The Cincinnati Bengals did a whole lot of nothing on offense this offseason. They re-signed Tee Higgins and Mike Gesicki, which completely wiped the front office’s ability to do anything else of value. Their draft wasn’t much different, as they didn’t take an offensive weapon until Tahj Brooks in round six. With the same offense from last season, there isn’t a lot of value to squeeze out of the Bengals. However, we can still identify ADP versus value mismatches to discuss this offense.
Overdrafted:
Tee Higgins, Wide Receiver (WR12, Pick 28 Overall)
This isn’t to say that I don’t love Tee Higgins. I think he’s an incredibly talented receiver, and he’s who I wanted the 49ers to draft when they took Brandon Aiyuk. That being said, he has missed ten games over the last two seasons and hasn’t been a top-12 wide receiver often enough in the games he has played for me to consider him a WR1 by ADP. He played in 12 games last season, and finished as a top-12 WR four times, the same number of times that he fell outside of the top-36. In 2023, it was worse, as he finished WR7 or worse four times, and inside the top-36 just three times.
Higgins is very talented, but the offense flows around and through Ja’Marr Chase. He’s relegated to a WR2 role in this offense, and it doesn’t produce enough for fantasy football success. His boom weeks last season were big enough to win you weeks (WR5 last year thanks to massive spike weeks), but his role is better suited as a WR2 on your roster. I don’t hate Higgins; I have him at WR15. However, taking him at WR12 is a bridge too far for me, as he would be a WR1 on your team by ADP. You can’t afford that boom-bust style coming out of your late-round two/early-round three pick. Those are for ensuring a floor, but he doesn’t do that at all. If you can get him as your WR2, though, I’m all for it.
Underdrafted:
Chase Brown, Running Back (RB11, Pick 25 Overall)
It’s hard to call a top-25 pick “underdrafted,” but we’ve seen this story in Cincinnati time and again with Joe Mixon. They’ll let one player dominate touches, provided he proves he can handle the load. With Zack Moss cut, there’s nobody to take RB1 snaps from Chase Brown. He first played over 41% of snaps in week six, and he never looked back. After that point, he averaged 79% snap share, 17 rushes, five targets, for 98.3 yards per game. He was a force after he became Cincy’s RB1, ranking third in weighted opportunities per game, and was RB7 in PPR points per game as soon as he became the lead back. Nothing is going to change in that running back room, which means that even at RB11, Chase Brown is providing you with tremendous value in your fantasy football drafts.
Sleeper:
Mike Gesicki, Tight End (TE26, Pick 193 Overall)
Mike Gesicki is Joe Burrow’s slot receiver. That’s the long and the short of it. He finished last year running 65% of his snaps out of the slot, the third-highest rate for tight ends. He ran just five fewer slot snaps than Andre Iosivas, and demonstrably outproduced Iosivas from the slot (55 targets, 1.7 yards per route run for Gesicki and 29 targets, 0.88 yards per route run for Iosivas). Those route-run figures come from his average depth of target, which was 7.4 yards downfield, the tenth-highest among tight ends.
The Bengals made re-signing Gesicki a priority, doing it before sorting out the rest of their roster this offseason, which means that he should get plenty of opportunities to produce. He’s a blob tight end, at worst, with a chance to finish inside the top-12 this year.
