Cincinnati Bengals News

Cincinnati Bengals tight end Jack Endries was a seventh-round pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, and while the depth chart in front of him is not insurmountable, he still faces a long road to making an NFL roster. Endries was the 19th of 22 tight ends selected in April, and while the league is moving toward heavier personnel usage, Cincinnati was one of the least efficient teams in 2025 when operating with multiple tight ends on the field. Mike Gesicki's contract runs through 2027, and 2024 fourth-round pick Erick All Jr. is steadily gaining steam as he works his way back from the complicated ACL injury that caused him to miss all of the 2025 season. Drew Sample has played 95 games for the team over his seven-year career and would appear to be locked into his dedicated blocking role. Should the Bengals opt to keep four tight ends, Endries would still need to beat out Tanner Hudson, and even then, as the third or fourth tight end on an offense run through wide receivers Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, there is no realistic path to fantasy relevance. At RotoBaller's dynasty TE44, Endries is not a player who needs to be rostered in most leagues.

Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Colbie Young could find himself in a starting role to begin the season. According to ESPN, Young is competing for the No. 3 role with Andrei Iosivas. Bengals offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher said that he believes is going to fight and battle for that third wideout spot this summer. There's no way he can go any higher than that with Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins on the roster. The Bengals selected Young in the fourth-round out of Georgia during this year's draft. His stats don't jump off the page, but the Bengals like his potential. He could be an interesting late-round option in fantasy drafts if he wins the No. 3 receiver job.

Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Ja'Marr Chase has been a superstar since entering the league in 2021. Chase has finished with 1,000 receiving yards or more in every season and has over 50 touchdowns in his career. This past season, Chase saw a career-high 185 targets, hauling in 125 receptions for 1,412 receiving yards and eight touchdowns. across 16 games. Chase has finished as the WR5 or higher in three of his first five seasons in the league. The superstar wideout seems to be one of the few players in the league who is bust-proof. The 26-year-old still has a league-winning ceiling and is young enough to still build around even in dynasty start-ups.

Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins has been undervalued at times because he's playing alongside Ja'Marr Chase. Despite being the No. 2 option, Higgins has been a stud since being drafted by the Bengals in 2020. During his first three seasons, Higgins finished with 1,000-plus receiving yards in two of those first three years. Unfortunately, injuries have slowed down Higgins from putting up elite numbers, but he's hopeful to put those lingering issues behind him. This past season, Higgins finished with 59 receptions, 846 receiving yards, and 11 touchdowns. Those are fairly impressive numbers given the fact that Higgins is doing that with quarterback Joe Burrow being injured for part of two of the last three seasons. When this offense is healthy, Higgins can put together high-end WR2 numbers with the possibility of being a WR1.

After recording 65 catches for 665 yards in his first season with the Cincinnati Bengals in 2024, tight end Mike Gesicki's production fell off in his second year with the team in 2025. The 30-year-old missed four games with a pectoral injury and finished the season with 28 catches for 307 yards and two touchdowns on 42 targets. Gesicki is back with Cincinnati for 2026, and he could be in position for a bounce-back campaign after the team let tight end Noah Fant walk in free agency. Gesicki is not assured of the TE1 role for the Bengals, as he will have to compete with Drew Sample, Erick All Jr., and Tanner Hudson. Still, Gesicki has proven an ability to be productive in the Cincinnati offense before, particularly in games where Bengals wideout Tee Higgins is sidelined by injury. In dynasty formats, Gesicki could be a worthy buy-low dart-throw for managers after his down year in 2025.

Cincinnati Bengals running back Chase Brown put together another rock-solid season in 2025, recording 1,456 scrimmage yards and 11 touchdowns on 301 touches across 17 games. The 26-year-old topped 1,000 rushing yards for the first time in his career while also setting career-highs in targets (88), receptions (69), and receiving yards (437). Brown's long-term future in Cincinnati is an open question, as he's set to play on the final year of his rookie contract in 2026. Still, he enters the year as the unquestioned lead back for the Bengals and should have a solid chance to reach 300 touches for the second consecutive season. If Cincinnati can get a fully healthy season out of quarterback Joe Burrow, Brown may also find himself playing in one of the NFL's best offenses in 2026. Dynasty managers may want to consider selling high on Brown following the 2026 season, but for now, he profiles as a player to hold due to high-end RB1 upside.

