Fantasy Game Changers: Players to trust in Bengals vs. Chargers | Fantasy Football Live

Yahoo Sports’ Fantasy Football Live crew looks ahead to Sunday night’s matchup between Cincinnati and Los Angeles - and how Justin Herbert, JK Dobbins and Chase Brown could impact fantasy managers.

Video transcript

Let's turn to our Fantasy game Changers for this week powered by Ram Trucks where we identify some of the most impactful players in one of the biggest fantasy matchups on the schedule.

Sunday night football, we got Joe Burrow and the Bengals taking on the Chargers.

This one has huge playoff implications.

The Bengals sitting at four and six taking on the Chargers a quiet six and three.

The Chargers are 1.5 point favorite.

The over under on this 48 points.

What should be a beautiful night in, uh Southern California?

So let's take a look at fantasy game changers when I say game changers, Andy Parents, you say, oh, Justin Herbert, uh, he doesn't, he doesn't really have a signature fantasy performance to his credit this season.

Obviously, the pass volume hasn't been quite like other years for him, but, uh, he's actually playing outrageously well, having the best season of his career in terms of almost every measure of efficiency.

He's averaging a career best 7.8 yards per attempt, 11.9 yards per completion.

His passer rating is a career high 103.2 and Herbert has only thrown one interception in 241 attempts again, just outrageously good pro bowl level stuff.

And we've seen flashes of the rushing ability too.

Herbert gets a matchup this week, obviously against an upper tier Cincinnati offense that gets T Higgins back in the mix.

So this is probably not going to be another game in which the Chargers can simply hold an opponent to, you know, 13 points, 14 points and run their way to a win every Bengals game is basically an adventure this season.

Uh This is the sixth highest scoring team in the league, but they can't stop anyone.

Herbert has only attempted 35 or more passes in one game this season.

But I think there's a good chance it happens here, which should mean 300 plus yards and perhaps multiple scores love that.

All right, Tara, give us your fantasy game changer in this matchup.

I want to stick with the Chargers and I wanna mention uh JK Dobbins as a fantasy game changer because despite what happened last week with the return of Gus Edwards, I still want people to have confidence in JK Dobbins because the return to the Chargers backfield for Gus Edwards did make things a little bit more complicated, but do not let that make you roll out the impact that JK Dobbins can have this week.

Obviously, when Edwards was on Ir Dobbins thrived and was RB 13.5 points per uh half P pr average points per game averaging nearly 16 fantasy points and multiple top 10 finishes.

Now, last week Edwards cut into the role, but Dobbins still had 15 carries for 50 yards and had receiving upside as well.

And there was that one weird touchdown that we will not mention there that did not go to him or Edwards.

But again, we're talking about this match up with the Cincinnati defense that is favorable to literally anyone and everyone as Andy mentioned there, uh, despite the fact that we have Gus Edwards coming back here, JK Dobbins is still a game changer and still has top 12 upside in this matchup here.

He's a guy that I absolutely still want to start.

All right, Jonathan Jones asked P Pr Dobbins, James Cook or downs for flex Sarah.

What do you think?

Oh, I am.

I'm worried about James Cook in that matchup.

I would lean towards Dobbins on that one.

Look at that.

There we go.

Uh All right, Matt, your next, uh, you're next up on the fantasy game changers who you got for us.

Yeah.

Listen, I I'm not just gonna say anybody here is a, is a fantasy game changer because I take this title very seriously.

And I think Chase Brown of the Cincinnati Bengals is now he's in squarely with these guys like doin and Herbert where he can really be a fantasy game changer.

He's not just some rotation back at this point.

Anymore.

Uh Since Zach Moss got hurt, Chase Brown has emerged as a critical factor in the Bengals passing game over the last two weeks.

Brown ranks number one at the running back position in targets and receiving first downs uh his 0.7 average depth of target and I know people are always like, 00.7 that that's not very far.

Running backs are usually like in the negative.

They're usually getting targets behind the line of scrimmage.

But his 0.7 average depth of target is second most among running backs with double digit targets in the span and he is just one of the running backs with an end zone target.

So with this type of usage like a a cr a critical more so downfield option than most running backs around the scoring area and just getting all of this workload.

He's a weekly top 15 option in fantasy even in challenging matchups like this one because I do have a lot of respect for that Chargers defense.

I still think Chase Brown is gonna fight for running back one type of work here in week 11.