Fantasy Football Player Notes

He's the only receiver who has playing time with Finley, and the results were somewhat of a mixed bag. Boyd finished with 6/62/0 on eight targets against the Ravens (tough matchup), 1/0/0 against the Raiders (eww), and 5/101/1 against the Steelers (tough matchup). So, while we're certainly downgrading from Burrow to Finley, Boyd may retain the most value as the safety valve over the middle of the field (we don't know much about Allen in this offense). Boyd also has a plus matchup in the slot with fourth-round rookie Darnay Holmes. He's seen 41 targets in coverage this year, allowing 33 receptions for 321 yards on them, though he hasn't allowed a touchdown yet. Surprisingly, the Giants have allowed just three wide receivers to top 74 yards against them this year, with two of them being Washington players (Terry McLaurin, Cam Sims). It needs to be noted that four of the top-six performances they've allowed to receviers have gone to those who are slot-heavy, which is what Boyd is. He's my favorite Bengals receiver in this game, but he's still in WR3 territory.

With Joe Mixon finally landing on IR, Gio will get the start here yet again. Unfortunately, he's done very little with his expanded opportunity in recent weeks and he now gets a significant downgrade at QB. Bernard's going to have to deal with the Giants defense too, which has been playing pretty well as of late. All signs point to fading Bernard this week and it's going to be hard to trust him in your starting lineup. Gio can be viewed as a high-end RB3 purely based on the fantasy landscape.

It feels like we're at a funeral for all the Bengals pass-catchers, as they lost a ton of value once Joe Burrow was announced as out for the season. Higgins felt it last week, finishing with just three catches for 26 yards on 10 targets. Maybe he becomes a favorite of Finley but knowing he hasn't thrown for more than 192 yards in a game, it's problematic. The Giants have been a neutral matchup for wide receivers to this point, allowing 8.40 yards per target, which is right around the league average. We don't know if they'll use James Bradberry to shadow Higgins, but my guess would be that they just play sides. On top of that, the Bengals have moved Higgins around as of late, as he's even played 47-of-117 snaps in the slot the last two weeks. We really don't know how to properly value Higgins with Finley/Allen under center, but it's not great. However, we can't just forget about Higgins, as he has seen at least nine targets in each of his last three games. For now, we'll consider him a low-ceiling high-end WR4 option, though he should still have a semi-decent floor.