Ravens vs. Bengals Fantasy Football Worksheet, Week 13

The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar, breaks down everything you need to know about the Week 13 matchup between the Ravens and Bengals on Thanksgiving.

Find a breakdown of every Week 13 NFL game in our Worksheet Hub.

Trust = spike production for that player

Quarterback

Lamar Jackson: Jackson’s slump continued on Sunday, completing only 13 of 23 passes (56.5%) for 153 yards (6.7 Y/A) without a touchdown against the Jets.

Over the past three weeks, Jackson has completed 57.1% of his passes (25th) for 6.8 Y/A (18th) with 1 touchdown and 2 interceptions.

He has gone three straight games without a QB1 scoring week, his longest streak since 2023.

The last time he went four straight games without a QB1 scoring week was in 2022.

Jackson has seen a lot of man coverage and Cover 0 over that stretch.

He has faced man coverage in 27.9% of his dropbacks (9th) and Cover 0 on a league-high 11.5% over the past three weeks.

Against man coverage overall, he has completed 9 of 23 passes for 108 yards (4.7 Y/A) without a touchdown.

Against Cover 0, he has completed 3 of 11 passes (27.3%) for 3.2 Y/A.

The Vikings and Browns are respectable opponents, but being limited at home against the Jets raises some eyebrows.

Jackson has not played well in the passing game, and he does not appear physically right in the run game.

Jackson is averaging a career-low 3.7 rushing points per game, which is QB14 on the year.

Since returning in Week 9, Jackson has 14, 36, 10, and 11 rushing yards.

He did scramble on a season-high 17.2% of his dropbacks on Sunday, but those only resulted in 13 yards.

Jackson has now been on the injury report with hamstring, knee, ankle, and toe ailments over the past month.

Baltimore is running out of lower-body parts to list as a reason he has missed practice time.

All of that suggests Jackson may not be himself, so we should proceed with caution.

We can price some of that in, and I did not place a “trust” label on him, but I would still take one more bite of the apple here given his QB1 overall upside in a spot that is objectively too good to pass on.

The Ravens are at home with a nearly 30-point team total against the worst defense in the league.

If he fails here and continues to struggle, then we have real concerns in 1QB leagues.

These teams have combined for 69, 79, 54, and 51 points over the past two seasons.

Jackson has scored 32.9, 33.4, 23.9, and 22.9 fantasy points in those games.

The Bengals have the worst defense in the NFL.

They are 29th in pressure rate (30.2%) and 31st in sack rate (3.9%).

They are allowing 7.9 yards per pass attempt (31st) and a 6.2% touchdown rate (28th).

The Bengals are 30th in passing points allowed per attempt (0.524).

Joe Burrow: Burrow is expected to return to the field for the first time since Week 2.

Before his injury, Burrow had thrown for 4.9 yards per pass attempt against the Browns and 5.8 Y/A against the Jaguars.

He is a better player than what we saw over that small sample, but there is plenty of volatility here given his lengthy layoff, the absence of Tee Higgins, and Baltimore's defense playing better of late.

The Bengals have a pedestrian team total on the road on top of it all.

I am handling Burrow as a boom-or-bust option on the QB1 line, but would start him over streaming types in most scenarios.

In 2024, Burrow completed 72.8% of his passes for 8.2 Y/A and a 7.2% touchdown rate with Higgins on the field (441 dropbacks) compared to completing 66.9% of his passes for 6.5 Y/A and a 5.6% touchdown rate with Higgins off the field (280 dropbacks).

That said, one of those games was against the Ravens last year in Week 10, when Burrow threw for 428 yards and 4 touchdowns.

In two games against the Ravens last year, Burrow threw 9 touchdowns with 428 and 392 yards.

We still expect the Bengals to be aggressive in throwing the ball.

They have a 64% dropback rate in neutral game scripts (fourth), and this defense has put them in consistent holes.

The Ravens have been playing better of late.

Since Week 6, they have allowed the league-low 69.8 rating, allowing a 57.5% completion rate (3rd), 6.6 Y/A (10th), and a league-low 1.5% touchdown rate.

They have had a light run over that span, facing Tyrod Taylor, Dillon Gabriel/Shedeur Sanders, J.J. McCarthy, Tua Tagovailoa, and Caleb Williams over their past five games.

They also limited Matthew Stafford to 181 yards and 1 touchdown as part of that stretch.

Kyle Hamilton was also forced out of last week’s game with an ankle injury.

Hamilton did not participate in practice on Monday.

John Harbaugh said Hamilton will “have a chance” to play on Thursday.

That is something we will monitor with great interest.

Baltimore has only faced 41 dropbacks with Hamilton off the field this season, but they have allowed 7.8 Y/A with a 12.2% touchdown rate on those snaps.

Running Back

Derrick Henry (TRUST): Henry rushed 21 times for only 64 yards against the Jets, but he found the end zone twice and added a season-high 24 receiving yards to bolster his afternoon for fantasy.

Since Week 6, Henry has been the RB9 in overall scoring and the RB3 in expected points per game.

He had handled at least 20 touches in six consecutive games, leading the NFL with 20.5 rushes per game over that span.

If you are going to accrue a lot of rushes against the Bengals, you will likely turn them into a productive outing.

The Bengals allow 5.1 yards per carry to running backs (30th) with a 55.2% success rate (30th) against those runs.

They are allowing a league-high 131.1 rushing yards per game to backfields.

Running backs have scored 15 touchdowns against the Bengals, tied for the second-most in the league.

Chase Brown: Brown kept his hot streak going on Sunday, rushing 19 times for 107 yards while catching 2 of 4 targets for 23 yards against New England.

New England has not allowed more than 58 rushing yards to a running back before Brown.

Brown has rushed for 424 yards over his past five games after rushing for 202 yards over his opening six games of the season.

Since Week 7, Brown is third in yards per rush (6.0 YPC) with a 46.5% success rate (9th) and run of 10 or more yards on 18.3% of his attempts (3rd).

He has failed to gain yardage on only 9.9% of his runs (2nd).

Brown has at least 100 total yards in five straight games.

The wild card here is the expected return of Samaje Perine.

In the three games without Perine, Brown has handled 90.5%, 88.9%, and 91.3% of the backfield touches.

Over the past four games that Perine was active, Brown handled 71.4%, 57.9%, 65%, and 60% of the touches.

Brown is playing much better of late, and he did handle 90% or more of the backfield touches in three of the opening four games this season, but we are doing some guesswork on his overall touch share.

We can make a bet that he will run pass routes.

Brown has run a pass route on 86%, 82.9%, and 76.3% of the dropbacks in those games without Perine.

With Perine in Weeks 1 through 8, Brown ran a route on 49.4% of the dropbacks, topping 50% just twice.

With Perine active and attached to a road underdog, Brown moves back into RB2 territory.

There is still upside if he can remain as efficient as he has been, but I would put him more in the bracket with backs like D’Andre Swift and Aaron Jones.

We just saw Brown have a good game against one of the league's best rushing defenses, which alleviates some of the matchup concerns.

The Ravens have only allowed 77.1 rushing yards per game to backfields since Week 4, seventh in the league.

They have allowed solid yardage games to the better combo backs they have faced, however.

Breece Hall totaled 119 yards on Sunday, while De’Von Achane had 106 total yards against them in Week 9.

Wide Receiver

More Week 13 Fantasy Breakdowns From The Worksheet: