Cincy Jungle
Brown is better than this ranking, though he will face arguably the hardest schedule that any NFL running back will get this season.
The Cincinnati Bengals moved on from Joe Mixon, which left some fans concerned about how they would replace him. This concern was even more pronounced when Zack Moss was knocked out for the season.
However, those worries proved to be completely unfounded as after Moss went down, Brown went absolutely crazy, finishing the season with almost 1,000 rushing yards and 360 receiving yards. While those numbers don’t seem crazy, if you look at just his numbers from when Moss was down, he was phenomenal.
If you average his stats from Weeks 9-17 and then stretch those out across a whole season, he would end up with just about a 2,000-yard season combining rushing and receiving.
With such a strong finish to the season, it would be reasonable to see Brown as an ascending player and an easy top 20 running back in the league.
However, in PFF’s running back ranking, Mixon comes in at 25th in the league, behind multiple rookies and players like David Montgomery and Tyler Allgeier, who are fine players, but both had first round picks used to replace them. Trevor Sikkema had this to say about Brown:
“Brown earned a 73.8 PFF rushing grade and a 76.6 PFF receiving grade last season to give him three-down value for the Bengals. That combination of skill helped him produce the 16th-highest PFF WAR mark among running backs in 2024.”
Now, to be fair, a pair of this low ranking could be due to the Bengals facing an insane schedule in terms of run defenses. According to CBS Sports, the Bengals have the hardest strength of schedule when it comes to opposing run defenses. That’s to be expected when you play in a division with potentially three elite run defenses in Baltimore, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh.
With hopefully improved run blocking from whoever wins the competition at guard in 2025, plus improved play from Amarius Mims, the sky is still the limit for Chase Brown in 2026, and the best way to get his name higher on the PFF list is to prove them wrong with another strong season.
