Samaje Perine — Week 1: Eight Touches and Two Third-Down Conversions
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 14
Perine caught all three of his targets for thirty yards and carried five times for twenty, and three of those eight touches were the ones that mattered: nine yards on third and seven in the second quarter, eight yards up the middle on third and two in the fourth, and a fourteen-yard catch on the drive that ran out the clock. His targets were worth plus three point one expected points in a 33–27 win over the Buccaneers.
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Samaje Perine had eight touches Sunday and the three good ones were worth more than the other five cost. Third and seven at the Cincinnati 23, 11 17 left in the second quarter, Bengals up 14 to three: Joe Burrow short right to Perine, nine yards, first down. That was +1.9 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and it kept alive a 12-play drive that ended with Chase Brown's touchdown. Third and two at the Tampa Bay 36, eight 58 left in the fourth, Bengals up 30 to 20: Perine up the middle for eight, +1.1, and the drive ended in a 32-yard field goal. First and 10 at the Cincinnati 42, two 26 left, Bengals up six: short right to Perine, 14 yards to the Tampa Bay 44, a first down on the drive that never gave the ball back.
The line: five carries, 20 yards, one successful carry and it was the third-and-two; three targets, three catches, 30 yards, longest 14, +3.1 on the targets. The other four carries went three, four, two and three, none of them a first down, and the carries as a group came out at −0.6. He also made the tackle on two Tampa Bay kickoff returns.
Where he sat: five carries to Chase Brown's 16 and Burrow's five, three targets to Brown's six. Four of his five carries came after halftime, when Cincinnati ran 16 times, and his one third-down carry and one third-down target were both conversions on a day the Bengals went eight of 14. Brown had 22 touches; Perine had eight, and the split inside the Tampa Bay 10 was Brown's entirely.
Back in June the preview made no call on Perine — receiving-down value against a year-10 aging curve at 31, with camp-cut risk pulling the price back to fair. He made the team, and Sunday's line is what a receiving-down back's line looks like when the throws go his way three times and he catches all three. That is one game, and eight touches is a narrow role. Cincinnati is at the Texans on Sunday the twentieth. The number to watch is whether the third-down work stays his.
_Data via nflverse._
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