role, he has upside as a sneaky RB2/3 play.
Fantasy Downside
As a rookie, Brown saw far more playing time on special teams (160 snaps) than on offense (93). His only extensive playing time (11 attempts, two targets) came in a Week 18 game in which Mixon sat the entirety of the fourth quarter in what was at the time a 31-0 lead. His new teammate, Zach Moss, was one of the best backs in the league last season while running the ball out of shotgun formations. This matches well with the Bengals, who had the third-highest rate of runs (71.7%) and the third-highest percentage of their rushing yards (75.7%) out of the formation. It's likely that the team considered this when they decided to make Moss their free-agent target.
2024 Bottom Line
Only time will tell, but if the Bengals liked Chase Brown enough to turn him into their No. 1 backfield option, they likely would have given him more than 33 rush attempts prior to Week 18. In his rookie season, 16.1% of his 335 total yards gained last season came on one 54-yard dump-off screen pass. While we're not going to fault Brown for having the requisite speed to score a long touchdown, it's hardly enough to consider him the RB1 heading into 2024. If his ADP continues to rise into the single-digit rounds, it might be time to let other managers buy into the hype.
