Bengals vs. Patriots Fantasy Football Worksheet, Week 1

The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar, breaks down everything you need to know about the Week 1 matchup between the Patriots and Bengals.

Find a breakdown of every Week 1 NFL game in our Worksheet Hub.

Trust = spike production for that player

Quarterback

Joe Burrow: Burrow’s 2023 season was hampered by injuries.

Burrow opened the season with a calf injury that limited him the opening month of his season.

Over the opening four weeks, Burrow was dead last in the NFL with 4.8 yards per pass attempt and had completed only 57.6% of his passes (32nd) with two touchdowns.

Over that span, Burrow took 96.6% of his dropbacks out of shotgun and only used play action on 18.5% of his attempts. 

Getting on track, the Bengals won four of their next five games. 

During that run, Burrow completed a league-high 74.1% of his passes for 7.5 Y/A (10th) with 12 touchdowns.

He took more snaps under center with his added mobility and turned his back to the defense more often, seeing his shotgun rate dip down to 87.5% while using play action on 24.9% of his dropbacks.

Then in the first half of Week 11, Burrow tore a ligament in his throwing wrist that forced him to miss the remainder of the season.

We have seen how strong his ceiling is when everything is working and he is healthy, but we are now four years into Burrow’s career and only have one full season of high-end output.

If the Patriots have one area of strength this season, it is the defense.

They are coming off a season in which they ranked 9th in passing points allowed per attempt (0.369) and 10th in passing points per game (12.4).

Most of the team’s talent lies on the defensive side of the ball, but there are several moving parts here.

Bill Belichick is gone for starters, which is massive.

DeMarcus Covington will run the defense in his first stint as a coordinator.

Covington has at least been with Belichick and New England since the 2017 season, serving as the defensive line coach for the past four seasons. 

New England also traded away Matthew Judon and will be without Christian Barmore, who was placed on the non-football injury list. 

Judon was second on the team with a 17.8% pressure rate while Barmore was their best interior defensive lineman.

Those absences give Burrow a path to more upside, but he is still a fringe QB2 option in what could be a spot where the Bengals do not need to do a lot while this New England defense could still put up a fight. 

Burrow also could be working with a skeleton crew at wide receiver to open the season.

Ja’Marr Chase is expected to at best be “limited” due to his contractual dispute if he ends up being active.

Tee Higgins has not practice Thursday or Friday.

Tyler Boyd is gone in free agency.

There is an outcome on Sunday in which the top wide receivers in terms of snaps played are Andrei Iosivas, Charlie Jones, and Trenton Irwin.

Burrow only has 25 dropbacks over the past three seasons with both Chase and Higgins off the field, but has averaged only 6.5 yards per pass attempt on those throws.

Jacoby Brissett: Brissett will open the season as the starter for New England, serving as a bridge for when we get to Drake Maye.

Optically, this looks more like preservation for Maye since this offensive line and surrounding weaponry on offense are among the worst in the NFL.

It is easier for New England to play Brissett early in the season because if Maye failed early on, there would be no turning back, while potentially stunting Maye’s growth. 

There is not much to see here outside of teams that are desperately thin in 2QB formats.

Brissett is on the road and attached to the lowest team total in Week 1.

The veteran has made 48 career starts and only has finished as a QB1 scorer in 12 of them (25%).

In his last starting run with the Browns in 2022, Brissett finished in the top half of weekly scoring in just 3 of his 11 starts.

If you are forced to play Brissett in those 2QB formats, the largest questions surrounding the Bengals do come on defense.

They were 25th in passing points allowed per attempt (0.429) last season while allowing a league-high 12.3 yards per completion.

They have a pair of new safeties this season, bringing back Vonn Bell and adding Geno Stone to the back end but are looking for Dax Hill and Cam Taylor-Britt to make strides at cornerback this season.

Running Back

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