This offseason started as a case of two steps forward, one step back for Chase Brown.
Early in the offseason, there were rumblings that the Bengals would be looking to part ways with their incumbent workhorse Joe Mixon for salary-cap purposes. On March 12th, the Bengals traded Mixon to the Texans for a seventh-round pick in lieu of cutting the veteran. It wasn’t ideal for Brown when the Bengals signed Zack Moss two days later, but Moss looked to be more of a complementary player to Brown as opposed to someone who would come in and take over the backfield.
Overall, the change in the Cincinnati backfield was very promising for Brown, as he showed flashes on his limited opportunities as a rookie in 2023.
INSANE: #Bengals rookie RB Chase Brown just reached a top speed of 22.05 mph on his 54-yard TD, that is the second-fastest play by a player with the ball in their hands all season
🤯🤯🤯
pic.twitter.com/B7B4H8zV7L— MLFootball (@_MLFootball) December 10, 2023
Sure we’ve all seen this clip played over and over by Brown stans. But even when taking a more comprehensive view of Brown’s rookie season, his explosion and consistency as a runner are on full display. Another aspect of Brown’s game that stands out is his soft hands in the passing game — a phase of the game where he was used sparingly during his time in college.
When watching Brown’s plays from his rookie season, it is evident that many of his big gains would not be possible for a back who came out of college with a 4.65-second forty time.
While both Moss and Brown came into the league as older prospects, Brown was arguably the superior of the two. As athletes, there is almost no comparison. Moss weighs 14 more pounds, but comes nowhere close to Brown’s speed or explosion.
During training camp, Brown’s stock continued to rise after reports from head coach Zac Taylor were universally positive.
#Bengals HC Zac Taylor places a “big emphasis” on Chase Brown’s role:
“I think he’s earned that. I think he’s worked the right way. He’s what we hoped we were drafting.”
Taylor has a 65% reliability rating on depth chart coachspeak and an 85% reliability rating on… pic.twitter.com/cp47kBYhX7
— The Coachspeak Index (@CoachspeakIndex) July 23, 2024
#Bengals HC Zac Taylor on his favorite thing he’s seen from Chase Brown in camp:
“Consistency… Chase has been very consistent, and that’s what we’re counting on from him. He didn’t get a ton of opportunity last year, and so now is the first time he’s really getting a bunch of… pic.twitter.com/O0sqrA3CyJ
— The Coachspeak Index (@CoachspeakIndex) August 5, 2024
Even Moss got in on the action when asked about his new backfield mate.
“He’s crazy-fast-explosive.”
A look at Chase Brown’s route running this spring & Zack Moss’ initial impression of the second-year RB: pic.twitter.com/ikDE2V7Pmh
— Charlie Clifford (@char_cliff) June 3, 2024
We saw a shift in ADP as the season closed in, with Brown flipping Moss after the latter was being drafted first among the two since he was signed by the Bengals.
Expectations continued to mount and the offseason hype culminated with Brown being featured as a potential tournament winner in Shawn Siegele’s Zero RB Countdown.
Those of us who drafted Brown heavily all offseason were riding high.
As someone who has drafted essentially zero Zack Moss this year, I’m loving all the Chase Brown hype. https://t.co/pSw1z4XvaT
— Kevin Szafraniec (@thecatdadff) August 1, 2024
News that the Bengals were planning to use Brown as a kick returner dampened his outlook slightly, but wasn’t overly concerning in the grand scheme of things.
Then the season came.
Not only has Moss dominated the overall snap share, but he has also shut out Brown on the team’s green zone touches up to this point.
At a time when things seem most bleak, should Brown’s truthers concede that we were wrong about the Bengals’ backfield, or is there still a glimmer of hope that Brown can emerge?
While Moss has gotten the majority of the RB touches in Cincinnati through two weeks, he has not been particularly efficient with them.
Nor has Moss been known as a particularly efficient player in his career up to this point.
On the other hand, Brown ranked as the RB24 in FPOE per game in his rookie season and has positive FPOE again this season.
Brown is also almost tripling up Moss in yards before contact per carry. Moss currently has the better evasion percentage (EVAS%), but with Brown’s shiftiness — and after sporting a 23% EVAS% (15.9% broken tackle percentage, 7% missed tackle percentage) in his rookie season — his 2024 number is likely to rise above Moss with more opportunities.
Brown has also been the more consistent receiver of the two; catching all three of his targets so far in 2024. Meanwhile, Moss has registered two drops on his five targets.
In Week 1, Moss made more out of his opportunities than Brown, but Week 2 saw the pendulum swing in the opposite direction. Despite being given three times as many carries as Brown, Moss was only able to gain three more rushing yards than his backfield mate.
Against the Chiefs, Brown showed the ability to pick up chunk plays that made him so exciting heading into the season.
Chase Brown’s 4 runs against KC were all successful. I love that they have a TE leading him on all of them as well. pic.twitter.com/jON4w8AoMU
— mike (@bengals_sans) September 16, 2024
In what could turn into a blowout against the Commanders this week, there is the potential for both Bengals RBs to see a lot of work. 
As Brown gets more opportunities, it should become evident that his dynamism adds more to the Cincinnati offense than Moss’ mauling running style. The two RBs represent a nice complementary duo, so it doesn’t seem likely that Brown will be able to completely phase out Moss. That is, unless the elder RB continues to put up performances like the one he had against the Chiefs.
As the Bengals’ offense settles in over the next few weeks, we should see the team’s RB workload come closer to a 50/50 split. Brown will hopefully claim the majority of the receiving work, while Moss will likely continue to claim the high-value touches around the goal line. With the gap in talent, seeing Brown claim 60-65% of the backfield touches by the end of the season seems reasonable, but we will have to wait and see how things shake out in the interim. With one of the league’s best schedules for RBs for the rest of the season, there is a good chance that there will be enough meat on the bone for both Brown and Moss to be productive. Let’s just hope that by the end of the season, we see the majority of the team’s touches going to the RB who is clearly more talented.
