Bengals RB Chase Brown had easily his best game of the season in Thursday night's 33-31 win over the Steelers. He carried 11 times for 108 yards -- good for 9.8 yards per carry. Brown busted off a season-long 37-yard run in the second quarter and had a 27-yarder earlier in that frame. He wasn't nearly as good in the passing game, catching two of four targets for -8 yards. Brown had a drop in the first quarter for what could have gone for a gain of 20+ yards.
Brown entered Week 7 averaging 33.7 rushing yards per game on 2.7 yards per carry. What changed in this one?
The Steelers are largely to thank. The defense looked disinterested at times and incapable at others, leaving big running lanes for Brown to exploit. But credit Brown for running with more power and burst than he did over his first six games. He picked up 66 rush yards over expected in this one, according to NFL Next Gen Stats.
The other big change, of course, was the passing game flourishing under QB Joe Flacco, who threw for 342 yards and three scores vs. Pittsburgh. While this still isn't the Joe Burrow-led Bengals offense, Flacco has made this a competent-bordering-on-good NFL offense. That's excellent news for Brown's fantasy outlook.
On the negative side, he continued to lose work to RB Samaje Perine against the Steelers. Brown played 63% of Cincinnati's offensive snaps and handled 11 of 18 RB carries (61%). The playing time was up from a 53% snap rate in each of the previous two games -- but still not back to the 70+% of snaps he was playing early this season.
We'll see if the strong production in this one means more playing time for Brown going forward. Perine averaged a decent 4.4 yards per carry vs. the Steelers but certainly isn't a big roadblock.
The Flacco boost makes Brown at least a low-end fantasy starter again. And, if he can take some work back from Perine, he could re-emerge as a top-20 fantasy RB. He'll be boosted by a schedule that ranks second-easiest for RBs from Week 8-17.
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