Bengals vs. Falcons Fantasy Football Worksheet, Week 9

The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar, breaks down everything you need to know about the Bengals vs. Falcons Week 9 matchup in Madrid.

Find a breakdown of every Week 9 NFL game in our Worksheet Hub.

Trust = spike production for that player

Bengals vs. Falcons Fantasy Quarterback Preview

Joe Burrow

Burrow is on an absolute heater right now.

He has completed at least 70% of his passes in each of his past five games, the longest such streak in the league.

He has thrown at least 4 passing touchdowns in three straight games, becoming just the eighth passer ever to do that in league history (2004 Peyton Manning has the record with five straight).

Burrow has reeled off five consecutive top-10 scoring weeks with back-to-back games as the QB1 scorer overall.

On Sunday, he threw 3 interceptions and still got there, passing for 462 yards, throwing 5 touchdowns, and rushing for another.

The Bengals have the league's most aggressive passing offense, and for good reason.

Cincinnati has thrown the ball 9.7% over expectations, the highest rate in the league.

They have thrown the ball over expectations in every game, posting a 67.4% dropback rate this year on a 57.7% expected rate.

They have thrown 14.3% over expectations on first downs.

On first-down passes, Burrow has completed a league-high 75.2% with a league-high 10 touchdowns.

This is another matchup where the Bengals can stay aggressive through the air and keep Burrow in play as a high-end QB1.

Before last week's unique game against Tampa Bay, opponents had thrown the ball 5.3% over expectations against Atlanta, the third-highest rate in the league.

Tampa Bay was 40% below pass-rate expectations in the rain on Sunday, while also having tons of success running the ball.

Atlanta plays single-high coverage 60.7% of the time, the third-highest rate in the league.

Burrow already sees single-high on 49.5% of his dropbacks (11th), completing 70% of his passes (2nd) for 8.2 yards per pass attempt (QB6), but only a 2.3% touchdown rate (23rd).

If he stays that efficient against those looks, touchdowns will surely come.

The Falcons are posting a 41.6% pressure rate (4th).

James Pearce is eligible to return this week after being suspended for the opening eight games.

However, Burrow is a hard quarterback to pressure.

He has the league's lowest pressure rate at 31.1%.

89.7% of his passes are out of shotgun, the highest rate in the league.

He averages 2.56 seconds from the snap to throw (5th), while 55.4% of his passes are out within 2.5 seconds of the snap (3rd).

When Atlanta does not get pressure, they have allowed a 74.6% completion rate (25th), 8 touchdowns, and only 1 interception.

Michael Penix

Penix is coming off the worst game of his career, completing 8 of 24 passes (33.3%) for 125 yards (5.2 Y/A) with 4 interceptions.

40% of his dropbacks lost 1.0 EPA or worse, the highest rate of his career.

Penix gets somewhat of a pass given the conditions on Sunday, but his second-highest rate of negative dropbacks came at home three weeks ago against the Bears (30.8%), so he has been flirting with negative plays at a high rate lately.

Penix is one of the most pressure-sensitive passers.

From a clean pocket, Penix has completed 73% of his passes (14th) for 8.3 Y/A (9th) and a 6.3% touchdown rate (7th).

When pressured, he has completed a league-low 28.6% of his passes for 5.8 Y/A (18th), a 2.4% touchdown rate (19th), and a 4.8% interception rate (23rd).

That aligns with the Bengals, who are one of the most pressure-sensitive pass defenses.

With pressure, the Bengals have allowed a 41.4% completion rate (6th) and 4.7 yards per pass attempt (5th).

Without pressure, they allow a 72.7% completion rate (20th) for 8.7 Y/A (30th).

Over the past two weeks, the Bengals have allowed career-high passing yardage to Cam Ward (304 yards) and Tyler Huntley (298 yards).

The Bengals can coax teams into an aggressive game state, which gives Penix upside as a boom-or-bust QB2.

What has saved the Bengals from getting crushed by passers is allowing only a 3.3% touchdown rate (5th).

They've had a lot of issues against mobile quarterbacks, allowing 28.0 rushing yards per game (31st).

Penix isn't known for his mobility, rushing for only 15 yards this season.

Bengals vs. Falcons Fantasy Running Back Preview

Bijan Robinson

Robinson turned 19 touches into 76 yards on Sunday in a tough spot against the Buccaneers.

