Trust Chase Brown Again in 2025?

Before the draft, there was skepticism around Chase Brown and what his role would look like with the Bengals after an extremely strong finish to the 2024 season. I had it myself… but there were signs pointing me to buy before the draft, and I shared those signs with you. And now after the draft, Chase Brown still has his doubters.

Last offseason (all summer long, really), I was saying that Kyren Williams was going to continue to be the guy, while blocking all of the noise, all the hype, and the Blake Corum army. Kyren Williams went on to finish as a top-8 fantasy running back, and Blake Corum was just a handcuff, after all. I was not aware of Tahj Brooks army I now have to go up against this offseason, but I’ll fight this battle in defense of Chase Brown.

Now, I do agree the Brown isn’t the most stable asset in dynasty - 5th round pick, relatively undersized, and he’s relatively risky to hold and to buy, but this is a calculated risk I’m willing to take to say that he’s going to have a very similar role to what he had last season. With Zack Moss healthy, and the addition of Tahj Brooks, the Bengals will have two guys to potentially spell Brown, but that’s really all I see happening – just spelling him.

As a prospect, Brooks is pretty similar to Brown when it comes to skill in the run game - there isn’t anything about Brooks’ game that makes me think he’s ready to beat Chase Brown in camp or during the season. They both showed they can handle a big workload in college, they both had similar efficiency metrics in the run game, but Brown is a much better athlete, and he was way more efficient in the receiving game in college than Brooks - Brooks’ YPRR rate was actually dead last in this year’s draft class - and on THE most pass happy offense in the NFL, which do you think matters more?

Speaking of that, since Week 9 on after he got his full-time role, only one RB averaged more receiving yards than Chase Brown, and that was Alvin Kamara. Only one RB averaged more targets/game than Chase Brown - Alvin Kamara.

He had the most expected fantasy points/game during that span, and as a result was the overall RB3 in fantasy points/game only behind Saquon and Bijan.

There’s trust built in to Chase Brown after what he was able to do last year. Even if his snaps diminish a bit with Samaje Perine taking some of the passing down work for protection purposes, Brown still had 75% of his targets and catches come on early downs.

And when the Bengals do run the ball, Chase Brown had the 7th highest success rate among RBs in zone concepts.

He’s going off the board as the RB11 - which is his floor. He’s a RB1 going into the year, no doubt - and you have a ton of room for upside without paying a premium price.