The Cincinnati Bengals are a massive unknown heading into 2019 under Zac Taylor.
And that applies to the fantasy football realm, too.
ESPN’s fantasy football staff recently sat down to carve out some PPR (points-per-reception) rankings before training camps get underway — and the Bengals are all over the place.
Here are where the Bengals players landed on positional rankings lists:
10. Joe Mixon
55. Giovani Bernard
13. A.J. Green
22. Tyler Boyd
24. Tyler Eifert
Right off the bat, observers will notice a lack of Andy Dalton. It is a little weird to think he doesn’t make the top-25 list at quarterback, especially with two of his targets in the top 25 at wideout and a capable receiving back like Joe Mixon 10th among backs. Sam Darnold, Derek Carr and Josh Allen are just a few of the names above Dalton.
Odd omission aside, Zac Taylor’s offense figures to be a run-first affair and it should understandably catapult Mixon into the top 10. The only thing likely to prevent him from climbing even farther is the coaching staff’s likelihood of employing a committee approach to make sure Mixon makes it through 17 weeks.
The only real point of contention might be Tyler Boyd’s slot as the 22nd wideout. He’s coming off 1,028 yards and seven scores over 14 games during a breakout year and is now in a contract season.
But even that is hard to fight right now. Nobody really knows how Zac Taylor’s offense will look. It figures to feature the run with a heavy dose of play-action, but until fantasy experts see it in action, these sort of rankings will remain all over the place.