Robinson has now been an RB1 scorer in three of his eight games this season.

Touchdown production and an uneven receiving role have been his largest hangups, keeping him from a consistent ceiling.

Robinson has five games without a touchdown.

He has 11 opportunities inside of the 10-yard line (RB14) and 9 touches in goal-to-go situations (RB15).

Robinson did not catch a pass on Sunday (1 target).

He has 2 or fewer targets in four of his six games played with Michael Penix.

He has games with a 20.6% target share and 15.6% with Penix, but his passing-game role has just been inconsistent.

This is still a game environment that offers a lot of scoring potential, so we have to lean into that driving scoring and receiving opportunities for Robinson as an RB1.

The Bengals are a volatile run defense because they rely on their defensive line to lock up the run.

The Bengals are playing five or more defensive backs on 82% of their defensive snaps (3rd highest).

That has led them to play a light box on a league-high 39.9% of running back runs they have faced.

They do have a league-high 29.1% stuff rate on those runs, but they also are allowing 5.1 YPC to running backs (23rd) with a run of 10 or more yards on 14.5% of those attempts (24th).

When they have 7 or more in the box, they allow 3.8 YPC (14th), with a 10-plus-yard run on 6% (7th).

The Bengals rank 19th in points allowed per touch to running backs (0.84), but fifth in touches faced per game to backs (23.6), which helps keep their points allowed in check.

They allowed 137 total yards and 2 touchdowns to Tony Pollard on Sunday, so Robinson has upside here.

Chase Brown

Brown turned 20 touches into a season-high 101 total yards on Sunday.

He was still limited as a runner, rushing 12 times for 55 yards, but he caught 8 of 9 targets for 46 yards.

Brown had a 20-yard touchdown through the air called back.

He has not scored since Week 1, which has kept his fantasy ceiling in check.

Brown has come out of the bye with a high workload over the past two weeks, though.

He has played 74.5% and 71.4% of snaps over the past two games.

On Sunday, he handled 80% of the backfield touches, making him RB8 for the week.

The factor keeping him as more of a volume-based RB2 is his lack of efficiency per touch, which increases the need for scoring opportunities.

If the Bengals keep scoring, scoring opportunities should come along at some point.

The efficiency is trickier.

Brown is averaging 3.6 yards per rush (RB31) with a 33% success rate (33rd) and a 10-plus-yard run on 7.4% (27th) of his attempts.

The Falcons just gave up 310 yards rushing on 52 attempts (6.0 YPC) to the Tampa Bay backfield on Sunday.

The question is how much of an outlier that game was.

Atlanta was allowing 4.1 YPC to backs before Sunday, which was middle of the league (16th).

We already covered how Atlanta was more of a pass funnel before Sunday, which is how the Bengals play to begin with.

But even if that game is an extreme outlier, the Falcons have allowed fantasy points to backs.

Even before Sunday, they allowed an RB1 scorer in each of the four games before Week 8 and a top-10 scorer in five of their previous six games.

Alvin Kamara (12 touches for 58 yards and 2 touchdowns), Derrick Henry (25 touches for 120 yards and a touchdown), D'Andre Swift (20 touches for 70 yards and a touchdown), and Christian McCaffrey (13 touches for 100 yards and a touchdown) have gotten there against Atlanta based on volume, touchdown equity, and receiving work even before the Bucs' backs went crazy.

The Falcons also rank 27th in receiving points allowed to backs (11.0 per game), so even if Brown is still forced to work more as a receiver again, he has another avenue to points.

Bengals vs. Falcons Fantasy Wide Receiver Preview

Ja'Marr Chase

Chase delivered his best game of the year on Sunday, setting season highs in targets (16), receptions (11), and yards (141) along with his 6th touchdown of the season.

Chase has been overshadowed a bit by how awesome Tee Higgins has played, but he is still a premier talent at his position, has attachment to a red-hot quarterback, and plays in the league's top pass-first offense.

Keep jamming him as a WR1.

Chase has the same number of targets (61) as Higgins, but he has 234 fewer yards on those opportunities.

With no shade to Higgins, I expect Chase to close that gap a bit.

The Falcons have been beatable on the outside, allowing 9.4 yards per target (26th) and 21.7 points per game (24th) to outside receivers.

