Optimal Plays: Woodside, Pierce, Taylor, Lassiter, Pittman, Mitchell, Webster, Scott, All, Colts
GPP Plays: Richardson, Oladokon, Book, Herbert, Steele, Goodson, Hull, Collins, Cain, Williams, Jackon, Burgess, Pierce, Treadwell, Ward, Wiley
With Joe Burrow and Jake Browning not suiting up tonight for the Bengals, Logan Woodside is the clear optimal option at QB. He has the highest passing yards prop of all the QBs and is a lock to see adequate playing time. None of the other QBs are expected to see as much playing time as Woodside, so the rest are strictly GPP options. Anthony Richardson and the rest of the Colts starters are expected to play into the second quarter tonight, which makes Richardson viable in GPPs. Richardson is the most talented QB expected to play and has elite rushing upside. As the only starting QB suiting up tonight, he will see ownership, but still will likely stay below Woodside’s ownership, so he is a solid GPP pivot. Patrick Mahomes and the rest of the Chiefs starters will not play tonight, and we do not expect to see too much of Carson Wentz either. This leaves Chris Oladokon and Ian Book as the two QBs expected to see the majority of snaps. Oladokon has seen much more action than Book so far this preseason, so we would expect that trend to continue. We expect him to be lower owned than Woodside and Richardson, despite projecting as our second-best option at QB. Oladokon is a great contrarian play in GPPs. Book will likely see the majority of snaps in the second half and will see minimal ownership. We prefer Oladokon but Book is viable in larger GPPs.
Running backs on this slate appear to be a very murky situation. There is not one guy that stands out that we expect to have more opportunities than others, so we are going to break the RBs down team by team. We will start with the Chicago Bears, who said “most starters” will be out tonight. This likely still leaves Khalil Herbert and Roschon Johnson as guys who will play. Those two split first-half snaps in the HOF game when Swift was out, so we would expect more of the same. However, Johnson has been banged up lately, so stay tuned to see if he is inactive. If he is, we could see a few more first-half touches for Herbert. For the Chiefs, we expect the bulk of action to split between Deneric Pierce, Keontay Ingram, and Carson Steele. Reports are that Pierce is truly fighting for his roster spot, and our projections have him as the top RB on the slate. We would consider him our one true optimal RB. Steele should see a decent bit of action as well but he lacks explosiveness, so you are likely hoping for a TD. As mentioned above, the Colts starters will play into the second quarter, which will make Jonathan Taylor a popular option. Taylor is a great play and should have a TD opportunity or two if the offense moves the ball like they should against Cincy’s backups. We would advise against using Taylor with Richardson since the most likely outcome is this unit scores one touchdown, therefore they correlate negatively. Tyler Goodson and Evan Hull have both produced well with the second unit and we believe they are great pivots off the chalky Colts starters. Lastly, the Bengals will once again trot out Trayveon Williams, Noah Cain, and Elijah Collins at RB. The split between these three was very even last week, so we would expect more of the same. Our projections prefer Collins so we slightly prefer him, but all three are viable. You just want to try and get lucky with this RB room and nail the TD scorer.
Moving onto wide receiver, where Kwamie Lassiter is our top play. The Bengals WR room will be very thin tonight and Lassiter should operate as the WR1 for a good chunk of this game. He saw 7 targets last week which led the team by a large margin. Shedrick Jackson and Cole Burgess will also see a lot of snaps for the Bengals and are solid GPP options. Michael Pittman, Adonai Mitchell, and Alec Pierce are the expected starters at receiver for the Colts. Josh Downs will not suit up. Pittman, Mitchell, and Pierce are all viable, but they likely are going to see high ownership. The Colts’ first unit should be run heavy with Richardson and Taylor, so do not feel the need to force one of them, and they can be faded in GPPs. The rest of this WR is very murky, but Laquon Treadwell and Greg Ward led the team in snaps and routes ran last week out of the second unit. Tyler Scott and Nsimba Webster are the two WRs that we expect to see the majority of work out wide for the Bears. They both are viable in all formats due to the amount of playing time we expect them to get. Webster in particular is one of our best projecting wideouts on the slate. The Chiefs could potentially have a ton of WRs see the field tonight, but if guys like Skyy Moore and Kadarius Toney are ruled out, we would immediately love Justyn Ross. We like him in GPPs regardless, as he already is one of our top projecting wideouts, but Moore and Toney being out would likely make him our #1 option at WR.
At tight end, there is no one to get overly excited about. Feel free to just take your pick of any of the top guys in the projections and hope you get a lucky TD. If we had to choose our top options would be Erick All and Jared Wiley. All should see the most playing time but he has yet to show much pass-catching upside. Wiley is a huge 6’7 target and will see a bulk of the TE snaps in a Chiefs offense that loves to use tight ends. Wiley is our top upside option in GPPs.
To wrap things up, the Colts defense is the optimal defense, considering they are going to suit up their starters against the Bengals back-ups. The Colts will likely be the chalkiest DST though. The other three defenses should all be lower-owned and are viable as GPP pivots. Best of luck tonight!