Week 3 Fantasy Football Mailbag: What Do We Do With the Bengals' Receivers?

With two weeks of the fantasy football season in the review mirror, I polled our Fantasy Life Community Discord for their most pressing questions. Here are some of the highlights as well as how they might impact you and your rosters in the coming weeks and months.

How valuable will Ja'Marr Chase & Tee Higgins be with Jake Browning?

The most notable QB to go down with an injury this past week was undoubtedly Joe Burrow. We do have some tape/stats on Jake Browning, who will assume QB1 duties for the Bengals for the foreseeable future.

In fact, Browning has played at least 70% of the snaps in eight games since 2023.

In one of his latest pieces, Dwain McFarland highlighted those numbers:

• Passing yards per game:
  • Burrow: 279
  • Browning: 263 (-5%)
• Passing TDs per game:
  • Burrow: 2.1
  • Browning: 1.6 (-24%)

Ja'Marr Chase has played over 70% of the passing plays in seven of those eight games, averaging 15.9 points. However, scored 12 points or less in five of seven games.

Tee Higgins played over 70% of the passing plays in six of eight games with Browning. He averaged 17.7 points. He scored 12 points or fewer in two games.

All things considered, those are pretty solid numbers for a veteran backup. Most teams would love 260 yards and a score from their secondary option over essentially half a season's worth of games.

Honing in on Browning's production from 2023, from Weeks 13-18, he averaged 26.3 points per game. That was an incredible stretch run for managers who either stashed him or were able to snag him off of waivers.

The weapons are there, and Browning brings enough experience to the table to effectively run this offense. The ceiling will be a bit lower than with Burrow, obviously, but Chase and Higgins are still must-starts moving forward.

Who is a better option moving forward, Troy Franklin or Elic Ayomanor?

This is a great question because both are 22-year-old wideouts who have a ton of potential and are tied to young, talented QBs.

Troy Franklin was the WR14 in our 2024 Rookie WR Model, while Elic Ayomanor came in at WR17 in 2025.

Franklin struggled in Year 1, only catching 28 passes for 263 yards and two scores. However, he's already looking like a more pro-ready option in Year 2. This past weekend, he went 8/89/1 on nine targets and looks like a key target for Bo Nix.

As for Ayomanor, he's growing alongside No. 1 overall pick Cam Ward. While he did catch a nice TD in Week 2, it was on a broken play that Ward extended with his legs and then made a tremendous throw across the field.

For now, give me Franklin. Nix is certainly more proven and more productive right now. Despite the lack of competition, Ayomanor has outside of Calvin Ridley, I am more confident in Denver's offense and overall production for the rest of this season.

Who are your top trade-for AND trade-away candidates after two weeks?

In Wednesday's newsletter, Pete Overzet highlighted some rookies who have gotten off to rough starts in their first season. He specifically called out these three players:

• Ashton Jeanty, who was a top-15 pick in basically every format, is currently the RB27
• Omarion Hampton—a top-50 pick—is the RB44
• TreVeyon Henderson (RB36) and RJ Harvey (RB43) have also disappointed relative to their lofty price tags

Yes, it's been disappointing for managers who sank significant draft capital into these players and have little to show for their initial investment. Even so, we need to remind ourselves that it's only been two weeks, and the reasons we were excited about these players remain the same.

At the right price, I would be looking to trade for each of them. They are talented players who have the profile to take over their respective backfields and generate fantasy points at a high rate.

As for players I would be looking to trade away, veteran RBs with younger, talented options behind them are likely at peak value right now. Let's specifically look at Travis Etienne and James Conner.

Yes, the Jaguars traded away Tank Bigsby, and Etienne has been the lead back so far, but I am still in on the talent profile of Bhayshul Tuten. Tuten was efficient on eight rushing attempts in Week 2 and also turned two receptions into 32 yards and a score. His role is only going to grow.

The same logic applies to Conner and his backup, Trey Benson. Conner is still earning 10+ rushing attempts on a weekly basis, but he's been wildly inefficient. Benson, a younger, faster option, is going to start siphoning touches out of the backfield before too long. In addition, Benson is getting work at receiver. In Week 2, he turned six targets into four receptions for 30 yards.

Fantasy managers can still enjoy production from Etienne and Conner for a few weeks, but their respective backups are making strong cases for more touches in the very near future.

How worried should we be about J.J. McCarthy after his first two starts?

After sitting out his entire rookie season, all eyes were on J.J. McCarthy to see if he could replicate the same type of success that Sam Darnold experienced last season.

To say he's gotten off to a rough start would be a massive understatement.

McCarthy has had one good quarter of football out of eight. Perhaps most telling is that Kevin O'Connell is not asking him to do all that much. McCarthy has just 20 and 21 passing attempts, respectively, in his first two games.

The training wheels are definitely on right now. It remains to be seen if McCarthy will bounce back from his ankle injury in a few weeks, but there hasn't been much for fantasy managers to be excited about thus far.

I'm certainly not mailing it in or shutting the door on McCarthy's career after just two games, but we will need to start seeing some progress very soon, as soon as he's back on the field.

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