The Cincinnati Bengals restructured the contract of quarterback Joe Burrow on Tuesday, creating $10 million in salary cap space, according to Adam Schefter of ESPN. The move was due in part to the cash needed for the trade that landed the Bengals defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence this offseason. The 29-year-old QB has four years left on his five-year, $275 million deal that he signed in September of 2023. Burrow, a three-time Pro Bowler, only played in eight games in 2025 in his sixth year in the NFL, a major disappointment after he led the NFL in attempts (652), completions (460), passing yards (4,918), touchdowns (43), and yards per game (289.3) in 2024. He doesn't have the dual-threat abilities of some of the other elite names at the position, but what Burrow lacks in rushing skills, he makes up for with his arm strength and precision as a passer, and he has one of the best WR corps in the league with Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins as his top-two receivers. Burrow is a high-risk/high-reward midrange QB1 target in fantasy football drafts for the 2026 season, and he's currently ranked as RotoBaller's QB5.

Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Ja'Marr Chase has finished as the WR5 or better in three of his first five seasons, only falling short when he missed four games in 2022 and when the team was without three-time Pro Bowl quarterback Joe Burrow for half of the 2023 season. Even at his worst, Chase has finished no lower than WR13, making him one of fantasy's most bust-proof players, evidenced by a mid-season run in 2025 that saw him targeted 53 times in a three-game stretch that all but saved Joe Flacco's career and helped land the 18-year veteran his first career Pro Bowl selection. With Flacco back in the fold as the Bengals' backup for 2026, dynasty managers can feel good about Chase's floor while never having to question his league-willing ceiling. At only 26 years old, Chase is RotoBaller's top-ranked player in single-quarterback dynasty formats and one of fantasy's safest players to build around.

Over the past three seasons, Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins has played in only 39 of a potential 51 games, and of those 39 contests, only 25 have come with quarterback Joe Burrow under center. In those games, Higgins has averaged 13.3 half-PPR points per game, a number that would have been good enough for a WR9 finish in 2025. Injuries have come to define the Bengals offense in recent years, but heading into 2026 with good health and no contract disputes, Cincinnati is once again a threat to lead the league in scoring. Because the full puzzle has so rarely been put together, it's possible that Higgins is still being slightly slept on in dynasty leagues. Only 27 years old, he is one of the premier WR2s in the league with the potential to win weeks should an injury to Ja'Marr Chase force him into a larger role, and at RotoBaller's dynasty WR26, he's a high-reward trade target whose perceived risk has driven down his cost in recent years.

Across 17 games in 2025, Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Andrei Iosivas recorded 33 receptions for 435 yards and two touchdowns on 58 targets. The 26-year-old has established a consistent role as the WR3 in Cincinnati, but his production upside is limited as long as the Bengals' star wide receiver duo of Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins are both healthy. Higgins has missed 12 games since the start of the 2023 season, which has led to some stretches of fantasy-relevant production for Iosivas. However, Iosivas may have to fight just to hold onto his WR3 role in 2026 following Cincinnati's selection of University of Georgia wide receiver Colbie Young in the fourth round of the 2026 NFL Draft. Between his limited upside and the increased playing time competition in Cincinnati, dynasty managers may want to consider moving on from Iosivas as he enters his fourth NFL season.

Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow is one of the best pure passers in the NFL, but persistent injuries have capped his fantasy upside and raised some questions about his long-term dynasty outlook. Burrow has played 10 or fewer games in two of the last three seasons. Last year, he was healthy for just eight games, as he totaled 1,809 passing yards, 17 passing touchdowns, and five interceptions. Those are great results on a per-game basis, but he ultimately let down many of his fantasy managers as they were forced to pivot to other quarterbacks when he got hurt. A healthy Burrow can be a top-five dynasty quarterback. After all, he was QB4 or higher in each of the two years where he played all 17 games. However, the injury concern is valid, and it has resulted in him falling to QB6 in RotoBaller's dynasty rankings. He's still a high-upside dynasty quarterback, but he has fallen out of the top three tiers.

