Why mess with a good thing?
Now that the 2024 season is over for the Cincinnati Bengals, it’s hard not to look to the future. Free agency is coming and right after that will be the NFL Draft. The 2024 season was a bust, and the Bengals will have a chance soon to re-sign and extend their own, and to add a group of new players, both veterans and rookies.
One idea, I’ve seen floated around, is the concept of pairing Chase Brown’s lightning with another running back’s thunder. Someone like Ashton Jeanty with the No. 17 overall pick, or a bruiser like Najee Harris in free agency.
Both of those ideas are absolutely insane and would lead to a massive waste of draft capitol and money.
Why would the Bengals need to pair Chase Brown with anyone? The offense flows through Joe Burrow and his right arm. Brown is a running back on a team that doesn’t like to run, and plays like they don’t need to, mostly because they don’t. He’s athletic and fast, which is great, because every time he touches the ball, it seems he’s just one broken tackle away from an explosive play. Adding someone who takes the ball out of his hands, or Burrow’s hands, is just a waste.
The Bengals are about to have a lot of money tied up in Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase, and hopefully Tee Higgins as well. They also need to address both guard positions on the offensive line. In reality, the way the team should focus its spending on offense should look like this:
- Quarterback
- OT/WR
- G/C
- TE
- Anything else
- RB
Brown is on his rookie deal and you already have Zack Moss under contract. If he’s healthy, add a Trayveon Williams in there and you got yourself a pretty well-rounded group of running backs who happen to play on a team who throws the ball a lot more than they run.
The more he played throughout the season, Brown carried more and more of the load. If you look at the percentage of snap counts he played as the season progressed, you’ll see a major uptick starting in Week 9. Of course that’s one week after Moss was lost for the season, but until he missed the last game of the season, he was on the field from over 80% of the time and up to 98.5% of the time (Week 15 against Cleveland). During the last four games of the season, per PFF, Brown didn’t have a pass-blocking grade lower than 75.8.
The Bengals had the fifth-highest scoring offense throughout the 2024 season, and the idea of using a first-round pick on anything offensive outside of a guard to help keep Burrow upright, is crazy. The running game doesn’t need to be fixed.
Burrow doesn’t need a strong running game, just one that compliments him in the offense. The Bengals don’t need to establish the run to get the passing game going like some other teams do. He exists along with Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson, who are all guys that can carry a team on their back.
Joe Mixon is doing great in Houston, and I’m happy for him. The Texans run a different style of offense, and they rely much more on Mixon than Burrow will ever rely on a running back.
When the defense needs help at pretty much every position and both guards desperately need to be replaced, why waste a first-round pick, or any real amount of money, on anyone when they have Brown? He’s the guy now, and, unless he’s hurt, he won’t need much help. The answer to getting over the Super Bowl hump isn’t at running back, or any other of the skill positions.
Until the Bengals are looking to replace Brown, there’s no need to draft a running back early, or to spend a ton of money in free agency on one.