That average includes a game in which they allowed no completed passes.

Tee Higgins

Bringing in 10 of 11 targets for 155 yards and 2 touchdowns on Sunday, Higgins has now had games of 155, 148, and 157 yards over his past four games played.

He has at least 90 receiving yards in five of his seven games this season.

Higgins is averaging a career-high 16.9 yards per reception and 11.9 yards per target.

We brought this up last week, but Higgins is getting over this season on the intermediate level at the highest rate of his career.

A career-high 42.6% of his targets have come 10 to 19 yards downfield.

His previous high mark on those targets was 30.3%.

Higgins leads the league in receptions (26) and yards (450) on those targets.

The next-closest receiver on those throws is Christian Watson with 310 yards.

If Atlanta stays in the same single-high approach, that signals Higgins to keep rolling as a WR1.

Against those looks, Higgins has been targeted on a team-high 24.2% of his routes for 3.37 yards per route run (WR6 among all receivers versus those defenses) for 0.62 fantasy points per route (WR11).

Drake London

London caught 1 of 6 targets for 8 yards in Sunday's loss in Tampa Bay.

That was his worst game playing with Penix.

We can allow some grace given the game conditions and how poor Penix was in the rain.

London still had 26.1% of the team's targets.

Since Penix took over, London is still the WR4 in target share (32.1%), WR2 in air yard share (44.1%), and WR2 in yards per route run (3.01).

London remains a WR1.

This is a spot where we always give the matchup some respect.

DJ Turner was banged up to end last week's game, which is something to monitor here.

Zac Taylor said Turner avoided a major injury and is considered “day-to-day,” but we will follow his status heading into Sunday.

The Bengals are again sticky against outside receivers, ranking third in points allowed to those pass catchers (14.5 per game).

They have allowed a 56% catch rate (4th), a league-low 6.3 yards per target, and a 2.7% touchdown rate (5th) to those receivers.

If Turner is out for Sunday, that alleviates a lot of the matchup concerns.

Turner has been targeted once every 10.3 coverage snaps, the fourth-lowest rate in the league.

That is why the Bengals are much worse on the inside.

London is playing 73.2% of his snaps out wide this season, but Atlanta has moved him around.

He was in the slot for 42% of his snaps against the Bears and 38.1% against the Ravens.

Against slot receivers, the Bengals are 31st in points allowed (17.0 per game), giving up 10.9 yards per target (28th) and a league-high 13% touchdown rate.

44% of the receptions that the Bengals have allowed to receivers have come from the slot (4th highest).

Jahan Dotson

Dotson continues to provide splash plays, even if you do have to have them as an all-or-nothing WR5/FLEX.

Dotson had a 76-yard catch-and-run on Sunday.

He has a reception of 31 or more yards in four of his past five games.

He has also had no more than 3 receptions in any game this season.

Bengals vs. Falcons Fantasy Tight End Preview

Kyle Pitts

Pitts had 2 receptions for 6 yards on Sunday.

No Atlanta skill player did much of note given the top-down performance in the rain in Tampa Bay.

If you're looking for a silver lining for Pitts as a matchup-based TE2 you can stream, he did get 21.7% of the targets.

He's had at least a 15% target share in five straight games.

The Bengals provide appeal if you are taking a shot on Pitts here.

Cincinnati ranks 31st in receptions allowed to tight ends (7.0 per game) and 31st in yards per target (9.3) to the position.

Still, with those numbers, the Bengals are one of two teams that haven't allowed a touchdown to a tight end yet this season.

Mike Gesicki

Gesicki caught 4 of 6 targets for 76 yards and a touchdown on Sunday.

That was his fifth straight game with a touchdown and his sixth score of the season.

Sunday was the first time since Week 1 that Gesicki has cleared 40 yards receiving, so he remains a touchdown-dependent TE2.

He had only a 12.8% target share on Sunday, but he set a season-high with 85 air yards.

He also ran a route on a season-high 73.6% of dropbacks.

If that stays sticky, it makes him more enticing because he has more floor when he inevitably doesn't get into the end zone.

Gesicki is playing only 1.9% of his snaps at tight end.

The Falcons have been good against tight ends who work from the slot and out wide, allowing 5.5 yards per target (6th) and a 65.4% catch rate (10th) to those tight ends.

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