Cincinnati BengalsOur read
Written Sun 12:01 am Central, for week 6
Cincinnati doesn't play in week 6 of 2026, so Chase sits out the bye and puts up zero points for you this week. He's got no designation on Sunday's report and remains first among Bengals receivers, so this is purely the schedule, nothing about his health or his role. Through 5 games he's run at 16 PPR points a game with 4 touchdowns, and his next action is week 7 away at Baltimore, kicking off Sunday 12:00 pm Central. Leave him on the roster, make no lineup move this week, and get him back in for the Ravens.
Written Oct 19, from his facts through last season
Five weeks of 2026 leave Ja'Marr Chase at 16.0 points a game, and that is below even last season's 19.6, a season where scoring already fell off his 2024 pace of 23.71. The fall costs him, and it is not just week 1 of 2026's 3.2. Weeks 1 and 4 of 2026 combined for fewer points than week 2 of 2026 alone.
The usage still looks right. He ran 94.4% of Cincinnati's snaps last season and took 32% of the targets, both WR2 or WR3 among qualifying receivers, and Tee Higgins was nowhere close at 19%, so the pecking order has not moved. This year he is at 15% of his team's red-zone carries and targets, WR13 among 64 receivers with 20 or more of his own. What has slipped is the ball traveling to him downfield: 26% of team air yards, WR41, down from 34.4% last season. That is what tells us whether the 16.0 is a slump or a role change.
History says he bounces when the volume stays put. Last season he beat the position's weekly median in all 16 games and cleared 15 points in 11 of them, and he still finished WR4 among 240 qualifying receivers at 313.6 points. The one game he sat out all of 2025 was a league suspension, not an injury, and he has played every week so far in 2026.
Our preseason number was 333 points, 22.2 a game over 15 expected games, and none of that assumed the downfield targets drying up. He is still on our board at overall rank 2. Hold him through his bye in week 6 of 2026 and expect week 7 of 2026 to tell us which season we are getting.