Cincinnati Bengals backup quarterback Joe Flacco stepped immediately into the starting role in 2025 after a rare in-division mid-season trade from the Browns, turning in three fantasy finishes as the QB7 or better across his six starts, all while learning a brand new playbook on the fly. With Flacco signing a one-year deal to return to the team this offseason, a better grasp on the system and one of the best surrounding casts in the league should allow him to thrive if called upon again in 2026. Perhaps more importantly for fantasy, his presence boosts the worst-case scenario floors of Ja'Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, and Chase Brown should three-time Pro Bowl quarterback Joe Burrow miss significant time again. With Burrow shelved early in 2025 with a serious turf toe injury, all three saw their production plummet with Jake Browning under center, but rebounded nicely following the trade for Flacco. At 41 years old, his remaining time in the league is limited, but at RotoBaller's dynasty QB46, Flacco's cost to acquire is significantly lower than any other player with such a clear path to week-winning production.

Cincinnati Bengals tight end Jack Endries finds himself in a favorable landing spot as he begins his pro career. Endries is a seventh-round pick out of Texas, where he caught 33 passes for 346 yards and three touchdowns in 2025. Those aren't the greatest numbers, but he gained experience against top-tier defenses in the SEC, and he also had 623 yards back at Cal in 2024. From a developmental perspective, Endries is far from a lock to produce long-term, especially with seventh-round draft capital. However, the landing spot bodes well for his outlook. His opportunity to climb up the depth chart is as good as anybody's, as the Bengals' tight end room currently features Mike Gesicki, Drew Sample, Erick All (knee), Tanner Hudson, and Cam Grandy (chest). Gesicki is the No. 1 option here, but Endries could compete to be his backup early in his rookie season, with the potential to even more volume when Gesicki's contract expires after the 2027 season. Endries projects as a sixth-round pick in rookie drafts. At such a low cost, he's an intriguing draft target because of the Bengals' need for a tight end to establish themselve as a reliable threat on offense.

Cincinnati Bengals tight end Mike Gesicki has finished outside the top 20 at the position in three of the last four seasons, and while missing four games in 2025 with a pectoral injury, his TE40 fantasy finish marked the worst result since his rookie season. Gesicki's spot on the depth chart is relatively enviable, often working as the third option in the passing game. But with Ja'Marr Chase earning more than 170 targets in each of the past two seasons and Tee Higgins averaging 101 looks of his own in that span, there is less available work for a third option, particularly when acknowledging the pass-catching prowess of running back Chase Brown. The Bengals' high-powered offense is always capable of providing spike weeks, but without an injury ahead of him, predicting when those weeks might come for Gesicki can be a frustrating task that often leaves him out of starting lineups. Entering his age-31 season, he remains a must-roster dynasty player, simply for what he can provide as injury insurance should one of the team's elite target-earners miss time, but at RotoBaller's TE48, Gesicki offers very little standalone value.

Cincinnati Bengals running back Chase Brown finished 2025 as the fantasy RB8 after an RB12 finish in 2024. At 26 years old, he enters the final season of his rookie contract as RotoBaller's dynasty RB13, but should he and the team reach an agreement on a potential contract extension before the 2027 season, that ranking would almost certainly vault up. Brown's status as a true dynasty RB1 has long been held down by his fifth-round draft status and a fear that the Bengals could bring in additional competition to diminish his three-down role. Instead, over the past three offseasons, the Bengals have traded away former cornerstone running back Joe Mixon while spending a single sixth-round pick on the position. Brown heads into 2026 as one of the league's true bell cow backs on what again projects to be one of its most potent offenses. Even if the sides are unable to work out a long-term extension and this proves to be his final season in Cincinnati, Brown is arguably still worth his current price to contending dynasty managers on the potential of a top-five finish in 2026.

Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Ja'Marr Chase has the 11th-most receptions in NFL history by any player through their first six seasons. Remarkably, he has only played five years, meaning anything more than 59 catches in 2026 (fewer than half of what he's recorded in each of the previous two seasons) will earn him the record. Chase has had one of the most legendary starts to a professional career across all sports, and that is reflected by his standing as the overall number one player in RotoBaller's non-superflex dynasty rankings. Even with a Week 2 foot injury to Joe Burrow derailing Cincinnati's offense for much of the first half of the 2025 season, Chase was the one Bengals player who did not fully sink fantasy managers while Jake Browning was averaging 172 passing yards per game across his three starts. With competent quarterback play, Chase was his usual unstoppable self, reaching double-digit receptions in five of 14 games started by Burrow or Joe Flacco, while finishing with fewer than seven catches only four times. At only 26 years old, Chase has several years of prime play still ahead of him, and with both he and Burrow tied to Cincinnati through the 2029 season, his reign atop the dynasty rankings could be a long one.

Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins has averaged 11.8 half-PPR points per game since being selected in the second round of the 2020 NFL Draft and has finished as the WR22 or better in four of the last five seasons despite playing a full 17-game slate only once. When the Bengals' offensive core of Higgins, Joe Burrow, and Ja'Marr Chase are healthy and available, as appears to be the case heading into 2026, Cincinnati boasts one of the most fantasy-friendly offenses in the league. While improvements made to the defense could lessen the need for Burrow and company to keep pace in one barnburner after another, talent alone should keep the Bengals among the highest-scoring teams in the league. The 27-year-old Higgins is as reliable an NFL WR2 as can be found, with arguably the highest upside insurance case in the league should Chase miss significant time, and at RotoBaller's WR24, he is quickly approaching underrated territory.

Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Andrei Iosivas caught only 33 passes for 435 yards and two scores as a third-year player in 2025, only twice turning in a weekly fantasy finish as the WR30 or better. With both Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins remaining relatively healthy, Iosivas' ceiling was unsurprisingly capped, operating primarily out of the slot in three receiver sets and regularly seeing less than a double-digit target share. Cincinnati added Georgia wide receiver Colbie Young in the fourth round of the 2026 NFL Draft, and while the former Bulldog and Hurricane spent more than 92% of his time on the outside in three of four collegiate seasons, any additional competition is bad news for a player whose dynasty value is already weighted so heavily by the depth chart ahead of him. The Bengals could also see a return to health from somewhat forgotten 2024 fourth-round pick Erick All Jr., whose presence as a traditional inline tight end could allow Mike Gesicki to spend more time in the slot in favor of Iosivas. At RotoBaller's dynasty WR142, Iosivas still offers unique insurance upside given the overall strength of Cincinnati's offense and the fact that the team essentially has two number one receivers who at some point could miss time, but with his already low standalone value seemingly taking a hit, he is no longer a player that needs to be held under any and all circumstances.

Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, who missed nine games in 2025 after having surgery for turf toe, was reportedly with the team last week for the start of their voluntary offseason workouts and appeared to look pretty happy, according to Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network. Rapoport adds that Burrow was quoted recently in Vanity Fair, saying he's "excited to see the initiative of the Bengals" this offseason. Cincy went 6-11 last season (third in the AFC North) and missed the playoffs for the third straight season and the eighth time in the last 10 years. The Bengals are going all-in for the 2026 season after acquiring defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence from the New York Giants and signing linebacker Boye Mafe to a three-year, $60 million contract in free agency. The 29-year-old Burrow appears to be fully healthy as he enters his seventh season in the league, and he'll be a clear high-end QB1 target in fantasy drafts this fall despite his injury history. Burrow threw for a league-best 4,918 yards and 43 touchdowns in 17 starts in 2024, and he's RotoBaller's No.5-ranked fantasy QB for 2026 right now.

For the third time in his young career, Cincinnati Bengals running back Chase Brown has to be listed among the dynasty offseason winners after the team added no competition through either free agency or the NFL Draft. A fifth-round pick in 2023, Brown earned the Bengals' RB1 spot by the start of his second season, and after back-to-back top 12 finishes, he is once more in line to handle a bellcow role on one of the league's most potent offenses. Like many of his Bengals teammates, the third-year back struggled in the early stages of 2025, held back by shoddy quarterback play as Joe Burrow missed nine games with a Grade 3 turf toe injury, but by the end of the season, Brown was a legitimate fantasy league-winner. After failing to reach 50 rushing yards through any of his first six games, Brown paced as the RB6 over the final 12 weeks of the season, good enough for an overall RB8 finish. Yet, with the constant perceived threats to his job security, he heads into his age-26 season as RotoBaller's dynasty RB13. While the price to acquire is by no means cheap, especially with his value back on the rise following another quiet Bengals draft, Brown could be the exact piece needed to push contending managers into title contention.