Chase Brown — Week 3: Thirteen Carries, Seven Successful
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 28
Brown carried 13 times for 61 yards, 7 of the 13 successful with 3 first downs, and caught both targets for 8 yards. His 4-yard run on third and one set up Tee Higgins's tying touchdown on the next snap before halftime, and his carries came out positive in expected points for the first time this season, in a 30–27 loss to the Steelers.
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17 to 10, Steelers, 43 seconds left in the second quarter, third and one at the Pittsburgh 32. Chase Brown went off left tackle for four yards and the first down. +0.5 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position. On the next snap Joe Burrow threw 28 yards to Tee Higgins for the touchdown that tied the game at the half. Brown had started that drive too, with a 12-yard catch over the short middle from the Cincinnati 47, after a Cincinnati interception gave the Bengals the ball with a minute 40 left.
The line: 13 carries, 61 yards, no touchdown, three first downs, seven of the 13 successful, and +0.9 expected points on the carries; two targets, two catches, eight yards. The carries went 12, −1, two, nothing, eight, four, six, 13, three, six, nothing, five and three. Six before halftime for 25 yards, seven after for 36. The 12 came on the second snap of Cincinnati's first drive, up the middle to the Cincinnati 41, and that drive ended in Ja'Marr Chase's touchdown. The 13 was second and four on the opening drive of the second half, tied at 17, around left end to the Cincinnati 34, +1.2, on a drive that ended in a field goal for a 20 to 17 lead. None of his carries came inside the Pittsburgh 20. His last carry was the first snap of the fourth quarter, three yards to the Pittsburgh 25; Cincinnati called one more designed run after it, a Samaje Perine carry on third and two that gained nothing, and dropped back to pass on every other offensive play. The second catch was −4 on first and 10 from the Cincinnati 47 with two minutes left, down three, on the final drive — −8.3 points of win probability, the chance of winning the game after the play against before it.
13 of Cincinnati's 16 designed runs were his; Perine had the other three, and Burrow scrambled twice. 13 carries is the fewest of his three games, after 16 20, and two targets is the fewest too, after six and five. What changed was the rate: five successful carries of 16 in Week 1, eight of 20 in Week 2, seven of 13 Sunday. After −1.1 and −3.9 expected points on the carries in the first two games, this was the first time they came out above zero.
Back in June the preview called Brown boring as a compliment: a locked three-down role, 232 carries and 69 catches last season, and a workload share it called the most repeatable input a back carries into a new year. Three games in, the share has held — 49 carries for a hundred 97 yards and a touchdown — and the receiving half has not arrived: 10 catches on 13 targets for 32 yards. Sunday was a smaller workload used better, which is one game of a different shape, not a trend. Cincinnati is home to the Jaguars on Sunday the fourth.
_Data via nflverse._
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