Preseason Week 2 Game Recap: Immediate fantasy football takeaways from Monday’s game

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Cincinnati Bengals @ Washington Commanders

The Commanders’ changing backfield: Trade rumors surrounding Brian Robinson will likely lead to a new primary running back for the Commanders.

There were reports on Sunday that the Commanders were looking to trade former starting running back Robinson. The Commanders and Robinson mutually agreed not to have him play in this preseason game. However, the rest of the running backs were available for this game, giving us a good look at how the backfield should look in the regular season.

Last week, seventh-round rookie Jacory Croskey-Merritt started, suggesting he was Robinson’s primary backup at the time, and Chris Rodriguez was his backup. Austin Ekeler is their receiving back, and Jeremy McNichols was taking the passing situations last week.

This week, Rodriguez started, playing every snap on the first drive. There were no passing situations on that drive, so it’s unclear if Ekeler had the night off or if there were just no opportunities for him to play a snap. The Commanders announced which players weren’t playing before the game, and Ekeler was not on that list. This suggests Ekeler isn’t in the running for the early-down job, and that he would have been used on third down with the starter had they had a third down.

Croskey-Merritt played on the second drive, ran the ball once for five yards and once for a 27-yard touchdown. Rodriguez took the third drive, while McNichols again took the passing-down work. The Commanders’ offense was also successful with Rodriguez, as he ran six times for 62 yards, which included a 40-yard run. McNichols also took the two-minute drill. Presumably, Crocket-Merritt would have taken the fourth drive had Washington had a fourth drive before the two-minute drill. 

This means the Commanders’ starting running back spot is a battle between Rodriguez and Croskey-Merritt, while Ekeler is their passing-down back and McNichols is his backup. Presumably, Croskey-Merritt will win the job given the hype around him, but it might not be immediately, so it might be somewhat of a rotation, at least early on. Croskey-Merritt should be drafted among the top 35 running backs, similar to other rookie running backs who we believe should have the lead rushing role by mid-season.

Commanders’ wide receiver depth chart becomes clearer: Deebo Samuel made his debut with Washington, while Jaylin Lane worked his way up the depth chart.

Commanders wide receiver Terry McLaurin is still holding out in hopes of a new contract or a trade. He was recently activated from the PUP list, so he is presumably healthy enough to play once things are resolved. Noah Brown was carted off the field in minicamp over two months ago. His injury still hasn’t been disclosed, and he still hasn’t returned to practice. Both of those wide receivers have missed both preseason games, while Samuel was among the starters who had the first game off.

Luke McCaffrey and Chris Moore were the team’s outside receivers with K.J. Osborn in the slot. Michael Gallup and Tay Martin also played in the first quarter, while Lane entered in the second quarter as a backup slot receiver.

In this game, Samuel and McCaffrey were the starters, while Lane joined in three-receiver sets. This meant that in the past week, Lane has surpassed Moore, Gallup and Martin on the depth chart. Samuel was consistently in the slot on his four plays, including the one play in a two-wide receiver set. This suggests he will be their primary slot receiver, despite primarily playing out wide throughout his time with the San Francisco 49ers. McCaffrey could be in store for a starting job if either McLaurin or Brown misses games in the regular season.

On the second drive, Samuel left the game, and Osborn took over in the slot. While McCaffrey and Lane are primarily known as slot receivers, it looks like they will primarily play out wide. Osborn appears likely to make the roster if they keep six wide receivers.

This game shouldn’t change anyone’s opinion on Samuel, although it was good to see him playing in both two- and three-receiver sets despite playing in the slot now. If anything, people need to keep an eye on McCaffrey, given his preseason usage and the fact that two of the three Commanders’ wide receivers are out and we don’t know when they will return.

Noah Fant makes his Bengals’ debut: While Fant spent several years as a fantasy sleeper with the Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks, it’s unlikely he will keep that title in Cincinnati.

Fant was released by the Seahawks in July, in part due to his high salary and also because the Seahawks had multiple young tight ends. The Bengals signed him a week later. Fant didn’t play in the first preseason game because he was still learning the offense, but he played in this game. However, his primary competition for playing time on passing downs, Mike Gesicki,  missed a second consecutive preseason game due to a hamstring injury. Typically, when one important player on the depth chart is missing, it’s hard to take too much away about everyone’s role in the offense. However, the Bengals’ rotation of tight ends was very similar to other recent seasons, so this was an exception to the rule.

Drew Sample remained the Bengals’ primary blocking tight end. Fant often joined Sample in two-receiver sets. Fant was the early-down tight end in 11 personnel in normal situations, while Sample took the 11 personnel snap in short-yardage situations. On third downs or other clear passing situations, Tanner Hudson was on the field. Once the regular season hits, we expect Gesicki to take Hudson’s role, as that was Gesicki’s had role last season. This meant Fant’s role will be very similar to Erick All when he was healthy last season, or Mitchell Wilcox in other past seasons. 

This isn’t great news for the fantasy value of either tight end. There is never a case where a tight end is a fantasy relevant if they aren’t playing on third downs. It doesn’t look like they plan on using Fant on third downs, even if Gesicki were to suffer an injury, as was the case Sunday night. Gesicki averaged 40.5% of offensive snaps in games where All played last season and 49.5% once All was out, with more opportunities in two-tight-end sets. With Fant, it seems likely Gesicki will be back to playing 40% of Cincinnati’s offensive snaps.

Neither tight end was getting selected in typical fantasy football drafts, and Sunday night further confirms they should both be left on the waiver wire.

Miscellaneous Notes

• Commanders backup quarterback Marcus Mariota is dealing with a leg injury, which kept him out of this game.
• The Commanders rested a few of their healthy starters, which included tight end Zach Ertz.
• The Bengals played their starters on the first drive. Chase Brown played nine of 10 plays while Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins played all 10 plays. They stopped playing after the first drive, while Samaje Perine, Andrei Iosivas, Noah Fant, Drew Sample and Tanner Hudson continued playing for additional drives.
• Running back Samaje Perine continued to be used almost exclusively in third-down situations, similar to last week and his previous time with the Bengals. Cincinnati just didn’t have many third-down situations while Burrow was still playing.
• Last week, the Bengals used a heavy rotation of Charlie Jones, Mitchell Tinsley, Isaiah Williams and Jermaine Burton in the second and third quarters in a battle for the fourth and fifth wide receiver spots. This week, it was pretty clear that Tinsley and Jones are the favorites, as they had two drives each with Burrow, while Williams and Burton didn’t play a snap with him.

Table Notes

• Snaps include plays called back due to penalties, including offensive holding or defensive pass interference. The other three stats have these plays removed.
• Targets may differ from official NFL sources. The most likely discrepancy would be from a clear thrown-away pass, where the NFL may give the target to the nearest receiver, while this data will not.
• Carries are only on designed plays. Quarterback scrambles won’t count for the total number of carries in the game.

This news was originally published on this post .

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