The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar, breaks down everything you need to know about the Week 1 matchup between the Browns and Bengals.
Find a breakdown of every Week 1 NFL game in our Worksheet Hub.
Cincinnati | Rank | @ | Cleveland | Rank |
---|---|---|---|---|
-2.5 | Spread | 2.5 | ||
25.25 | Implied Total | 22.75 | ||
25.7 | 7 | Points/Gm | 21.2 | 17 |
19.6 | 5 | Points All./Gm | 22.4 | 19 |
65.3 | 9 | Plays/Gm | 65.6 | 6 |
62.6 | 11 | Opp. Plays/Gm | 61.2 | 8 |
5.4 | 15 | Off. Yards/Play | 5.3 | 18 |
5.4 | 16 | Def. Yards/Play | 5.4 | 18 |
37.71% | 28 | Rush% | 47.67% | 8 |
62.29% | 5 | Pass% | 52.33% | 25 |
40.42% | 7 | Opp. Rush % | 46.88% | 28 |
59.58% | 26 | Opp. Pass % | 53.12% | 5 |
- The Browns averaged 1.22 points per drive when Deshaun Watson returned to the lineup in 2022, 30th in the league over that span.
- The Bengals faced Cover-2 on a league-high 22.9% of their passing plays in 2022. The league average was 13.8%.
- Cleveland played Cover-2 on 24.0% of Cincinnati passing plays, their highest rate versus an opponent in 2022.
- 54.4% of the Cincinnati passing plays were with the middle of the field open, the highest rate in the league. The league average was 42.1%.
- The Bengals used play action on just 16.4% of their passing plays in 2022, ahead of only New Orleans (16.0%).
- Cincinnati posted a league-high 61.3% success rate on passing plays inside of the numbers in 2022.
- Over the past two seasons, when Joe Burrow has not been sacked on a drive, the Bengals are third in the league in points per drive (2.78) and scoring rate per drive (48.5%) as opposed to 14th in points per drive (1.04) and scoring rate per drive (22.8%) when Burrow has been sacked.
- 14.9% of Cleveland rushing attempts gained 10 or more yards, third in the NFL in 2022.
- 8.5% of the Cincinnati rushing attempts gained 10 or more yards, 30th in the NFL in 2022.
Trust = spike production for that player
Quarterback
Joe Burrow: Burrow missed the entire preseason but is expected to play in the season opener.
While he is expected to suit up, we should price in some potential that he will have limited mobility and not be asked to run much, something that bounced in 2022 a full year removed from ACL surgery.
Burrow was the QB4 in points per game last season (21.9) and showcased a higher floor last season than during his breakout the year prior. He had seven top-six scoring weeks in 2022 after just three in 2021.
Burrow lives as QB1 option but returning from injury does place more potential variance on his output to open the year. This game has the potential to be a shootout, but it also could be lower scoring as well.
With that, I am tempering any ceiling expectations here and handling this game as more of an option to attack in small-field DFS stacks.
Burrow has not been a QB1 scorer against the Browns in any of his past three matchups against Cleveland.
A year ago, he was the QB22 (13.5 points) and the QB13 (16.6 points) against a Browns defense that was worse on paper and fired defensive coordinator Joe Woods.
In those two games against Cleveland last season, Burrow threw for 232 and 239 yards, averaging 6.9 yards per pass attempt.
Cleveland brought in Jim Schwartz to run the defense.
Schwartz has not led a defense since the 2020 season with the Eagles. That team did face Burrow in his third career start, with Burrow completing 31-of-44 passes for 312 yards and a pair of touchdowns.
Schwartz blitzed rookie Burrow on 26.9% of his dropbacks in that game (the second-highest rate that the Eagles blitzed in a game that season), something you do not see teams do when defending the Bengals these days.
Burrow made him pay, completing 10-of-13 passes with a touchdown against the blitz that game.
Burrow was blitzed on a league-low 15.6% of his dropbacks last season, but when defenses did attempt to send extra defenders, Burrow averaged 13.5 yards per completion (fifth) with a league-high 12.9% touchdown rate.
If Schwartz did not learn his lesson from that 2020 meeting or is using Burrow’s calf injury as a reason to send more blitzes here, that could be a quick way to put his new defense in a precarious position.
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